Cardinal George Pell has issued a letter against euthanasia, warning that it is a slippery slope, reports BioEdge.org.
"One important part of the Catholic task today, which we share with clear headed humanists and humanitarians, is to explain that just as winter follows autumn, legislation to allow voluntary euthanasia or mercy killing would lead to widespread involuntary euthanasia, with many, perhaps a majority of those euthanised being subject to the procedure without their consent and often against their will," he writes, in the letter available on the SydneyCatholic.org website.
"This is because it is almost impossible to put legal safeguards in place to stop it becoming involuntary euthanasia."
In the US, Catholic bishops issued a long-anticipated statement on physician-assisted suicide.
"To Live Each Day with Dignity" is more philosophical and ethical and theological. Its main targets are individualism, radical autonomy and false compassion, BioEdge said.
It argues that suicide is evidence of social failure to care for the disadvantaged, disabled and lonely. What society must offer, it says, is "a readiness to surround patients with love, support, and companionship, providing the assistance needed to ease their physical, emotional, and spiritual suffering", the website adds.
Cardinal Pell writes in his letter: "We might shoot a dying dog, but no human, no matter how old or sick, is just an animal. It is wrong to kill innocent human life."
"Times are changing in Australian society. Opinions are shifting. While the foundations for decency, tolerance, democracy and basic justice are generally firm, we do find considerable confusion and blind spots; for example, on abortion and human cloning.
"We are all influenced by the secular world view dominant in our media and culture .... (the) challenge for Catholics, especially Catholic doctors and nurses, as well as parents, teachers and priests, is to throw light on this confusion.
"Is the easiest way out the best way? Why not kill a dying person who asks to be put out of his misery? Where is courage and idealism or cowardice and pragmatism?
"What are our duties towards the dying?
"Our duties can be recognised by reason, arising from our human nature. We recognise moral truths, which cannot be avoided or denied; truths which are embodied in the natural law and confirmed by Christ himself and the Ten Commandments."
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