2024-03-19 10:33:43
The sanctuary of Notre-Dame de Lourdes (Hautes-Pyrénées), in November 2023. LIONEL BONAVENTURE / AFP
It has been years since a social issue or a reform project mobilized them so much. It has been years since the bishops of France, hampered in their words by the weight of incessant revelations on sexual violence committed by members of the clergy, had expressed such opposition to future legislation.
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For several days, however, the hierarchs of the Catholic Church have decided to make themselves heard by all possible means on the future bill on the end of life. Interviews, forums, appearances on television sets or in prime time radio shows, the clergy deploys to mark a frank and clear opposition to the reform desired by Emmanuel Macron.
In a joint interview with national dailies The cross et Release published on March 10, the President of the Republic had indicated that he wanted to pass a law opening a “assisted dying” sous “strict conditions”. To try to make their voices heard ahead of the parliamentary debates planned, at this stage, for the month of April, the French bishops, meeting in Lourdes (Hautes-Pyrénées) in plenary assembly, decided to vote on a collective text, Tuesday March 19.
“Refusal of induced death”
“With many of our fellow citizens, Christians or not, believers or not, with a very large number of caregivers, whose commitment, competence and generosity we want to salute, we reaffirm our attachment to the French way of refusing death caused and priority given to palliative care”they write collectively in the text that The world was obtained.
They also respond to the President of the Republic who described, in the interview, his future text as “revolution of humanity and fraternity” : “Is it not more humane to relieve suffering than to end life? Is it not more fraternal to offer everyone the best possible end of life rather than interrupting it with a lethal gesture? Isn’t our democratic ideal, so fragile and so necessary, based on the founding prohibition against killing? »
For the Catholic Church of France, the introduction of a possibility of administering a product with the aim of allowing people who wish to die is a “important line from an anthropological point of view”.
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“Behind his neologisms and even if he doesn’t say it like that, the president is proposing assisted suicide or euthanasia. We are not the only ones to point this out. And it’s not because we don’t say the words that we don’t propose to do the actions. After a fairly long reflection, we therefore open the door wide to assisted suicide”, notes Vincent Jordy, archbishop of Tours. For the prelate, the situation therefore changes radically with this future bill: “Until now, life was supported until the end. From now on it will be a question of injecting a product which causes death”he analyzes.
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