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Maryland bishops denounce assisted-suicide bill

January 31, 2024 Catholic News Agency 1
Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore, vice president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, at the USCCB’s fall meeting Nov. 15, 2023. / Credit: Joe Bukuras/CNA

CNA Staff, Jan 31, 2024 / 13:25 pm (CNA).

The bishops of Maryland have written an open letter denouncing state legislators’ decision to consider an assisted-suicide bill and calling for “a better path forward.”

“We are deeply disappointed to learn that once again the Maryland General Assembly will debate whether to legalize physician-assisted suicide,” the Jan. 30 letter from the Maryland Catholic Conference said.

Assisted-suicide bills have been considered in Maryland since the 1990s — and most recently in 2023 — but have never passed.

Signed by Baltimore Archbishop William Lori, Washington archbishop Cardinal Wilton Gregory, and Wilmington Bishop William Koenig, the letter said that the bill “puts our most vulnerable brothers and sisters at risk of making decisions for themselves that are manipulated by factors such as disability, mental instability, poverty, and isolation.”

“Maryland has accurately recognized that suicide is a serious public health concern in the general population and has offered substantial resources to address the concern,” the letter said. 

“At a time when our nation is grappling with how to address a frighteningly high suicide rate it is deeply illogical for the state of Maryland to be seeking ways to facilitate suicide for those with a terminal illness, all the while claiming such preventable and unnecessary deaths are somehow dignified,” the bishops continued. 

The bill, titled the End-of-Life Option Act, was introduced in both the House and Senate in mid-January. 

The legislation would allow individuals with a terminal illness to request assisted suicide from a physician. 

Terminal illness is defined in the bill as “a medical condition that, within reasonable medical judgment, involves a prognosis for an individual that likely will result in the individual’s death within six months.”

The process for requesting “aid in dying” consists of making an oral request to one’s physician and then submitting a written request. The individual must then make another oral request to the physician at least 15 days after the first oral request and 48 hours after the written request. No one can request assisted suicide on behalf of the patient.

According to Death with Dignity, 11 states have legalized the practice: California; Maine; Oregon; Colorado; Montana; Vermont; Washington, D.C.; New Jersey; Washington; Hawaii; and New Mexico.

“For all legal rights and obligations, record-keeping purposes, and other purposes governed by the laws of the state, whether contractual, civil, criminal, or otherwise, the death of a qualified individual by reason of the self-administration of medication prescribed under this subtitle shall be deemed to be a death from natural causes, specifically as a result of the terminal illness from which the qualified individual suffered,” the legislation says.

In their letter, the bishops said: “The central tenet guiding our opposition to this deadly proposal is that all human life is created in the image and likeness of God and therefore sacred.” 

They cited modern “medical advancements” that can be used to help individuals with terminal illnesses to be “comfortable and improve the quality of the remainder of their lives without them feeling the need to reluctantly choose a ‘dignified death.’”

The bishops called on Marylanders to improve end-of-life care, writing that “it is incumbent upon each of us to ensure that those at the end of their lives can experience a death that doesn’t include offering a form of suicide prescribed by a doctor.”

“We believe our elected officials should work to improve access to the network of care available to Maryland families by increasing access to palliative and hospice care, enhancing end-of-life education and training opportunities for physicians, and ensuring that there is appropriate diagnosis and treatment for depression and other mental and behavioral health issues,” the letter said.

They also pointed to the lack of “safeguards” in the bill.

“The proponents of this legislation claim that this policy offers an ‘option’ to a very small set of individuals who are suffering from a terminal illness with less than six months to live, claiming this option will help them maintain control and dignity during their final days on earth,” the letter said.

“This legislation ignores the reality facing many in such conditions and is woefully lacking in the types of meaningful safeguards that would prevent this unnecessary and drastic option,” the letter said. “Such safeguards include mandated mental health assessments, reporting requirements, safe disposal of unused medication, or prohibitions against expansion of this program.”

The letter said that in every state where assisted suicide has been legalized, “grave abuses and expansion have occurred,” which makes the lethal practice “available to far more people and not just those facing imminent death.”

“There is a better path forward for the people of Maryland, and it does not involve suicide,” the letter said.

“We urge all people of goodwill to demand that our lawmakers reject suicide as an end-of-life option and to choose the better, safer path that involves radical solidarity with those facing the end of their earthly journey,” the letter said.

In recent weeks, residents of Massachusetts and New York were also urged by bishops and pro-life advocates to oppose assisted-suicide bills upcoming in their states.

In Massachusetts, the “End of Life Options Act” says that “a terminally ill patient may voluntarily make an oral request for medical aid in dying and a prescription for medication” if the patient is a “mentally capable adult,” a resident of Massachusetts, and has been determined by a physician to be terminally ill.

In New York, the “Medical Aid in Dying Act” would also allow a terminally ill patient to request medication that would put an end to his life.

“Lawmakers need to hear from their constituents if we hope to avoid yet another assault on human life here. Assisted suicide is dangerous for patients, caregivers, and vulnerable populations such as the elderly and people with disabilities,” the New York State Catholic Conference said.

In Massachusetts, the pro-life group Massachusetts Citizens for Life told supporters that “the bill clashes with cultural, religious, and philosophical beliefs against intentionally ending human life.”

According to Death with Dignity, 16 other states are considering assisted suicide legislation in 2024.

