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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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In Poland, lawmakers condemn disputed report about John Paul II abuse cover-up

March 10, 2023 Catholic News Agency 2
Pope St. John Paul II in 1979. / L’Osservatore Romano

Denver, Colo., Mar 10, 2023 / 16:00 pm (CNA).

Polish lawmakers denounced a documentary alleging that when he was a cardinal and archbishop in Poland, Pope St. John Paul II covered up alleged child sexual abuse committed by priests.

“There are those who are trying to stir up not a military conflict, but a culture war here in Poland,” Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said in a video posted to Twitter March 8. “I stand in defense of our beloved pope, like most of my fellow citizens, because I know that as a nation we owe a lot to John Paul.”

On Thursday, Poland’s Parliament passed a resolution in defense of the former pope that “strongly condemns the disgraceful media smear campaign, largely based on the documents of communist Poland’s machinery of violence, against the great pope, St. John Paul II, the greatest Pole in history.”

Polish lawmakers in the Sejm, the national Parliament lower house, voted 271 to 43 to pass the resolution. Two centrist opposition parties declined to vote on the resolution, while members of the leftist opposition party voted against it.

Referring to the report’s use of material taken from communist secret police files, the resolution said it was “an attempt to discredit John Paul II using material that even the communists did not dare use.”

The Polish Catholic Bishops’ Conference had challenged the allegations presented in the documentary and noted the need for “further archival research.” In a March 7 statement, the bishops said that two claims of cover-up in the report had already been refuted. The third new claim, they said, was based on the unreliable files of the communist government’s secret police.

John Paul II is a national hero in Poland for his resistance to Soviet communism. He became a globally known figure for his charismatic, thoughtful presentation of Catholic Christianity and his unprecedented global travels. Pope Francis canonized him as a saint in 2014.

The controversy follows the Monday broadcast of journalist Marcin Gutowski’s documentary on the news channel TVN24. The documentary repeated allegations that the future pope, then Archbishop Karol Wojtyla of Krakow, relocated two priests, Father Eugeniusz Surgent and Father Jozef Loranc, despite knowing they were accused of sexually abusing minors. Gutowski also aired a new claim about a third priest.

The broadcaster TVN, owned by U.S.-based conglomerate Warner Bros Discovery Inc., the largest private media network in Poland, has been a leading critic of Poland’s ruling Law and Justice Party since it took power in 2015.

Lawmakers had proposed a law to force TVN’s then owner, Discovery Inc., to sell most of its ownership stake by barring any non-European entities from owning more than a 49% stake in television or radio broadcasters. The proposal strained tensions with the United States and prompted thousands of Poles to protest in the streets. President Andrej Duda vetoed the bill in late 2021, Bloomberg news reported.

Poland’s foreign ministry invited the U.S. ambassador to a meeting “to inform him about the situation and its consequences in the form of reducing Poland’s capacity to deter a potential enemy and diminishing its resilience to threats.”

“The potential effects of these actions are identical to the goals of hybrid war aimed at leading to divisions and tensions in Polish society,” Poland’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement Thursday.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization website says hybrid methods of warfare include “propaganda, deception, sabotage, and other nonmilitary tactics.”

It is not clear from the ministry’s statement whether the requested meeting with the U.S. ambassador concerned U.S. ownership of TVN.

The bishops’ March 7 statement was jointly authored by Father Adam Zak, the Polish bishops’ coordinator for the protection of minors, and Father Piotr Studnicki, director of the bishops’ Office of the Delegate for the Protection of Children and Youth.

The statement said that allegations the late pontiff covered up abuse in the case of two priests had already been reported by Dutch journalist Ekke Overbeek in December 2022. Overbeek’s book “Maxima Culpa” was published in Polish this week, Reuters reported.

The bishops said Overbeek’s work had been refuted by two other journalists, Tomasz Krzyżak and Piotr Litka. According to Krzyżak and Litka, Wotjyla removed Loranc from his parish, suspended him from priestly service, and then forced him to live in a monastery where the civil authorities ultimately arrested him. After Loranc was released from prison, he was allowed to celebrate Mass but not catechize children and youth or hear confessions.

Surgent, who would be imprisoned for abuse, was a priest of the Lubaczów Diocese. Wojtyla made “several decisions” regarding this priest but he left “the final word on possible sanctioning” to the Bishop of Lubaczów.

The third claim from Gutowski’s broadcast has not been previously reported. It concerns an alleged cover-up of sexual abuse of young boys allegedly committed by Father Boleslaw Saduś. Wojtyla allegedly knew of the accusations against the priest but recommended him to an Austrian diocese without noting this.

The documentary presented evidence “not on the basis of a prosecutorial or judicial investigation but on the files of the security services of the People’s Republic of Poland,” the bishops’ statement said, adding that it is “impossible to determine” the nature of the acts attributed to the priest on these sources.

The Security Service was the secret police and counter-espionage agency for the atheistic communist government that ruled Poland and sought to subvert and control the Catholic Church in the country.

Gutowski interviewed several victims and a man who said in the 1970s he informed Wojtyla about Surgent’s abuse, the Associated Press reported.

In a March 9 statement, TVN24 said the documentary is “the result of many months of work, based on multiple-source documents, eyewitness accounts and — most importantly — (it) gives voice to the victims themselves.” The report underwent “several stages of verification” and was made following “the highest journalistic standards.” The role of independent media is “to show the facts, even if they are difficult and painful to accept.”

The Polish bishops’ conference noted that today there is much greater awareness about the damage of sexual abuse and the development of church procedures to respond.

“To all those who were harmed in this way by the clergy years ago and still bear the consequences of the evil experienced, we as the Church provide acceptance, listening, and support,” the statement said.

[…]