United Kingdom” The Catholic Church unites against euthanasia

Source: FSSPX News

 

A bill authorizing assisted suicide will be submitted to the House of Lords next May. Lord Joffe is the author of this bill on assisted suicide “for the terminally ill who are of sound mind”. A poll taken by The Daily Telegraph had revealed last year that 87% of Britons would be favorable to this bill. The British press has moreover reported on the “tourism of death” where British patients wanting to end their lives go to Switzerland to the Dignitas association, which offers assisted suicide.

The debate has gone nationwide after the recent and discreet visit to Switzerland of British parliamentarians, members of the Commission for Proposals on the Modification of the Law on Euthanasia. The law thus modified would permit doctors to prescribe lethal doses of medicine to patients suffering from incurable diseases.

The British Catholic bishops, following the lead of Msgr. Peter Smith, Archbishop of Cardiff, Wales, have actively opposed this bill. They are planning to send 500,000 brochures and “anti-euthanasia” DVDs to each parish in England and Wales, accompanied by a letter addressed to the priests. Signed by Msgr. Smith, it will introduce the new association “The Care, Not Killing Alliance”, which proposes palliative care in place of assisted suicide. The priests are also asked to alert the faithful for “we need ordinary Catholics, explained the archbishop, to mobilize their friends and parliamentary deputies against this bill”. Similarly, the Anglican church asked its faithful to oppose the bill.