Vatican Prohibits Confession For Those Intending Euthanasia/Assisted Suicide…
The Vatican asks to clarify the cultural error at the root of euthanasia and assisted suicide, in other words, the concept of “dignified death” and so-called “compassion”.
It does so in this new document titled “The Good Samaritan.” It was published by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
The text is very positive. It states that every medical act must be aimed toward healing, never toward killing the patient. It says that a deterioration in a person’s health does not equal a loss of human dignity. It also promotes palliative cures.
The document also responds to practical problems hospital chaplains face.
For example, it says confession is valid when one repents of one’s sins. That’s why, it says, it is wrong to give the sacrament to people intending to use euthanasia or assisted suicide.
The document asks priests to offer spiritual help to patients who have asked for euthanasia, but not to be present in the final moment, as this could be interpreted as support for the decision.
It says that if a Catholic hospital practices euthanasia, it stops being Catholic.
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Comment:
Is the prohibition on Confession and absolution likely to cause those Catholics intent on ending their own life, to change his/her mind?
Comments (21)
Wendy Walker, our resident pro-life activist blogger, kindly emailed the following link to the Daily Mail report on this new Vatican document – the comments underneath the report are dreadful. I’ve submitted a couple of responses but not sure if they will pass the moderator. They should, there is nothing earth-shattering in either of them but who knows… It’s certainly easy enough to get blatantly anti-Catholic comments published.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8759603/Vatican-steps-opposition-euthanasia-assisted-suicide.html
Next Expel those cino Catholic pols including Govs. in California snd New Jersey j USAetc.,, Canada and in Europe promoting Euthanasia there and worldwide.
Edward,
If only!
When humans lose sight of Christ Crucified, we are lost to despair. How many people have taken their own lives due to despair, and how many parents have aborted their children, not because they hated their child, but because they despaired? Only Christ can give us hope. It is contradiction that the Sacrament of Hope would be given to those determined to die in a state of despair. I too, have in the past, abandoned the faith, and it was due to despair.
Only through a personal and eucharistic relationship with Christ in His passion and cross can we survive the tears of this life. Dying a painful death is a cruel fate, and I do not underestimate the horror of it, but there is a fate worse than this: not to have united ones death and sufferings with Christ’s death and sufferings on the Cross.
Miles Immaculatae,
I agree that it’s all about despair which is a lack of faith in itself. You hear Catholics like everyone else saying things like “God wouldn’t want me to suffer”. How do they come to that conclusion when the very symbol of the faith is the cross?
Josephine,
You’re right. Without faith, there can be no hope.
Protestants have a weak theology of suffering and redemptive suffering, and their crosses have removed Christ. Enlightenment philosophy denies the spiritual element of Man. So a non-Catholic society is a society that is unbearable to live in, because suffering has no meaning.
Miles Immaculatae,
It’s very sad to think that there are Catholics with so little grasp of very elementary Christian belief, not to mention the moral law, that they do not know, instinctively, that it is wrong to take human life – whether the life of another or their own.
They’ve not understood even the basic catechism answer to the key question “why did God make me?” – which is, of course, “to know Him, love Him, and serve Him in this life, so that I may be happy with Him forever in the next.”
As for a painful, cruel death – these days there is excellent end of life care, so nobody has to suffer unduly. The fact is, however, that Our Lord has given us the condition to being one of His followers: “If you will be a follower of Mine, you must take up your cross every day and follow Me.”
Ed,
Unfortunately, too many Catholics are so worldly that they no longer believe that suffering can have any meaning. Once they lose faith, they lose hope also. Suffering can only be redemptive if one believes in the spiritual element of Man. As you say, its question 1 in the Catechism.
Those who removed crucifixes from Catholic churches and replaced them with Risen Christ statues are theologically wrong. The Crucifix is the most fitting icon of the Resurrection.
Miles Immaculatae,
You are right to link Faith and Hope. I always think, too, of the link between Faith and Morals because when Faith goes, the morals quickly follow.
“…if a Catholic hospital practices euthanasia, it stops being Catholic.”
