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New Zealand's Catholic Bishops have finally, in real terms, definitively exited the Church founded by Christ, and the Faith of their Fathers.
They say that a Catholic who decides to commit suicide, legally - that is, to take their own God-given life - should be given the Sacraments to accompany them to death, to judgement, and to Hell.
What's more, the bishops are telling their priests that if they don't like that idea, and refuse to cooperate, they must provide some other priest to do the dirty work.
As of Sunday, 7 November 2021, New Zealand citizens who fulfil certain criteria may request euthanasia on the health service under the newly-enacted End of Life Choice Act 2019.
In two documents[1] published this month, NZ’s bishops have called on priests to provide the sacraments to persons who have agreed to euthanasia, saying that priests who object in conscience to doing so “should ensure that provision is made for the person to be accompanied by another”.
Pardon me? How is that supposed to work? How can a priest exercise his conscience - rightly - in respect to Anointing the Sick when the 'sick' wants to commit suicide, and then exercise that same conscience - wrongly - in respect to passing the buck to a fellow priest? Are good priests supposed to have a back-up with no conscience permanently on hand, prepared to turn up at a moment's notice to attend one of these suicidal 'faithful'?
This appalling requirement imposed on priests by the bishops echoes the one in the End of Life Choice Act whereby health practitioners who conscientiously object to assisted dying must explain to the person in their care how to contact a doctor with no such objection.
Whilst the bishops say that “any cooperation in the act of facilitating or administering an assisted death must be excluded in all cases” their statement insists that:
“… it is proper that the Church’s sacraments – encounters with God – are provided to the person who requests them … All ministers are entitled to presume that a person asking for the sacraments does so in good faith …”
The bishops are surely not as naive as they sound. In the Sacrament of Penance the sinner encounters Satan as well as God, as the former employs all his best lies and deceits to persuade the sinner that he is not sinful - so successfully, that we think we don't need that Sacrament at all. And there were we thinking that ministers should exercise prudence, not presumption, in such matters as these, as in all matters. Can a person intending to take their own life really ask for the Anointing of the Sick "in good faith"?
and
“If an individual priest, chaplain, pastoral worker, healthcare professional or caregiver decides that there is a limit to their ability to accompany a person seeking assisted dying, such a decision should be fully respected. At the same time, they should ensure that provision is made for the person to be accompanied by another.”
In other words, if a priest decides it's seriously sinful for him to help someone intending to commit the serious sin of suicide, then he should persuade some other priest to commit the serious sin of helping someone commit the serious sin of suicide.Wouldn't that add up to a total of three serious sins for this poor unfortunate priest? We thought that bishops have a duty to shepherd not just the lay faithful, but also to shepherd their priests, into green pastures where they may safely graze,.not to steer them towards the abyss.
Family Life International (FLI) New Zealand, a group which defends “life, faith and family”, has told Voice of the Family: “Sadly, the bishops’ pastoral guidelines are lacking depth, and have the potential to lead many into sin”.
In August 2021, FLI responded to an appeal from the bishops’ conference for “feedback” on the spiritual and pastoral care of those who intend to die by euthanasia or assisted suicide. In a letter to New Zealand’s bishops, FLI wrote:
“No person should be left with the impression that a member of the clergy, or chaplaincy, approves of euthanasia and assisted suicide. Ensuring the sacraments are reserved only for those who are properly disposed will protect these gifts of healing and unity with Christ from being profaned, and from being seen as something every person has an inherent right to.”
FLI’s response to New Zealand’s bishops refers them to guidelines published by the Bishops of Alberta and the Northwest Territories in Canada, Guidelines for the Celebration of the Sacraments with Persons & Families Considering or Opting for Death by Assisted Suicide or Euthanasia: A Vademecum for Priests and Parishes (September 2016).
The 2016 guidelines from the Bishops of Alberta and the Northwest Territory are in sharp contrast with those produced this month by New Zealand’s bishops.
