QUESTION: Does anything change regarding euthanasia and assisted suicide? Some media outlets have suggested that the Small Lexicon on the End-of-Life masks a favourable judgment on these issues.

ANSWER: The Church reiterates its absolute opposition to any form of euthanasia and assisted suicide. This is also my conviction, even if some want to make me say otherwise.

However, the Church also invites reflection on how unreasonable obstinacy (therapeutic stubbornness) is not an expression of truly patient-centered medicine and care. Death is un-fortunately a dimension of life. It is inevitable.

Certainly, we must never shorten the duration of life, but neither should we stubbornly obstruct its course in every possible way. We are fragile. And this is why we must take care of one another.

We must commit ourselves much more than we normally do to accompany people in the final stages of their existence, knowing that for us believers, death is not the last word!

(Vatican News)

• Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia
  President of the Pontifical Academy for Life