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Cardinal Gregory ‘embarrassed’ at McCarrick abuse charges

September 9, 2021 Catholic News Agency 9
Cardinal Wilton Gregory receives the red hat from Pope Francis in St. Peter’s Basilica on Nov. 28, 2020. / Vatican Media/Catholic News Agency

Washington D.C., Sep 9, 2021 / 15:02 pm (CNA).

The Archbishop of Washington on Wednesday said he was “embarrassed” at the charges of sex abuse recently filed against his predecessor, and emphasized that the Church’s primary concern in such cases should be caring for victims.

Addressing a National Press Club luncheon on Wednesday, Cardinal Wilton Gregory answered questions on a wide range of issues including the clergy sex abuse crisis, COVID-19 vaccines, and becoming the first African-American cardinal in the United States.

The former archbishop of Washington, Theodore McCarrick, last week pleaded not guilty in a Massachusetts court to criminal charges of sex assault against a 16 year-old male; the acts allegedly took place in the 1970s while McCarrick was a priest.

McCarrick, a former cardinal who retired as Washington archbishop in 2006, was laicized in 2019 following a Vatican investigation that found him guilty of “sins against the Sixth Commandment with minors and with adults” and solicitation in the confessional.

“I’m embarrassed,” Gregory said of his predecessor’s alleged acts. “I’m embarrassed not with the discovery – although that’s certainly a part of my embarrassment. But I’m embarrassed because it’s absolutely contrary to everything that I as a priest – my brother priests and bishops – should be pursuing, in terms of serving our people.”

“My first thought was about the people that he [McCarrick] had hurt,” Gregory said of seeing images of the 91-year-old McCarrick appearing at his Sept. 3 arraignment in Massachusetts.

From the beginning of the clerical sex abuse crisis, he said, the Church has been focused on the wrong questions – rather than on the victims.

“We’re trying to make sure that the proper attention is put in the proper place. The people who should get our sorrow and our concern and our compassion are those that were hurt,” Gregory insisted.

Gregory led the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops from 2001 to 2004, a tenure which included the 2002 revelations of widespread clergy sex abuse. The conference in the fall of 2002 drafted its response, the Dallas Charter, which established norms for dealing with alleged abuse by priests and deacons. McCarrick, then the archbishop of Washington, had a role in drafting the charter.

“We also took this position: that no one with a credible [abuse] allegation should ever be in public ministry,” Gregory said on Wednesday.

He added that bishops can only act on clergy abuse accusations that are credible, and that they have knowledge of.

“I can only act on that which I know,” he said.

Back in January, Cardinal Gregory delivered an invocation at a national memorial service for COVID-19 victims, held on the eve of President Biden’s inauguration.

Regarding Catholics who have “religious” concerns about taking COVID-19 vaccines, Gregory on Wednesday pointed to Pope Francis and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI having both received a vaccine.

“It’s difficult to say that ‘I have a religious concern’ when the last two pontiffs have already been vaccinated, and where Pope Francis has so clearly, and may I say with great insistence, urged Catholics to take the vaccine,” Gregory said.

“It doesn’t diminish their concern, but it certainly puts their concern on a pretty shaky platform.”

Some Catholics have voiced objections to receiving the three COVID-19 vaccines approved for use in the United States. Two of the vaccines, produced by Pfizer and Moderna, have been tested with cell lines derived from abortions committed decades ago. The Johnson & Johnson vaccine was not only tested on the controversial cell lines, but was also produced using the cell lines.

The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in December 2020 issued a note stating that Catholics may receive a COVID-19 vaccine with a connection to the cell lines, if no ethical option is available, due to the gravity of the pandemic.

For Catholics objecting out of “conscience,” they should take other precautions to prevent transmission of the virus, the Vatican stated.

On the topic of racial reconciliation, Gregory on Wednesday was asked by moderator Lisa Matthews, president of the National Press Club, what role the Church could play to bring Black Americans back to the faith.

Catholics “have a responsibility because of our faith to be on the forefront of the justice movement,” Gregory said. “It’s not something that should be foreign to any of us.”

He noted a generational decline in religious practice that is not unique to Catholicism.

“We have a problem – and it’s not just a Catholic problem,” he said, “of passing on the faith to the next generation.” For too many Catholics, he said, Catholicism “is a description rather than a practice or lived reality.”

Gregory also answered questions on immigration, labor, abortion, the death penalty, and the ordination of women.

He said that President Biden was “not demonstrating Catholic teaching” on when life begins, in response to Biden’s claim last week that life does not begin at conception. Gregory also called the death penalty “flawed,” before the Supreme Court on Wednesday stayed the execution of a Texas inmate.

Asked about the Church’s discipline on priestly celibacy and its connection to the clerical sex abuse crisis, Gregory said that celibacy is not the central problem at hand. Married priests, as well as married rabbis and ministers of other denominations have also abused children, he noted.

“The Catholic Church – we are the 800-pound gorilla. But we’ve got some other small relatives that have also demonstrated that same type of incredibly sick personality, behavior,” he said.

Reflecting on becoming the first Black cardinal in the United States in November 2020, Gregory pointed to his Chicago roots.

“Having been raised in an urban environment, like many African-American Catholics, the schools were a primary vehicle for entering the Catholic Church. And so it is with me,” Gregory said.

“When I knelt in front of Pope Francis to receive the biretta, the ring, and the sign, titular church – a lot of that heritage was running through my head at that time,” he recalled.

“We’ve had Italian cardinals, Polish cardinals, German cardinals, Irish cardinals. Now we have a Black cardinal. What is that going to do to the heart of the Church? What benefit will that bring to our Church? I’m still trying to figure that out.”


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