Pope Francis: healthcare should be ‘at the service of life’

CNA Staff, May 4, 2020 / 12:01 pm (CNA).- The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has ordered 15 psychiatric hospitals in Belgium which belong to the Brothers of Charity to cease identifying as Catholic institutions after they allowed the euthanization of patients in 2017.

The hospitals are managed by a civil non-profit corporation with the same name as the Brothers of Charity religious congregation which owns them.

The CDF decision was communicated in a letter dated March 30, stating that “with deep sadness” the “psychiatric hospitals managed by the Provincialate of the Brothers of Charity association in Belgium will no longer be able to consider themselves Catholic institutions.”

In a statement responding to the CDF’s decision, the superior general of the Brothers of Charity, Br. René Stockman, said that “with a heavy heart” the religious congregation “must let go of its psychiatric centers in Belgium.”

Br. Stockman pointed out that it is “painful” that the psychiatric centers of the Brothers of Charity in Belgium have lost their Catholic status, considering also that the brothers “were among the pioneers in the field of mental health care in Belgium.”

At the same time, Stockman said he recognizes that “the congregation [the Brothers of Charity] has no choice but to remain faithful to the charism of charity, which cannot be reconciled with the practice of euthanasia on psychiatric patients.”

The decision by the Vatican’s doctrinal office ends three years of disputes between the Brothers of Charity and the corporation which manages their hospitals in Belgium.

In 2017, the board decided to allow euthanasia to be carried out in its hospitals in Belgium, where the euthanasia law is among the most broad.

At the time of the decision, the board of the corporation was composed of 15 members, with only three of them religious brothers of the congregation. The chairman is former Belgian prime minister Hermann van Rompuy.

Two of the three religious brothers among the board members, Luc Lemmens, 61, and Veron Raes, 57, supported the euthanasia decision. Their terms on the board ended at the end of September 2018 and were not renewed.

The religious congregation, especially Stockman, protested the decision, reiterating the Brothers of Charity’s rejection of euthanasia in their hospitals.

The brothers appealed to the Vatican, which asked the psychiatric hospitals to change their protocol allowing euthanasia as “a medical act” under certain conditions.

The hospital management responded with a long statement in September 2017, in which it contested a lack of dialogue and maintained the hospital was “perfectly consistent” with Christian doctrine.

The CDF’s direction that the hospitals must no longer identify as Catholic was communicated in a letter signed by CDF prefect Cardinal Luis Francisco Ladaria Ferrer and secretary Archbishop Giacomo Morandi.

The letter retraced the developments of the story, recalling that the document allowing euthanasia in the brothers’ hospitals “refers neither to God, nor to Holy Scripture, nor to the Christian vision of Man.”

According to the letter, the CDF had spoken with the Brothers of Charity and had also informed Pope Francis of the gravity of the situation.

Other audiences had also taken place beginning June 2017, including with the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, the Secretariat of State, the representatives of the Brothers of Charity and the managing corporation, as well as representatives of the Belgian bishops’ conference.

The Holy See also sent Bishop Jan Hendriks, auxiliary of Amsterdam, as an apostolic visitor, but he did not register any steps forward nor a desire to find “a viable solution that avoids any form of responsibility of the institution for euthanasia.”

The request of the CDF to the Brothers of Charity and to the managing corporation was clear: “affirm in writing and in an unequivocal way their adherence to the principles of the sacredness of human life and the unacceptability of euthanasia, and, as a consequence, the absolute refusal to carry it out in the institutions they depend on.”

The corporation “did not give assurance on these points.”

The CDF therefore reiterated that “euthanasia remains an inadmissible act, even in extreme cases,” and strengthened the statement by citing St. John Paul II’s 1995 encyclical Evangelium vitae, and a Jan. 30 speech by Pope Francis to the CDF.

The CDF stressed that “Catholic teaching affirms the sacred value of human life,” the “importance of caring for and accompanying the sick and disabled,” as well as “the Christian value of suffering, the moral unacceptability of euthanasia” and “the impossibility of introducing this practice in Catholic hospitals, not even in extreme cases, as well as of collaborating in this regard with civil institutions.”

The Brothers of Charity is a religious congregation of lay brothers founded in 1807 in Belgium, whose specialization is care for the sick and those with psychiatric diseases.

At the congregation’s July 2018 general chapter the group stressed that the Brothers of Charity “believes in sacredness and absolute respect for every human life, from conception to natural death. The general chapter requires that each brother, associate member and others associated with the mission of the congregation adhere to the doctrine of the Catholic Church on ethical issues.”

