While on his return flight from Marseille to Rome on September 23, Pope Francis told reporters that euthanasia and abortion are actions that “play with life” and are examples of “ugly compassion.”
“You don’t play with life, neither at the beginning nor at the end. It is not played with,” he said, adding, “Whether it is the law not to let the child grow in the mother’s womb or the law of euthanasia in disease and old age. I am not saying it is a faith thing, but it is a human thing: There exists ugly compassion.”
While on the plane, a French journalist specifically asked Pope Francis if he had spoken with French President Emmanuel Macron about the assisted suicide and euthanasia bill currently before the French government to be voted on before the end of the month. He said he had not spoken with Macron on his visit, but that he had already told the president his thoughts on the issue when Macron was at the Vatican last year.
“[L]ife is not to be played with, neither at the beginning nor at the end. We cannot play around. … Because then we wind up with a policy of “’no pain’, of a humanistic euthanasia,” he said.
The Pope made it clear on the flight, reported The Catholic Leader, that standing against euthanasia and abortion is not a matter of opinion, but that we should never “play with life.” He recommended the 1907 novel “Lord of the World” by Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson which “shows how things are going to be in the end, (when) you take away all the differences, and also you take away all the pain, and euthanasia is one of these things… gentle death, selection before birth.”
He continued, “Today we should be careful with ideological colonizations that ruin human life and go against human life. Today, for example, the lives of grandparents are erased, and when human wealth comes into play in the dialogue with grandchildren, they are erased. ‘They are old so are of no use.’ We cannot play with life.”
“Ugly” — or misguided — compassion has helped to usher in the culture of death in America and around the world. With abortion, if a pregnant woman is considered too young or too poor to have a child, abortion is deemed the “compassionate” choice. The same goes for women who are pregnant with a child who has a genetic condition or disability or women who face complications during pregnancy. Hearts break over these situations, but instead of standing with women and children and lending support, abortion advocates claim the compassion act is to pressure individuals into abortions.
The same goes for euthanasia and assisted suicide. When a young, able-bodied person attempts suicide, it’s considered a tragedy. But those with an illness or disability, regardless of their age, are being pushed into premature death, their suicides celebrated. It’s compassionate, we are told, to allow people to die by suicide if their lives might include any level of suffering. This, as Pope Francis points out, is not true compassion.