Are there any disciplinary measures associated with this, or is it just the usual Vatican II-era orthodoxy-on-paper with no teeth? For example, how will hospital patients know when their Catholic hospital “stops being Catholic”? Will they take down their crucifixes? Put signs on the wall in each room? Will there be weeping and gnashing of teeth? Will the staff wring their hands in public, claiming to be devastated over the loss of status?
I predict this document will be completely ignored, not only by hospitals, but also by the Vatican. Just another case of “death of doctrine by silence.”
RCA Victor,
I haven’t studied the document but I would be surprised if it had teeth. I remember Pope JP II saying in one of his documents, can’t remember which one, that any outfit who was abusing the name of Catholic, should have “Catholic” removed from their organisation’s title, words to that effect. I don’t think even one school or hospital was ever renamed!
RCA Victor / Josephine,
I don’t have time to check right now, but I think Pope John Paul II stipulated, in Veritatis Splendor, that any institution failing to teach the Faith or live by it, such as a school or hospital, should have the name Catholic removed.
I’m now wondering if that ws Ad Tuendam Fidem but I’m more inclined to go with the former, because ATF was about extending canon law… Not sure though, so I’ll double check that if nobody beats me to it (hint, hint)..
Needless to say, I’ve never heard of any dissenting institution being penalised in that way. Another Vatican document undermined by the non-application of the Vatican itself. Laughable, really.
RCA Victor,
If there are no penalties for allowing euthanasia, then there is really no point i n publishing such a document. This is what they did with the Mass, published rules about Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion and then allowed the abuse to continue. I think this document will go the same way.
I forgot to answer the blog question – no, I don’t think the prohibition of confession will prevent Catholics committing euthanasia or assisted suicide because they have convinced themselves that God doesn’t want them to suffer and so they can take their own lives. It’s incredible how the faith and morals in Catholics has just morphed into what everybody else in society thinks.
Josephine,
Me, neither. If the Sacraments meant anything to these people, they wouldn’t dream of arranging their own death or agreeing to it by the hand of another.
Josephine and Ed,
Neither do I think it.
If they have lost the faith to the point they are attempting medicalised suicide, then what real faith will they have in the Sacrament of Confession?
I just hope and pray that God will give me the grace to turn to him in the future when it is my time to suffer and die.
Saint Joseph, patron of a happy death, pray for us.
This is excellent from President Trump and the reason why every Catholic who votes against him in the U.S. votes against Catholic moral teaching, effectively apostatising from the Faith.
https://youtu.be/ms-0z6UCsx8
Athanasius,
I agree – it is just incomprehensible that any Catholic would even consider voting for Joe-Apostate-Catholic-Biden. To vote for this murderous politician when there is a wholly pro-life President on the ballot, is clearly sinful. I mean, it is, as they say in the USA, to major in sin. No question about it. No informed conscience can dictate to any Catholic educated in the faith, that they should vote for Biden. Not a chance.
Editor
I had to laugh when Trump was asked what he thought of Biden in the forthcoming public debate. He said “He’s a professional. I don’t know if he’s all there, but he’s a professional”. He really does have a comical turn of phrase.
To answer the blog question, no, I don’t think saying Catholics who are planning euthanasia or assisted suicide can’t receive Confession will make any difference. They obviously don’t think they’re committing a sin so the required conditions of naming that sin and repenting of it, are not there.
I find it hard to believe that any Catholic could be so far gone as to think nothing is wrong with taking your own life in that way, but it seems to be another example of how the faith has been lost since “the springtime of Vatican II” hit us.
I don’t think Catholics who want euthanasia will be one bit bothered by this document. Why would they want confession if they don’t think euthanasia is a sin?
What I do think is that it is good to have it in writing in a Vatican document that no Catholic on a euthanasia deathbed should be given the last rites. That closes off that conversation with any weak-kneed priest who may be getting bullied into hearing the confession etc. A confession like that would be solely for the person to dull their conscience and feel good about themselves, so for that reason, it is good to have that ban in the document IMHO.
Comments are closed.