UTRECHT, Netherlands, DEC. 3, 2000 (ZENIT.org-AVVENIRE).- Though the lower
house of the Dutch Parliament voted to approve euthanasia last week, the
archbishop of Utrecht still has hope for his country.

"I still hope that the Senate will not approve this euthanasia law,"
Cardinal Adrian Simonis said, during an interview at his residence in
Maliebaan with the Italian newspaper Avvenire. Over the last few years, the
cardinal has become the often unheeded conscience of the Netherlands.

Cardinal Simonis explained his reasons for a degree of hope. "The European
Council has pointed out to the Netherlands that the euthanasia law
conflicts with human rights," he said. "The law was approved only in the
lower chamber; I hope the consequences of this law will help people reflect."

The lower chamber's 104-40 vote for euthanasia would include children as
young as 12, who could ask to be put to death with a parent's consent. If
the law takes effect next year the Netherlands would be the first country
to have legal euthanasia.

--Q: However, according to opinion polls, 80% of the Dutch are in favor of
euthanasia.

--Cardinal Simonis: The opinion polls must be well analyzed. At present,
the primacy of autonomy prevails in the common mentality, the absolute
right to decide for oneself. According to a misunderstood respect for
liberty, they are favor, saying: I do not ask for euthanasia for myself,
but I cannot deny it to someone who wants it.

This is the question addressed in "Veritatis Splendor," the modern sickness
of man who no longer adheres to truth but to the subjectivity of his
feelings, which might be "good." In common reasoning, truth disappears and
feelings remain. What is true is no longer worth anything, but "only what I
feel to be true."

How right the Pope is, and how right is his "Veritatis Splendor"!

--Q: It is also said that many terminal patients ask for euthanasia.

--Cardinal Simonis: I remember my mother's last week with us, 11 children,
around her bed. She did not stop saying: "What a weight I am for you! How
will you go on holiday?" The elderly feel they are a weight. They ask for
euthanasia not to be a weight, in this society totally dedicated to profit,
where no one has any time.

So this law, which pretends to give new "liberty," instead imposes the
opposite. It forgets those in greatest need of human solidarity. Now there
is a law that "allows" it. In an atmosphere that does not respect the
dignity of those who suffer from age and agony; in a population where half
say they have no faith, this law becomes a pressure on the elderly: It can
be done, it "is licit"; therefore, stop being a weight! However, the
request for euthanasia is almost always a cry for help. Only a cruel
society, which thinks only of money and business, cannot understand it.

--Q: Indeed, among you there have already been cases of euthanasia
requested by the mentally depressed, in other words, by a mental pathology
whose clinical risk is, precisely, suicide. Does the state assist the
mentally depressed to commit suicide?

--Cardinal Simonis: The state has the duty to defend its citizens, all of
them, even against themselves. It is reasoning that accords with law and
logic. However, how many times have we, the bishops of the Netherlands,
used these philosophical, rational arguments against attacks on life? The
Protestants and evangelicals fault us for using excessively "rational"
arguments, too philosophical and purely human, too lay.

--Q: What arguments do Protestant pastors use?

--Cardinal Simonis: Only arguments taken from Scripture. However, this is
not our line: "gratia supponit natura"; grace does not substitute nature.
We bishops have taken the risk of entering the technical field; we have
pointed out the new therapies against pain; we have pointed out the undue
pressure exerted by the present norms on doctors, who are often
hard-pressed to refuse euthanasia, as though it were already a right.

--Q: What are the results?

--Cardinal Simonis: The abundance of our documents and declarations is also
counterproductive. The press replies: There are the bishops, always
prohibiting everything. The media have a great responsibility; they have
changed the common mentality of the people, step by step, year after year.

--Q: And the magistrates and politicians?

--Cardinal Simonis: The door was already opened by abortion, which was
barely approved by only one vote. At that time, we already warned: "You
will end up by authorizing euthanasia, you are on a downward slope." They
didn't listen to us. Now there is legal euthanasia.

--Q: Is it true that the bishop of Roermond has prohibited the sacrament of
the anointing of the sick to someone who has given consent to euthanasia
itself?

--Cardinal Simonis: It is true and it is right. At least, one cannot ask
the Church to bless a suicide act sacramentally.
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