Portsmouth Diocese e-News Issue 464
I met today with the Hampshire Church Leaders here at Bishop’s House for our regular period of prayer, sharing, discussion and lunch. It is always a joy to welcome them, and for the first time, Bishop Philip Mounstephen, the Bishop of Winchester (pictured), was able to join us. It is almost a year now since his formal installation, which I was pleased to attend. We spent most of our time discussing what we saw as the challenges and opportunities of our respective situations today. There is a happy and easy-going fraternal spirit within the group, as well as a candour about our circumstances and the challenge of Christian mission. Please keep this important intention of Christian unity in your prayers, praying the prayer of Jesus “May they all be one.”
In e-News this week, as you can see, I have had a busy weekend! This coming Friday, NB, is the Solemnity of All Saints, a Holy Day of Obligation – do make sure to get to Mass – and Saturday is All Souls. This Sunday is Bamenda Sunday, when there is a Second Collection for our brothers and sisters in the Archdiocese of Bamenda, Cameroon. For your spiritual reading, I recommend the Pope’s new Encyclical Letter Dilexit Nos on the Sacred Heart. Meanwhile, my prayers and best wishes to you all this week. Thank you for your faith and your love for the Lord and His Church. [Image: Hampshire Chronicle, Tina Georgiadis/Diocese of Winchester]
Thou Shalt not Kill
From the Bishop
This past weekend I issued a new Pastoral Letter. It is about the bill before Parliament to legalise what they call ‘assisted dying’. I prefer to call it what it is: assisted suicide, helping someone to kill themselves. I urge you to read the Letter then to click on the template below and write to your MP.
“Thou Shalt not Kill” is an instinctive principle written into every human heart. It grounds the laws that govern every civilised society on earth. It is the teaching of all major religions, and it is fundamental to Christian morality and Catholic social teaching. Yet now, campaigners such as Exit International, want to change this natural law to allow killing in certain circumstances, and they are conducting an intensive campaign in the media, highlighting sad cases and making emotional pitches. Yet if we yield to this and permit killing, we will cross a line from which there is no return. Like using nuclear weapons, once deployed, it’s too late; there’s only escalation.
Let me give you four plain reasons why assisted suicide and euthanasia is wrong:
1. The option of assisted suicide would put intolerable pressure on the most vulnerable, upon the sick, the elderly, the disabled, the dying.
2. To legalise assisted suicide would completely undermine palliative care and the work of care-homes and could spell the end of hospices.
3. Assisted suicide would place an unacceptable and immoral demand on medical staff, expecting them to become accessories to killing.
4. If the legislation is passed, even with the strictest limits for now, the thresholds of eligibility will keep creeping forward to cover ever more categories of persons.
You can watch a video of the Pastoral Letter by clicking on the picture or you can read it here in full. The template letter to send to your MP is available here.
You can continue to read this issue in full here.
