Quoted from a RNZ article dated 20 September 2020 [1]: "The [New Zealand] ACT Party is urging religious leaders who object to the End of Life Choice Act ["the Act"] to respect the choices of others." [1] "Catholic Bishops released an election statement this week opposing the Act, which would give people with a terminal illness the option of lawfully requesting help to die." "The Bishops ... claimed the Act has no mandatory stand-down period, weak processes for detecting whether people feel pressured and no requirement for a patient to discuss their decision with a family member or other significant person." "But ACT leader David Seymour - who authored the Act - has rejected claims made by the bishops..."
Quoting further from RNZ [2]:
Seymour says the religious leaders need to understand the End of Life Choice Act is about choice, dignity and respect."They may have a philosophical view that life belongs to God, and they have a right to their belief. They don't have the right to force it on others," he said in a statement."If the bishops want their freedoms respected, they need to engage in honest debate that respects others have difference choices from theirs."
This is not happening only in New Zealand.
On 22 September 2020, catholicculture.org reported that "The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) has issued a statement strongly reaffirming the Church’s ban on euthanasia as 'intrinsically evil.' The CDF statement, released on September 22, comes in response to a new drive for legal acceptance of physician-assisted suicide, particularly in European nations."
Selected sections from the same Catholic Culture report are quoted below [3]:
In cases of terminal illness, the Vatican statement says:The impossibility of a cure where death is imminent does not entail the cessation of medical and nursing activity. Responsible communication with the terminally ill person should make it clear that care will be provided until the very end: “to cure if possible, always to care.”
Palliative care, offered to ease pain, is an important part of the proper treatment, the CDF acknowledges. But “palliative care is not in itself enough unless there is someone who ‘remains’ at the bedside of the sick to bear witness to their unique and unrepeatable value.” The Vatican statement notes that patients with terminal illness often suffer from loneliness and isolation. In fact, the statement remarks:Experience confirms that the pleas of gravely ill people who sometimes ask for death are not to be understood as implying a true desire for euthanasia; in fact, it is almost always a case of an anguished plea for help and love.
On prolonging life by extraordinary means:
While deliberately causing the death of an individual is never licit, the Vatican statement also insists that unduly aggressive medical treatments, when they simply prolong the process of death, are also an offense against the dignity of the patient. “Therefore, when death is imminent and inevitable, “it is lawful… to renounce treatments that provide only a precarious or painful extension of life.”The CDF notes that “do not resuscitate” orders can “cause serious problems” by leading medical personnel to forego necessary treatment. While useful in avoiding unduly aggressive medical treatment, such orders can conflict with “the duty to protect the life of patients in the most critical stages of sickness.”
On sedation:
In end-of-life situations, the CDF says, the patient must always be provided with food and hydration “as long as the body can benefit from them.” Palliative care—even if it involves sedation powerful enough to cause a loss of consciousness—is recommended to ease suffering and “to ensure that the end of life arrives with the greatest possible peace and in the best internal conditions.”
What to do about it?
Because of the increasing acceptance of euthanasia in the secular world, and pressure for health-care personnel to conform, the Vatican statement encourages Catholic institutions and communities to work for the protection of the conscience rights of health-care workers.
In a secular world without God, the sanctity of life is being overcome by the "culture of death," a "term [that] originated in moral theology ... [which] gained popularity after it was used by Pope John Paul II." [4]
Quoting John Paul II's Evangelium Vitae, "given in Rome, at Saint Peter's, on 25 March, the Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord, in the year 1995" [5]:
7. "God did not make death, and he does not delight in the death of the living. For he has created all things that they might exist ... God created man for incorruption, and made him in the image of his own eternity, but through the devil's envy death entered the world, and those who belong to his party experience it" (Wis 1:13-14; 2:23-24).
It seems like Satan's influence upon the world is increasing, along with all the sufferings led by diseases and natural disasters, leading up to the Apocalypse. Here are some words on 2 June 2020 from Dr. Jeffrey Mirus, founder of Trinity Communications and CatholicCulture.org [6]:
... there is a great battle being waged for control of our eternal destiny, so that we must take our struggle against sin and error with full seriousness. There is absolutely nothing in [the Book of Revelation] to suggest any sort of easy salvation, let alone universal salvation.
[1] https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/426514/act-leader-seymour-rejects-bishops-euthanasia-claims, quoted without hyperlinks.
[2] Ibid.
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_life, quoted without hyperlinks and references.
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