Catholic Medical Quarterly

The Journal of the Catholic Medical Association (UK)

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Catholic Medical Quarterly Volume 75(3)  August 2025

The Culture of Death and the Failure of Catechesis

From the John Paul II Academy for Human Life and the Family

You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt lose its savour, wherewith shall it be salted?
Matthew 5:13

Coming just days after British MPs granted legal immunity to any woman who procures her own abortion (even up to the moment of birth), the House of Commons voted to legalise physician-assisted suicide. On 20 June 2025, the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill passed its Third Reading by 319 votes to 291. However, these figures fail to reflect the true scale of the defeat.

During four hours of debate, most MPs who spoke against the Bill insisted that they were in favour of assisted suicide in principle but had serious concerns about this particular piece of legislation. Only a tiny handful of those who took part in the debate opposed a change in the law as a matter of principle.

The Bill’s supporters invoked choice, autonomy and compassion while presenting consequentialist and utilitarian arguments. The counterarguments were based on fear of coercion, a lack of real choice, and unintended consequences. These criticisms were not persuasive, while arguments based on fundamental principles were largely left unsaid.

The principled objection to physician-assisted suicide, embodied in the Fifth Commandment, is also discernible through the Natural law. Five centuries before the birth of the Lord, the Hippocratic Oath enjoined doctors to do no harm:

“I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody if asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect. Similarly, I will not give to a woman an abortive remedy.”[1]

The Natural law, which, in the words of His Holiness, Pope Leo, “constitutes the compass by which to take our bearings in legislating” [2] is written in men’s hearts. (Romans 2:15) It is this universal law that shaped seminal international agreements such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights when it recognised the inviolable integrity of the human person. Nevertheless, the truth proclaimed in such treaties is jeopardised by the moral collapse now afflicting formerly Christian nations. This moral confusion reflects the failure over the past 60 years of Catholic teachers, catechists and theologians to promote both the spiritual and “the anthropological reasons upon which respect for every human life is based.”[3]

Pope Leo, in his address to the International Inter-Parliamentary Union, recalled the example of St Thomas More, who, though Chancellor of England, was prepared to sacrifice his life rather than betray the truth. Having lost sight of this truth, too many of today’s political leaders are prepared to sacrifice the weakest and most vulnerable to the culture of death.

We appeal, therefore, to His Holiness and to the bishops of the world to renew the church’s catechetical instruction of the faithful so they can fulfil the Lord’s exhortation to be the salt of the earth and a light to the world.

Only through an authentic catechesis that teaches the supremacy of God’s law and equips the faithful to recognise intrinsic evil can we convince wider society that all innocent human life deserves equal protection under the law.