In a Pastoral Letter released last weekend, Victoria’s Catholic Bishops have reminded the Victorian Catholic community that the new Voluntary Assisted Dying (VAD), which passed into law Wednesday, 19 June, brings “a new and deeply troubling chapter of health care in Victoria”.
Archbishop of Melbourne, Peter Comensoli, was joined in this letter by the Bishops of Sandhurst, Ballarat and Sale insisting that no animosity is held for “those with whom we disagree”.
The Bishops invited people to take Christ as their model who said “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly”.
The letter from the four Victorian Bishops recalls for Catholics that Pope Francis has encouraged them to resist euthanasia and to protect the old, the young and the vulnerable from being cast aside in a “throw-away culture”.
The concept of conscientious objection is linked in the letter to the courageous acts of two twentieth-century saints who were “called by the Lord to witness to the dignity of human life despite great personal cost”.
Catholic hospitals and residential care organisations have committed to resist calls to be involved in VAD.
To read the letter and the related document We Care, Click Here.