Rome, Italy, Apr 24, 2023 / 08:06 am
The Pontifical Academy for Life said Monday its president is against assisted suicide but thinks it is possible to have a “legal initiative” that would allow it to be decriminalized in Italy under “specific and particular conditions.”
The April 24 statement was issued following an outcry over a speech in which Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia defended legalizing medically assisted suicide in Italy. The archbishop called it a “feasible” approach to the issue in Italian society, despite the Catholic Church’s clear teachings against it.
“Personally, I would not practice suicide assistance, but I understand that legal mediation may be the greatest common good concretely possible under the conditions we find ourselves in,” Paglia said in a speech on April 19 during the International Journalism Festival in Perugia, Italy.
The Italian news outlet Il Riformista published the text of Paglia’s speech on April 22.