Pope Leo XIV issued one of his strongest condemnations of assisted dying Sunday, telling sick and disabled pilgrims at the Catholic shrine of Lourdes that causing death cannot be justified as compassion.
“We must reject the temptation to cause death under the guise of false compassion,” Leo said. “It is impossible to regard causing death as something normal. What is legal is not necessarily moral.” His remarks came during a visit to the Accueil Notre-Dame, a health care facility that hosts sick, disabled and frail pilgrims.
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The pope’s comments come as assisted-dying laws expand in parts of Europe and the United States, sharpening a debate over patient autonomy, medical ethics, religious freedom and protections for people who are seriously ill or disabled. France approved legislation establishing a legal right to assisted dying in July, while New York enacted its own medical aid-in-dying law earlier this year.
Leo spoke directly to people facing serious illness and pain, telling them their circumstances do not diminish their dignity.
“No human law should ever make you lose the certainty of your dignity,” Leo said.
The remarks were consistent with Catholic teaching that human life should be protected from conception until natural death and that euthanasia and assisted suicide are morally unacceptable. Leo also appealed directly to health care workers.
“Here in Lourdes, the city of the sick and of hope, I appeal to the entire health care community to remember the profound meaning of your vocation, which is to care for a suffering person, not to eliminate that person,” he said.
Leo encouraged greater access to palliative care and urged doctors, nurses and other caregivers to accompany patients through serious illness. His comments followed France’s approval this summer of legislation establishing a right to assisted dying after years of political debate. The Catholic Church in France opposed the measure throughout the legislative process.
The issue is also playing out in the United States. New York became the 14th state to legalize medical aid in dying.
The law allows eligible terminally ill adults who are mentally capable and expected to live six months or less to request medication they may take themselves to end their lives. Supporters say the law gives terminally ill patients greater control over end-of-life decisions, while Catholic groups and some disability-rights advocates have raised religious-liberty and patient-protection concerns.
Fr. Thomas Massaro, a Jesuit priest and moral theologian at Fordham University, previously told Straight Arrow that Catholic teaching on assisted suicide is clear.
“In the Catholic understanding, it’s not a human prerogative to end life; it’s God’s prerogative,” Massaro said. “So only God can decide when you should die, so to interfere with that, to hasten death, is against Catholic teaching.”
Kelly Gillespie, a professor and director of the Center for Health Law Studies at Saint Louis University School of Law, previously told Straight Arrow that laws such as New York’s can create difficult questions over where a health care provider’s obligation to a patient ends and participation in assisted dying begins.
“We’ve got conflicting rights and duties and obligations that the law is trying to sort out,” Gillespie said.
New York’s law includes requirements intended to ensure patients are eligible and making informed decisions, including reviews by physicians and a mental health professional. Patients can withdraw their request or decide not to take the medication.
Leo delivered his message at one of Catholicism’s best-known pilgrimage destinations. Lourdes became a major destination for pilgrims after a young Bernadette Soubirous reported seeing apparitions of the Virgin Mary there in 1858. Millions of visitors travel to the shrine, many seeking physical or spiritual healing.
The Catholic Church has officially recognized 72 healings associated with Lourdes as miraculous after investigations found them medically unexplained. More than 150,000 pilgrims attended Leo’s Mass at Lourdes on Sunday, according to Vatican News.
“Dear brothers and sisters who are sick,” Leo said, “I want to tell you that you are not a burden. You are the beating heart of our humanity and a precious treasure for the Church.”
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