Some of the week’s brightest news for the Church came from Baltimore, the site of the USCCB’s Fall Assembly. Bishop Thomas Paprocki joined John Morales on Morning Air with a hopeful report from the Assembly: a new president and vice president elected, a revised set of ethical directives for Catholic healthcare, a national consecration of the United States to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in 2026, and approval for a new Eucharistic Congress in 2029. Plus, there was an uptick in adult conversions across dioceses nationwide. His own diocese saw its largest group in 15 years.
However, unfortunately, other reports cast a shadow on the good news.
In Illinois, legislators quietly approved an assisted-suicide bill at 2:54 a.m. on Halloween, hiding it inside a Sanitary Food Preparation Act. Bishop Paprocki didn’t mince words: the tactic was “diabolical.” Euphemisms like “End of Life Options” conceal what it really is: physician-assisted suicide. The devil, he noted, “loves deceit” and “darkness.”
He warned of a familiar slope: first “compassion,” then pressure on the disabled, then doctors suggesting death, and eventually insurers nudging the elderly away from costly treatment. It’s already happening in Canada.
The Church’s teaching remains clear. Suicide violates the Fifth Commandment. Life belongs to God alone. Suffering, never sought, always treated with palliative care, can be united with Christ’s own Passion, echoing the wisdom of St. John Paul II’s Gospel of Life. The Bishop stressed: the answer is never to kill, but to accompany.
Physician assisted suicide is, at its core, a rejection of hope. The Church responds with a different vision. She accompanies the sick, protects the vulnerable, and proclaims that every life retains dignity even in weakness. She proclaims that Christ is Lord and nobody has the right to end an innocent life prematurely.
This truth reminds families that their love at the bedside matters. It reminds the suffering that they are never abandoned. It reminds the world that hope is not an illusion because Christ has conquered death and shares his victory with all who belong to him.
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