Discussion on End-of-Life Care and Ethics

The motto of your apostolic journey was that the world may have

life. The topic of end-of-life care came up

repeatedly in your

speeches. Actually, I think you mentioned it in more than half

of your speeches in

France. I'm thinking in particular, uh, of the one in the

Élysée Palace and yesterday in Lourdes when you say that what is legal

is not necessarily, necessarily moral, uh,

which was a clear reference to the recent legalization of euthanasia in

France. In France, we also have this

principle of laïcité, which is a separation between

religion and politics. Do you think that when it's important,

when this stakes are high, this, uh, border, this

line should be crossed in the name of the primacy of conscience?

And if so, did you cross that line?

Thank you for your question.

Um,

I would say that the understanding that the church has of a

separation between church and politics

or church and state,

um, that I didn't cross it,

and that I'd invite you to read or reread

Magnifica Humanitas, where I speak about the social doctrine

of the church in the first section, the first couple of chapters, and

say that when the church speaks about defending life, when it speaks

about questions of social doctrine, we're not entering into politics.

We're applying the gospel to people's lives.

And they can be politicians, if you will, on the left or on the right,

mm, situations where they say, "No, religion should only be in the private

sphere.

Let people do what they want on their own, but that as a state we have to be

separate." By the very fact that when I went to France,

I went primarily, uh, to preach the

gospel, to preach the good news, to reaffirm

what Jesus Christ himself says when he says, "I'm the way

and the truth and the

life," and so to speak the truth that Jesus offers us.

The defense of life is something that, as you all know, the church

teaches, believes very deeply. And so

on one-- the one hand, obviously, knowing that in France the

law was recently approved, in other countries in Europe as well as

other parts

of the world, there is a lot of debating going on about the

questions of

end-of-life issues.

But being in a place, especially like Lourdes, where people are

searching for something much deeper and

understanding that their lives, even in the midst of sickness

or disability or pain of different kinds,

that their life has meaning, the church,

because of Jesus himself, wants to be close to those people and to

affirm the values that, that life itself, I

think, holds for all of us. So, so I would say if that's

politics, I did that, but it was not to get involved in French

politics. It was to, to teach what the church really believes.