Friday, March 29

The Spanish Church warns Catholics that they are obliged to object to abortion or euthanasia

Politics and Church: “Catholics are absolutely obliged to object” to abortion and euthanasia, the result of laws that do not respect religious freedom and conscience and that are based “on ideologies that do not recognize the nature of the human being that has been given at creation, and that it must be the source of all morality.”

These are the keys to ‘doctrinal note’ published this afternoon by the Episcopal Conference and in which they consecrate the right to an “institutional conscientious objection”, while reminding Catholic politicians that “they cannot positively promote laws that question the value of human life, nor support with their vote proposals that have been presented By others”

Notices

The note starts with a ‘notice to navigators’: “Freedom cannot be separated from other human rights, which are universal and inviolable”, which “require to be protected as a whole”. The first of the fundamental rights is “the right to life from its conception to its natural conclusion”, which “conditions the exercise of any other right and entails, in particular, the illegality of all forms of induced abortion and euthanasia”, points out the document, which also enshrines the right to religious freedom as fundamental, as “a defense against totalitarian temptations and the tendency that public powers have to invade people’s lives in all areas.”

Individualism without ethical limits

And it is that, for the Spanish Church, “in recent decades a new vision of human rights is being imposed”, characterized by “an individualism that does not want to accept any ethical limits” and that has led to the recognition of some rights that bishops do not accept as such.

“Recently we have witnessed in our country the approval of the law that allows the practice of euthanasia and considers it as a right of the person”, points out the note, which considers this norm “one more step in the set of laws that lead to human life being seriously unprotected”. At the same time, the bishops also criticize the laws of equality and against hate that, in their opinion, “are inspired by anthropological principles that absolutize the human will, or by ideologies that do not recognize the nature of the human being that has been given in creation, and that it must be the source of all morality”.

“In these laws, the imposition of these principles in educational plans is also promoted, and the right to conscientious objection is restricted both for individuals and for educational, health or social assistance institutions, thereby limiting the exercise of freedom”, they denounce.

“Currently we have the feeling that some human rights are ‘tolerated’ as if it were a ‘graceful’ concession, that they are progressively curtailed, and that values ​​contrary to the religious convictions of large groups of society are promoted”, regrets the Episcopal Conference, who calls for a “unitary” position on the part of Catholics “to protect the very right to conscientious objection in legislative contexts that provide for euthanasia and suicide.”

“Freedom cannot be understood as a right to act apart from all moral demands,” adds the note, which insists that “we live immersed in a culture that does not value religion as a positive factor for the development of people and the societies”.

Act according to “the Truth”

Because, they add, “the principle that is at the base of many laws that are approved is that we should all live as if God did not exist. There is a tendency to underestimate the religious, to reduce it to something merely private and to deny the public relevance of faith. This leads to considering religious freedom as a secondary right”, which is reduced “to tolerance or freedom of worship”. Something inadmissible for the bishops, who claim “the positive recognition of the right of every person to order their own actions and their own moral decisions according to the Truth.”

At this point, the Church points to the need to “act according to one’s own conscience” as “the greatest proof of a mature freedom” in society. Of course: a formed conscience, because otherwise, “man is subject to influences from the cultural environment in which he lives, to pressures that come from outside and to his own desires. All this can cloud his moral judgments and mislead him through ignorance.”

Faced with this, “the public powers must respect the autonomy of the people”, because “when power uses the means at its disposal to spread a certain conception of the human being or of life, it is exceeding its limits. functions”.

No to objector registrations

For this reason, “conscientious objection supposes that a person puts the dictates of their own conscience before what is ordered or permitted by law.” “This does not justify any disobedience to the rules promulgated by legitimate authorities,” but they do want to make it clear that “the State must not restrict or minimize it under the pretext of guaranteeing people’s access to certain legally recognized practices, and presenting it as a attack against the ‘rights’ of others”.

For the Spanish bishops, “a fair regulation of conscientious objection requires that it be guaranteed that those who resort to it will not be subject to social or labor discrimination.” For this reason, they consider that “the creation of a register of objectors to certain acts permitted by law violates the right of every citizen not to be forced to testify about their own religious or ideological convictions.”

Thus, the doctrinal note indicates, “the Christian must not lend collaboration, not even formal, to those practices that, even being admitted by civil legislation, are in contrast to the law of God.” Furthermore: “in the face of laws that legitimize euthanasia or assisted suicide, any immediate formal or material cooperation must always be denied.”

deny legitimacy

And it is that, maintains the Episcopal Conference, “we Catholics are absolutely obliged to object to those actions that, being approved by law, have as a consequence the elimination of a human life at its beginning or at its end”, because “abortion and euthanasia are crimes that no human law can pretend to legitimize. Laws of this type not only do not create any conscientious obligation, but, on the contrary, establish a serious and precise obligation to oppose them through conscientious objection.

An obligation that involves, especially, “Catholics who have responsibilities in State institutions” who “are often subjected to conflicts of conscience in the face of legislative initiatives that contradict basic moral principles.”

These politicians “cannot positively promote laws that question the value of human life, nor support with their vote proposals that have been presented by others.” “Therefore, institutional conscientious objection to those laws that contradict its ideology is legitimate. The State has the duty to recognize this right.”

And further: “Catholic health institutions (…) must not bow to the strong political and economic pressures that induce them to accept the practice of abortion or euthanasia”, just as “an institutional collaboration with other institutions is not ethically acceptable either.” hospital structures towards which to guide and direct people who request euthanasia”.

“Such elections cannot be morally admitted or supported in their concrete realization, even if they are legally possible. This would imply a collaboration with evil”, point out the bishops, who culminate their note by denouncing that we live in a society where “we are witnessing the spread of anthropologies contrary to the Christian vision of man, sexuality, marriage and the family. , which has as a consequence the normalization of certain moral behaviors opposed to the demands of the law of God”.

“Frequently these ideologies are promoted by public powers and their dissemination is imposed in educational centers through laws that have a coercive nature,” says the document, which insists that “given that freedom of religion and conscience is a fundamental right, Catholics have a duty to oppose the imposition of these ideologies.”

“The values ​​that are becoming generalized in our culture and the laws that are being approved in our western societies place believers before difficult problems of conscience. We are often faced with painful choices that require sacrifices in professional life and even in family life”, concludes the document, an amendment to the entire social legislation of the current government.

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