ROME – Although the issue of migration was front and centre during his overnight visit to Marseille, Pope Francis sent another strong message to secular Europe, offering a clear condemnation of the widespread practices of abortion and euthanasia.
Francis, who has repeatedly referred to abortion and euthanasia as byproducts of what he has dubbed a “culture of waste”, travelled to Marseille from Sept. 22-23 to attend the third edition of the Rencontres Méditerranéennes, or “Mediterranean Meetings”.
The gathering drew some 120 church leaders and young people from various countries and confessions throughout the Mediterranean to discuss current major regional challenges, including climate, migration, economic and political challenges, and violent conflict.
Throughout his visit, the pope advocated for a policy of welcome when it comes to the migration issue, condemning countries that punish rescue vessels or turn migrants back and urging Europe to avoid “alarmist propaganda” which describes migrant arrivals as an “invasion” or an “emergency”.
Rather, he said migration is a long-term reality Europe must learn to cope with in a “capable” way and urged EU leaders to come up with an “equitable” reception and distribution plan based on each country’s capacity.
In Marseille, the pope used some of his boldest language yet in addressing the migration issue, and he offered some of his strongest challenges to date on the closed-door policies of some EU leaders.
Yet apart from migration, he also offered some of the strongest public remarks of his papacy on life issues, criticising growing European secularism and offering pointed condemnations of the practices of abortion and euthanasia.
For Pope Francis, migration since the beginning has been a hallmark of his papacy, alongside other traditionally progressive concerns, such as the environment.
He has been criticised by conservative church camps for not speaking out more on life issues and questions of sexual morality, and he has drawn the ire of pro-life communities through comments such as his remark on his return flight from the Philippines in 2015 that couples need not procreate “like rabbits”.
Close aides have consistently argued that migration is part of the church’s pro-life stance, and that abortion is not the only pro-life issue that needs attention, however, Francis has still received pressure to offer more than passing condemnations of the practice.
Though he has criticised European secularism in the past and has likened abortion to hiring “a hitman” while referring to euthanasia as a “disposal” of the elderly, the pope in Marseille made the defense of life one of his primary messages.
On Saturday, he used a lengthy keynote speech at the closing session of the Rencontres Méditerranéennes to again voice concern over Europe’s falling birthrate and the underlying causes, saying, “Who cares for the frightened families, afraid of the future and of bringing children into the world?”
On euthanasia, he said, “Who listens to the groaning of our isolated elderly brothers and sisters, who, instead of being appreciated, are pushed aside, under the false pretenses of a supposedly dignified and ‘sweet’ death that is more ‘salty’ than the waters of the sea?”
“Who thinks of the unborn children, rejected in the name of a false right to progress, which is instead a retreat into the selfish needs of the individual?” he said, referring to abortion.
Though recently outlawed at the federal level in the United States with the overturning of the landmark ruling of Roe v Wade, abortion is considered common practice throughout much of Europe, and the list of countries legalising euthanasia and assisted suicide is growing.
Pope Francis engaged the issues again during his closing Mass in Marseille, saying human life is often discarded, not only in the “rejection of many immigrants”, but also in “countless unborn children and abandoned elderly people,” he said.
He advocated for Christians to have hearts of joy, as opposed to “a flat, cold heart, accustomed to the quiet life, which is encased in indifference and becomes impermeable…becomes hardened and insensitive to everything and everyone, even to the tragic discarding of human life”.
On his return flight from Marseille to Rome, Francis was asked about a controversial law France is preparing to consider on euthanasia, and whether he had touched on the legislation during his private conversation with French President Emmanuel Macron earlier that day.
Macron is expected to present an end-of-life bill soon, which most observers believe will contain provisions for “active aid” in aiding people who request it to die. Current law only allows “deep sedation” to comfort people near death who are in pain, yet opinion polls show a narrow majority in favour of some form of assisted suicide.
Details of the proposed legislation have not been revealed, and French media reported that Macron deliberately withheld bringing it forward until after the pope’s visit to Marseille.
In his response to the question, Pope Francis said he and Macron had not discussed the issue of euthanasia that day but had spoken of it during one of Macron’s three previous visits to the Vatican.
On one of those occasions, the pope said “I told him my view, clearly, [that] you don’t play with life, not at the beginning, and not at the end. You don’t play with it.”
“It’s not just my opinion, it’s safeguarding life, because then, you end up with the politics of non-pain, a humanistic euthanasia,” he said, and again referenced a 1903 futuristic romance novel titled “The Lord of the World” by a British convert to Catholicism which, Francis said, depicts “how things will be in the end. It takes away the differences of everyone, and also, they take pain, etc., and euthanasia is one of these things”.
“Sweet death, selection before birth. This shows how this man saw current conflicts,” the pope said, urging society to “be attentive to ideological colonisation that ruins human life and goes against human life.”
He also spoke of the plight of many elderly people who are lonely or abandoned, saying, “Today the lives of the elderly are cancelled”, as they are seen as “old” and “useless”.
“You don’t mess with life…whether it’s a law that prohibits a child from growing in the womb” or euthanasia, he said, describing euthanasia as a form of “bad compassion” and saying to care for someone in suffering and near death is “something human”.
Francis engaged life issues in Marseille in a way that he rarely does during an international trip. While there are often one or two references, he has rarely taken as direct an aim as he did during his two-day visit.
During a visit to Hungary earlier this year, for example, Pope Francis was clear in praising the country’s traditional values, using his speech to authorities to criticise the rise of populism and a sense of “supranationalism” which he said loses sight of the people and seeks to cancel out differences through the “ideological colonisation” of trends such as gender theory and abortion.
Though “vaunted as progress”, the so-called right to abortion is “always a tragic defeat”, he said, but otherwise did not engage life issues.
(A baby is held up to Pope Francis as he arrives at the Velodrome stadium in his popemobile for a Mass in Marseille on September 23, 2023 | SEBASTIEN NOGIER/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
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