The Bishops of Alberta and the Northwest Territory are evidently not modernists - that is, not heretics.
Whilst expressing compassion for persons tempted to end their lives by euthanasia and urging pastoral sensitivity on the part of priests, the bishops from Canada explain in detail and in classic Catholic terminology the teaching of the Church on euthanasia, that it is “a grave violation of God’s law” and that a person who has been contemplating euthanasia must be “properly disposed” to receiving the sacraments if that is their wish. Their guidelines state:
The priest must bear in mind “that he is at once both judge and healer, and that he is constituted by God as a minister of both divine justice and divine mercy, so that he may contribute to the honour of God and the salvation of souls” (Canon 978, §1). This implies the duty to implore the sick person with gentle firmness to turn away from this determination in repentance and trust. If the person, however, remains obstinate, the Anointing cannot be celebrated.”
A Dominican theologian who spoke to Voice of the Family about the New Zealand bishops’ conference pastoral guidelines told us:
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| Ghent altarpiece |
“The documents from the New Zealand bishops’ conference are evil. The invocation of Our Lady at the end of one of their documents is blasphemous, and the statement that priests who won’t anoint people who intend to kill themselves must find a colleague who will is particularly vicious.
“There are two fashionable theological errors underlying the bishops’ statement. One is an idea associated with Karl Rahner, based on his theory of what he called the ‘supernatural existential’, that people are constantly being offered grace by God. For example, the bishops say that we know: ‘God’s grace is at work, day by day, in every person, every place and every circumstance.’
Surely, your Excellencies, you above all know that God's grace is impeded from working by sin and completely cut off by any act of mortal sin (such as the decision to take one's own life).
“This seems intended to give the impression that the bedside of someone who is planning to commit suicide is a holy place. In fact, it is commonly said by the saints that God withdraws the offer of grace from those who abuse it too long; so St Paul talks about this in Romans 1:28:
"And as they liked not to have God in their knowledge, God delivered them up to a reprobate sense, to do those things which are not convenient;" ("God delivered them up": Not by being author of their sins, but by withdrawing his grace, and so permitting them, in punishment of their pride, to fall into those shameful sins- Douay Rheims).
But the documents make no reference to the justice of God, and in this way they also falsify His mercy. Likewise there is nothing about mortal sin or hell.
The bishops have done away with mortal sin and hell. In their modernist alternative Church, such unpleasant entities simply do not exist. And that self-delusion is a consequence in great part of the texts and readings of the Novus Ordo Missae - which Bishop Emeritus Peter Cullinane so earnestly assured the Latin Mass community of St Columba's Ashhurst last Sunday, while catechising them on the reasons for the TLM's attempted cancellation by 'Pope Francis' world-wide - are on a par with the presence of Christ in the people, the priest and even, scandalously (although we've heard the error taught may times), with the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.
“The other error is similar: it’s the idea that since the coming of Christ, there is no longer a difference between the sacred and the profane. The New Zealand bishops write: ‘The great mystery of the Incarnation – God becoming one of us – transforms all time into something sacred.’
“They also say: ‘The sacraments should only ever be declined in those very rare cases when someone seeks them in bad faith. All ministers are entitled to presume that a person asking for the sacraments does so in good faith.’
Presumption, of course, is a sin; a sin that is rampant in the Church of Nice (and Kind, we must add, in deference to Stalinda Ardern - seeing as how our bishops, especially Cardinal John Dew, defer to her.
“This is the line adopted in Amoris Laetitia ... that a Christian can be inculpably ignorant of the basic precepts of the natural law [concerning adultery]: but it’s even worse, since it’s supposedly suicide itself which one can think is legitimate, despite being in a state of grace and having the Holy Spirit enlighten one’s mind – which is madness.”
Sin is not a word they ever use. Just 'Human failings' so that adultary is nothing worse than dropping a cup of milk.
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