BREAKING: Pontifical Academy of Life president calls medically assisted suicide feasible – Catholic News Agency

Paglia pointed to Pope Francis decision in 2018 to revise the Catechism of the Catholic Church to state that the death penalty is inadmissible.

The contribution of Christians is made within the different cultures, neither above as if they possessed an a priori given truth nor below as if believers were the bearers of a respectable opinion, but disengaged from history, Paglia continued.

Between believers and non-believers there is a relationship of mutual learning, Paglia said.

As believers, therefore, we ask the same questions that concern everyone, in the knowledge that we are in a pluralistic democratic society. In this case, about the end of (earthly) life, we find ourselves all facing a common question: How can we reach (together) the best way to articulate the good (ethical plane) and the just (legal plane), for each person and for society?

Paglia criticized the expansion of laws in some countries to permit involuntary euthanasia. At the same time, he said it was not to be ruled out that legalized assisted suicide is feasible in our society, provided certain conditions spelled out by a 2019 Italian constitutional court ruling are met.

Specifically, he said, quoting from the courts direction, the person must be kept alive by life-support treatment and suffering from an irreversible pathology, a source of physical or psychological suffering that he or she considers intolerable, but fully capable of making free and conscious decisions." The Italian House of Representatives has already approved such legislation, but not the Senate, he noted.

This is not the first time Paglias remarks on assisted suicide have stirred controversy. In 2019, answering a question about assisted suicide and whether a Catholic or a Catholic priest can be present at someone's death by assisted suicide, Paglia told a small group of journalists that he would be willing to do so, because "the Lord never abandons anyone."

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BREAKING: Pontifical Academy of Life president calls medically assisted suicide feasible - Catholic News Agency