{"id":299319,"date":"2023-09-27T14:38:29","date_gmt":"2023-09-27T19:38:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=299319"},"modified":"2023-09-26T14:35:05","modified_gmt":"2023-09-26T19:35:05","slug":"pope-francis-life-beginning-end","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/pope-francis-life-beginning-end\/","title":{"rendered":"Pope Francis: ‘Life is not to be played with, neither at the beginning nor at the end’"},"content":{"rendered":"
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While on his return flight from Marseille to Rome on September 23, Pope Francis told<\/a> reporters that euthanasia and abortion are actions that “play with life” and are examples of “ugly compassion.”<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t play with life, neither at the beginning nor at the end. It is not played with,\u201d he said, adding, \u201cWhether it is the law not to let the child grow in the mother\u2019s womb or the law of euthanasia in disease and old age. I am not saying it is a faith thing, but it is a human thing: There exists ugly compassion<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

While on the plane, a French journalist specifically asked Pope Francis if he had spoken with French President Emmanuel Macron about the assisted suicide and euthanasia bill currently before the French government to be voted on before the end of the month. He said he had not spoken with Macron on his visit, but that he had already told the president his thoughts on the issue when Macron was at the Vatican last year.<\/p>\n

“[L]ife is not to be played with, neither at the beginning nor at the end. We cannot play around. … Because then we wind up with a policy of \u201c’no pain’, of a humanistic euthanasia,” he said.<\/p>\n

The Pope made it clear on the flight, reported The Catholic Leader<\/a>, that standing against euthanasia and abortion is not a matter of opinion, but that we should never “play with life.” He recommended the 1907 novel “Lord of the World” by Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson which “shows how things are going to be in the end, (when) you take away all the differences, and also you take away all the pain, and euthanasia is one of these things… gentle death, selection before birth.”<\/p>\n