Spirit & Life Blog
Euthanasia is an action or omission that of itself or by intention causes death in order to alleviate suffering. Catholic health care institutions may never condone or participate in euthanasia or assisted suicide in any way. Dying patients who request euthanasia should receive loving care, psychological and spiritual support, and appropriate remedies for pain and…
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“The secret of happiness is to live moment by moment and to thank God for all that He, in His goodness, sends to us day after day.” – St. Gianna Molla It is hard to believe that this Thanksgiving Day will be my fourteenth with Human Life International. Prior to joining HLI, I thought I…
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“There is a close link between the hope of a people and the harmony among generations. The joy of children causes the parents’ hearts to beat and reopens the future. Children are the joy of the family and of society. They are not a question of reproductive biology, nor one of the many ways to…
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Last Tuesday, President Donald J. Trump won his bid to become the 47th President of the United States, and the GOP is set to control the two Houses of Congress. This election cycle brought both some victories and tragic losses for life and family. Thankfully, people in Florida, Nebraska, and South Dakota rejected ballot initiatives…
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“The people are called on to take an always larger part in the public life of the nation. This participation brings with it grave responsibilities. Hence the necessity for the faithful to have clear, solid, precise knowledge of their duties in the moral and religious domain with respect to their exercise of their civil rights,…
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For decades now, pro-life activists like Human Life International’s founder Fr. Paul Marx have warned that the real threat facing the world isn’t overpopulation, but rather underpopulation. In making this claim, such prophetic voices were going against the grain, to put it mildly. Their views were drowned out by a cacophony of voices proclaiming imminent…
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“Even when not motivated by a selfish refusal to be burdened with the life of someone who is suffering, euthanasia must be called a false mercy, and indeed a disturbing ‘perversion’ of mercy. True ‘compassion’ leads to sharing another’s pain; it does not kill the person whose suffering we cannot bear.” -Pope St. John Paul…
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“We should give no more than a side glance at all that happens in the world, but the eyes of our soul are to be focused right ahead; for our whole attention must be fixed on those realities which constitute our goal.” -From a homily on the Gospels by Pope St. Gregory the Great, no.…
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An article in The Atlantic a few days ago had quite the eye-catching headline: “The Anti-Abortion Activists Who Want to Stop People from Having Kids.” Now, as someone who has worked in the pro-life movement for decades, I can’t say that I’ve ever come across activists who are especially interested in preventing couples from having…
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Killing the Vulnerable, Sick, and Helpless
“So-called ‘compassionate’ euthanasia holds that it is better to die than to suffer, and that it would be compassionate to help a patient to die by means of euthanasia or assisted suicide. In reality, human compassion consists not in causing death, but in embracing the sick, in supporting them in their difficulties, in offering them…
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