Catholic Medical Quarterly Volume 75(1) February 2025
Editorial Comments
Dr Pravin Thevathasan
Why End of Life Bill passed its second reading
Of
course, we have not lost as yet. But the passing of the Bill at this stage
was inevitable. A large number of pro-life members of parliament lost
their seats at the last election. We have a huge Labour majority and while
a surprising number voted against the Bill, the fact remains that without
this majority, the Bill would not have passed.
My own MP said she was undecided prior to the vote. She organised two groups to meet with her, one in favour, one against. I joined the group "against" and was very surprised by the lack of a Catholic presence. We have a thriving Traditional Latin Mass community, many of whom live in the area. Only two of us who attend turned up. Many of the young traditional Catholics are very negative about political and other secular institutions. I understand where they are coming from and I support them in many of their endeavours such as home schooling. But I still believe this level of disengagement is wrong. This approach is sometimes mistakenly called the Benedict option. To my mind, we need to form ourselves as Catholics and engage with this increasingly confused world.
Thankfully, there were many Evangelicals who attended. A Greek Orthodox priest spoke about his pastoral work with the terminally ill. A terminally ill person spoke about the importance of palliative care. It was all very powerful. But I later learnt that the group "for" were better organised and more determined. They used human emotion to a greater extent. Our MP voted for the Bill.
Around the same time as this meeting, Dame Esther Rantzen criticised Cardinal Nichols for his powerful defence of human life. He was imposing his Catholic beliefs on the rest of society, she claimed. Now, if the Cardinal had demanded that the people of Britain need to fast on Good Friday, that would be an imposition. If he says that racism is wrong, that is not an imposition. That is part of natural law, something we are all bound by.
The intentional killing of innocent human beings is always wrong according to natural law teaching. And it is not wrong just for Catholics!
During the parliamentary debate, an MP "accidentally" called "assisted dying" by its correct name: assisted suicide. We need to stop calling it assisted dying. That is what priests are supposed to do: to assist the dying. Doctors who help kill their patients are doing something very different indeed.
Assisted Suicide- is multiple sclerosis a terminal illness?
On the day that Kim Leadbetter MP announced her proposal to give terminally ill people in England and Wales the right to choose to end their life, the BBC published an article that highlighted the case of a man who committed suicide as a result of his suffering due to multiple sclerosis (3 October, 2024).
But is multiple sclerosis a terminal illness? From a medical perspective, it is not. I was recently told of a case of a person who was diagnosed with it in the late 1970s and who is still living. MS can of course progress more rapidly. Does this mean that the same condition may be a terminal illness in some instances but not in others? What about dementia and a host of other conditions?
Legalising assisted suicide will open the floodgates.
What is happening to our beloved Catholic Church?
A good way to answer this is to listen to "Modernism" by Michael Davies on YouTube. In his presentation, he points out that for the Modernist, there are no fixed beliefs. The Church must listen to the people. Or, rather, certain kinds of people. For the Modernist, those who hold to fixed beliefs are "rigid" and "nostalgic." As Andrea Grillo, one of the leading Modernists of our times, puts it so succinctly: "what best describes tradition is its service to change." (20 June, 2024, Catholic Culture).
As they say at railway stations: "All change." This is the Modernist refrain. For the Modernist, the moral position that "the intentional killing of innocent human life is intrinsically evil" makes no sense as there are no such things as intrinsically evil acts.
This incredible belief of the Modernists leads to the very destruction of Faith and morals.
St Pius X, pray for us.
Pope Francis in Belgium
When Pope Francis was asked about abortion during the in-flight press conference on the way back from Belgium, he responded: "Abortion is homicide ..... It kills a human being. The doctors who carry it out are contract killers." (4 October, 2024, Catholic News Agency)
These are strong words and I thank Pope Francis for them. The Prime Minister of Belgium was somewhat more critical. This is not surprising as Belgium has become a deeply anti-Catholic country. Abortion was legalised in Belgium in 1990 after a bill was submitted by the Freemason Roger Lallemand. The great King Baudouin briefly resigned rather than sign it into law.