Pope condemns legalization of abortion and euthanasia for “false compassion”

“IT IS impossible to consider normal the act of ending a life. What is legal is not necessarily moral”, said the Pope, on the third day in France, during a visit to Accueil Notre-Dame.

The centre, located within the Shrine of Lourdes, welcomes and assists sick and elderly people. “Here, frailty is not hidden, but becomes the place of a sacred encounter,” Leo XIV said.

“ At a time when some societies tend to look away or close their eyes to the dignity of human life, it is urgent, first of all, to cultivate a contemplative look in us and others [...]. It is the look of those who see life in its depth, realizing its dimensions of gratuity, beauty, invitation to freedom and responsibility ", said.

Lourdes became an important pilgrimage destination after the Catholic Church officially recognized the apparitions of the Virgin Mary reported by a young woman in 1858.

The site, located near the border with Spain, receives millions of pilgrims every year, especially sick and disabled believers who hope to obtain a cure through the famous spring water of the Lourdes cave, where apparitions have allegedly occurred.

At Accueil Notre-Dame, Leo XIV stressed that “for those suffering from specific pathologies and sometimes terrible pains, the horizon may seem dark, uncertain, and hopeless.”.

He argued, however, that “no law must make us lose the certainty of dignity” and that, on the contrary, precisely in the name of this inalienable dignity of the human person, the temptation to take life under the pretext of false compassion must be firmly rejected”.

Addressing health professionals, he asked them to remember the “deep meaning of their vocation: to care for a person who suffers and not eliminate it”.

He remembered one of his last messages when he said: “No one has the right, ever, on the basis of laboratory algorithms, to decide on the life of a particular embryo or an elderly person.”.

The criticisms of the leader of the Catholic Church arise after the French parliament approved, in July, the right to assisted death.

The legislation applies to patients with severe and irreversible diseases and suffering.

“Medicine can never become a servant of programmed death,” the Pope added, defending, on the other hand, the creation of palliative care and research structures” and, on the other hand, the monitoring “with tenderness of the sick, as in Lourdes”.

He also told health professionals that they are “the beating heart of our humanity and a precious treasure for the Church”.