Killing the sick is ‘false compassion,’ pope says in Lourdes

LOURDES, France — Killing the sick is neither compassionate nor normal, and being legal does not make it moral, Pope Leo XIV said Sunday, in a clear reference to France’s recent legalization of euthanasia and assisted suicide.

“I know that for some of you, because of particular illnesses and, at times, terrible pain, your horizon may appear dark, uncertain and without hope. But no human law should ever make you lose the certainty of your dignity,” the pope said during a meeting with about 5,000 sick people and caregivers at the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes on Sept. 27.

“It is precisely in the name of this inalienable dignity of the human person that we must reject the temptation to cause death under the guise of false compassion,” the pontiff added to loud applause. “It is impossible to regard causing death as something normal. What is legal is not necessarily moral.”

The popeʼs remarks on end-of-life concerns were met with applause and shouts of “Bravo.”

France legalized assisted suicide and euthanasia this summer, becoming the fifth European country to do so after Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Spain. In addition, Switzerland and Austria permit assisted suicide.

Euthanasia is the intentional ending of a person’s life to relieve suffering. It differs from assisted dying, in which the patient takes life-ending drugs himself, under a physician’s guidance. Both practices are prohibited by Catholic teaching.

Leo met Sept. 27 with staff and sick guests of the Accueil Notre-Dame (Notre Dame Home), a residential accommodation classified as a healthcare facility, which hosts sick, disabled, and frail pilgrims to Lourdes.

The Catholic shrine is one of the most visited in the world, drawing more than 3 million people every year, many in search of miraculous physical healing.

The 136-acre property includes the Grotto of Massabielle, where a young St. Bernadette Soubirous saw 18 apparitions of the Virgin Mary starting on Feb. 11, 1858. Today, pilgrims to the sanctuary bathe themselves in the freshwater spring Mary revealed to Bernadette.

Visitors have reported 7,000 healings since the apparitions; after lengthy investigations, the Church has declared that 72 of the recoveries were miraculous, meaning unexplainable by science.

“Here in Lourdes, the city of the sick and of hope, I appeal to the entire healthcare community to remember the profound meaning of your vocation, which is to care for a suffering person, not to eliminate that person,” Pope Leo said.

He encouraged healthcare workers to be “passionate servants of life” and cited his speech to the Jérôme Lejeune Foundation in June, in which he said, “no one ever has the right, “on the basis of laboratory algorithms, to decide the life of a given embryo or elderly person! Medicine must never become the servant of programmed death!”

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Earlier in the morning, the pope addressed the French bishops’ conference, praising the bishops’ courage in opposing the legalization of euthanasia and assisted suicide.

“I encourage you to persevere, together with all people of good will who uphold the same values,” he told the bishops.

In his remarks to the sick and caregivers, Leo called for structures for palliative care and urged the healthcare field to accompany the sick with the same tenderness they receive in Lourdes.

“Doctors, nurses, stretcher-bearers, chaplains, pastoral teams serving the sick, and so many others live out their vocation in the service of the dignity of the human person, so that the world may have life,” he said.

“Dear brothers and sisters who are sick,” he concluded, “I want to tell you that you are not a burden. You are the beating heart of our humanity and a precious treasure for the Church. I carry in my prayers the trials you are going through.”

Immediately after the meeting, the pope walked next door to greet the Discalced Carmelite nuns whose monastery faces the grotto of the apparitions from across the river Gave de Pau. The contemplative monastery was founded in 1876, just 18 years after Mary appeared to St. Bernadette.

Source: https://www.ewtnnews.com/vatican/killing-the-sick-is-false-compassion-pope-says-in-lourdes