Vatican, 13 May, 2023 / 1:13 pm (ACI Africa).
Pope Francis on Saturday expressed his sorrow over the legalization of euthanasia in Portugal.
“Today when we celebrate the memory of the apparitions of the Virgin Mary to the little shepherds of Fatima, I am very sad, because in the country where Our Lady appeared, a law to kill has been enacted,” the pope said May 13 at the Vatican.
“It is one more step in the long list of countries with euthanasia,” he added.
Portugal’s Parliament voted May 12 to allow medically-assisted suicide in limited cases. The legislation states that a person requesting assisted death should be “in a situation of great intensity of suffering, with definitive injury of extreme gravity or serious and incurable disease.”
A doctor can also euthanize a patient when “medically assisted suicide is impossible due to a physical disability of the patient.” Assisted suicide is the providing of lethal drugs so patients can take their own lives, while euthanasia is the direct killing of patients by doctors.
