“The right to die is somebody else’s duty to kill,” warned Cardinal Vincent Nichols on the Day for Life.
In a homily delivered in Lourdes on Sunday, Cardinal Nichols encouraged pilgrims both to cherish life and “embrace death when it comes”. Quoting Pope Francis, he said: “It is a great lie to try and convince people that life lived with serious illness is not worth living.”
The cardinal continued: “This is why we oppose those who wish to pass laws assisting suicide, giving people the right to die when they want. One person’s right to die is somebody else’s duty to kill. We do not accept that.”
The House of Commons will debate and vote on the Assisted Dying Bill on 11 September. The Bill, brought by Labour MP Robert Marris, proposes to allow the terminally ill the possibility to end their life with medical assistance.
The lead bishop for the Day for Life, Westminster auxiliary John Sherrington, said ahead of the event that people needed to be more willing to discuss death and accept that there comes a point when it is inevitable.
“We need to recognise that there’s a moment in life when treatment is no longer going to be effective and we have to accept we are going to die,” he said.
On Sunday more than 300,000 postcards were distributed to parishioners in England and Wales offering guidance for the end of life.
The answer, said Bishop Sherrington, was that we should love life, and understand that it is wrong to hasten or bring about death, but also that we need to accept that there is no obligation to pursue medical treatment when it no longer has any effect, when it harms the patient, or when the risks or burdens of the treatment outweigh the likely benefits.
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