Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - The Italian parliament has just resumed its activity with the debate on what is termed “the biological will”, but which we prefer to call “testament of life”. The debate has reactivated the ballet of balances (or unbalances) between those who consider the present proposed Bill “too clerical” and those who, on the contrary, consider it balanced and sufficiently respectful towards human dignity.
One presupposition, before any other reflection, must be made clear: legislating on life is always extremely complex and sensitive, it can never be subject to political slogans or social emotions. What is more, this normative has become necessary only because of new technical-scientific circumstances permitted by medicine and, above all, because of “tempests of death” which appear to batter our country. Tempests which it is absolutely urgent to calm.
Unless a State wants to become totalitarian, it must accept to be at the service of the individual and the expression of society, therefore never above them, under any circumstance, and always and solely to safeguard the integrity and the dignity of every human being. The State is not the owner of life. Life, for believers is a gift of God and for non believers is and remains, a mystery. Life is “given” by another and no one is the origin or the author of his or her life. In this sense life is absolutely unavailable to any sort of arbitrary power, first of all that of the State.
The only legitimate legislative activity in this sense is what tends towards protecting life, to preserving its absolute and unavailable value, to safeguarding life's dignity and fostering its development, also and indeed, above all, where there are experiences of “wounded life” which, even though unable to fully express itself, is still and always, life.
We, and many others with us, believe that before stopping to show concern for individuals most in need of care, there are many other things which man must stop doing! A society which claims to be civil has the duty and the right to demand that the State, which is society's expression, to legislate always in keeping with the principle of principles “favor vitae”, that life enjoys and is bound to enjoy, the “favour of the law” always and under any circumstances.
Instead of focussing on how to allow in impunity the killing of suffering persons, the Law should focus on providing adequate structures for these persons, providing generous financial support for those who undertake this care, often renouncing a profession or even personal existence: there are fathers and mothers, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters who spend a life time caring for loved ones living in what is termed a “persistent vegetative state” and who are often totally abandoned by that same State more preoccupied with how to 'rid' itself of these problems, humouring a certain nihilist culture, than how to accompany and assist these persons and provide financial support for the necessary implicances.
People capable of taking care of others, others who are suffering and in need, deserve all our attention and all our respect, social, legal and also cultural, because in these persons there vibrate the best of humanity's energies, the best part of the human person: the part which, “forgetful of self”, as Saint Paul would say, is capable of silent and faithful total loving and total giving,.
Let the State then, every State, be simply and solely at the service of life, let it never, not even for its own survival, claim to be the owner of life, because any sane person, when choosing between the State and life, will choose life, always. (Agenzia Fides 10/9/2009, righe 40, parole 572)
