‘We cannot ask medical staff to kill their patients’: Pope Francis spoke out against euthanasia in a speech to a delegation of French officials on Friday, amid a debate in France over the end of life and three days before a meeting with President Emmanuel Macron, reports said AFP and Agerpres.

“Medical personnel, by their very nature, are called to provide care and assistance, although they may not always have the power to heal, but we cannot ask them to kill their patients!” he said before a delegation of 40 officials from the north of France and headed by the Bishop of Cambrai.

“If we kill with excuses, we kill more and more,” he insisted, echoing a phrase he said after returning from a trip to Kazakhstan in September when asked about the topic.

“I dare to hope that, on such essential issues, the debate can be truthful in order to accompany life to its natural end,” the sovereign pontiff added, as a broad consultation of citizens on the end of life will be launched in December in France. steer the government towards a possible new “legislative framework” by the end of 2023.

What does the law of France now provide

French law currently prohibits euthanasia and assisted suicide, but allows “deep and continuous sedation until death” for terminally ill patients and patients in great suffering with a “short-term” life expectancy.

Pope Francis also insisted on the “attention that must be given to the elderly in nursing homes”, referring to “people at the end of life who need palliative care”.

These statements come three days before the visit of French President Emmanuel Macron, who is due to receive Pope Francis in a private audience on Monday morning (08:30 GMT).

The Vatican considers euthanasia a “crime against human life” and assisted suicide a “grave sin”, and those who decide to resort to this method of ending life cannot begin the sacraments.

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