The Bishops of Alberta and the Northwest Territories have issued pastoral guidelines for clergy dealing with Catholics who are considering euthanasia or assisted suicide, which is now legal in Canada.
The 32-page document, written for priests and parishes, gives guidance on when people in such situations are eligible to receive certain sacraments or a Catholic funeral.
“In our day a priest may encounter a penitent who has officially requested physician-assisted suicide or euthanasia,” the document says. “The penitent has not yet been killed, nor has he/she committed suicide, but he or she has initiated the process, which is already a grave matter.
“If the penitent does not rescind this request, he or she will be killed. They are in this objective state of sin, which is gravely disordered. They have incited and officially arranged for someone to kill them.”
The document restates the conditions – grave matter, full knowledge, and complete consent – that must be present for a mortal sin, but notes that a person might not be aware that euthanasia is a grave sin. Their freedom may be impaired through “depression, drugs, or pressure from others”, it says.
The document says that if a penitent “is open to learning the Church’s teaching on this issue, and open to reconsidering the decision, the priest can absolve,” it says. “There is at least the beginning of contrition, a willingness to reconsider and thus possibly rectify their situation.
“If they are not open at least to prayerfully considering the rescinding of their request – now that they know it is a grave sin – they would be choosing to do something gravely wrong, that is to say, deciding to remain in a situation of sin rather than seek to amend their life,” the bishops write. “In this case, the minister would need to delay absolution to a later time when the person may be properly disposed.”
Bishops retaliate with ads against pro-abortion group
The Bishops of New Jersey have added their voices to those of other Church leaders in opposing an ad campaign by a pro-abortion group called Catholics for Choice.
The group placed full-page ads in the print editions of more than 20 local and national publications, including Politico and the Nation. The advert featured a statement by a young woman who said she was Catholic and condoned abortion.
The bishops of New Jersey have commissioned their own ad campaign in response. It features a photograph of Pope Francis kissing a baby during his visit to Philadelphia and lists statements made by him about the sanctity of life. The key message of the advert is: “You cannot be Catholic and pro-abortion. The only ‘choice’ for Catholics is life.”
Archbishop John Myers of Newark said: “Catholic faith and teaching have condemned abortion since the earliest days of the Church … Every unborn human being shares with every other member of the human family a basic moral right to life.” He said Catholics had a duty to follow a “well-formed conscience, a conscience formed not by fad or personal convenience, but by Catholic teaching”.
Pope: negativity pollutes the world
Christians must put their mark on history, transforming the world every day by proclaiming God’s love, Francis has said.
“We are not prophets of gloom who take delight in unearthing dangers or deviations,” handing down “bitter judgments on society, on the Church, on everything and everyone, polluting the world with negativity,” he said at a Year of Mercy Mass for catechists. Instead, he said, “whoever proclaims the hope of Jesus carries joy”.
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