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Vatican City, Mar 2, 2017 / 11:47 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In his prayer video for March, Pope Francis prays for persecuted Christians, asking for the prayers and aid of the whole Church toward those mistreated on the basis of their beliefs.

“How many people are being persecuted because of their faith, forced to abandon their homes, their places of worship, their lands, their loved ones!” the Pope says in the video.

Released March 2, the video shows people from different countries being photographed as if arrested, then holding up signs reading “Protestant,” “Catholic,” and “Orthodox.”

“They are persecuted and killed because they are Christians,” the Pope says. “Those who persecute them make no distinction between the religious communities to which they belong.”

The video continues with real footage of destroyed churches in the Middle East, followed by clips of adults and children praying in a church, at home, and at a school, and people packing up food at a food bank, as the Pope asks: “how many of you pray for persecuted Christians?”

“Do it with me, that they may be supported by the prayers and material help of all the Churches and communities.”

An initiative of the Jesuit-run global prayer network Apostleship of Prayer, the Pope’s prayer videos are filmed in collaboration with the Vatican Television Center and mark the first time the Roman Pontiff’s monthly prayer intentions have been featured on video.

The Apostleship of Prayer, which produces the monthly videos on the Pope’s intentions, was founded by Jesuit seminarians in France in 1884 to encourage Christians to serve God and others through prayer, particularly for the needs of the Church.

Since the late 1800s, the organization has received a monthly, “universal” intention from the Pope. In 1929, an additional missionary intention was added by the Holy Father, aimed at the faithful in particular.

Starting in January, rather than including a missionary intention, Pope Francis has elected to have only one prepared prayer intention – the universal intention featured in the prayer video – and will add a second intention focused on an urgent or immediate need if one arises.

According to a report released in January, global persecution of Christians has risen for the fourth year in a row and is on a “rapid rise” in Asia.

The advocacy group Open Doors UK warned in its annual report on Christian persecution, released Jan. 12, that “Persecution levels have been rising rapidly across Asia and the Indian subcontinent, driven by extreme religious nationalism which is often tacitly condoned, and sometimes actively encouraged, by local and national governments.”

Overall persecution of Christians has risen from last year, Open Doors UK noted, stating that “Christians are being killed for their faith in more countries than before.”

“Christians living in these countries need the support of their family, the body of Christ, to help them stand firm in their faith,” they stated.

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Vatican City, Nov 9, 2017 / 12:08 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis praised St. Frances Cabrini in the preface to a book about her life for her foresight in addressing the needs of migrants, saying she’s an example of how to treat people with both charity and justice.

The saint combined “great charity with a prophetic spirit,” the Pope noted. “Frances Cabrini, precisely for this reason, is very present today and teaches us the way to deal with the momentous phenomenon of migration by combining charity and justice.”

Not only did she realize that mass migration “was not a temporary phenomenon,” he continued, she also saw “the emergence of a new historical era” in which modern transport would allow easier movement of large populations.

“Frances understood that modernity would be marked by these immense migrations and uprooted human beings, in a crisis of identity, often desperate and lacking resources to face the society in which they would have to enter,” he said.

In the face of this crisis, she established hospitals, convents, and schools for poor Italian immigrants to the US, to help them learn the rules and laws of their new society while retaining their dignity and their religious roots.

“These were the goals that she wanted to achieve for all migrants,” Pope Francis said. “Goals that are still valid today, and which pass through the recognition and respect of one’s own and others’ religious roots.”

Now the sisters in her religious order have continued her work, even if the country of origin of immigrants to the U.S. has changed, he pointed out.

This December marks the 100th anniversary of the death of St. Frances Cabrini.

Pope Francis wrote the preface to a new edition of a Cabrini biography called Tra terra e cielo (“Between heaven and earth”), issued for the centennial of her death.

Pope Francis frequently invokes the 20th century saint in his speeches for her example of how to welcome and care for migrants while also helping them integrate with the culture of their new country.

He most recently spoke about her legacy and its relevance in a September letter to the order she founded, the Institute of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, saying the centennial of her death is “one of the main events marking the journey of the Church.”

“Both because of the greatness of the figure commemorated and because of the contemporary nature of her charism and message, not just for the ecclesial community but for society as a whole.”

With the “inevitable tensions” caused by the high levels of migration around the world today, Mother Cabrini becomes a contemporary figure, he continued.

An Italian missionary, St. Frances Cabrini died Dec. 22, 1917 after spending much of her life working with Italian immigrants in the United States.

She spent nearly 30 years traveling back and forth across the Atlantic Ocean as well as around the United States setting up orphanages, hospitals, convents, and schools for the often marginalized Italian immigrants. Her feast is celebrated Nov. 13.

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