“We are talking here about a fundamental shift in our understanding of life,” Archbishop Eamon Martin of Armagh told The Tablet.
Labour MP Kim Leadbeater’s Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill makes it legal for people over 18 who are terminally ill and have less than six months to live to be given assistance to end their own life with medical help.
A total of 330 MPs voted in favour of the bill at the end of November with 275 against.
Many MPS expressed concern that there wasn’t enough time to consider the bill before voting.
In Northern Ireland, assisted dying is a devolved matter for the politicians in Stormont to decide. There is currently no bill before Northern Ireland’s politicians on assisted dying, but the Westminster vote could increase pressure on the Stormont Assembly to address the matter.
South of the border, the politicians in the Dáil (Irish parliament) voted in favour of the final report by the Special Oireachtas Joint Committee on Assisted Dying which recommended legalising assisted dying in certain restricted circumstances.
A total of 76 TDs (Irish MPs) voted in favour of the report, with 53 TDs voting against it.
However, the vote will not change the law in Ireland and there has been a general election in the meantime, so it remains unclear as to whether there will be a push to implement the report’s recommendations.
Referring to the prevalence of suicide and how “huge efforts” are being made “to try to prevent people feeling despair and feeling that they have no other choice but to take their own lives”, Archbishop Martin said, “I find a profound contradiction between that and the idea of assisting somebody to take their own life at any stage during their life.”
He noted that fears and concerns regarding the introduction of assisted suicide were voiced to some extent during the lead up period to the Westminster vote.
“In Ireland we need a very careful reflection on this.” He expressed disappointment that the Dáil “seemed to be rushing to adopt what we [the Irish bishops] believe was a flawed report of the Oireachtas Committee just before it broke up for the election.”
“It gave me some consolation to see that none of the parties appeared to be making the introduction of assisted dying in Ireland a manifesto issue and therefore I feel that none of the parties have actually a mandate now to proceed on this issue.”
“I really do feel that our concerns about the slippery slope, how this issue invariably gets expanded and increased as time goes on, which we see from other countries, is something we should reflect long and hard about.”
On the issue of abortion, which Ireland introduced in 2019 after a referendum in 2018, the Primate of All Ireland said, “The introduction of abortion in Ireland gives me great pain and I think a lot of people who are pro-life feel that their fears have been fulfilled in that there have been tens of thousands of abortions in Ireland in such a short period; yet there seems to be so little public discourse about this.”
“There seems to be so little recognition that every time a life like that is lost, it is regrettable.”
“It is really saddening to see that our society seems to be pushing for more abortion rather than reflecting on what are we doing in a country where we need young people, we need children to be born, we need the joy of new life so that we can even have a successful and prosperous country into the future.”
“I’m afraid that if we now bookend the whole issue of life with the destruction of human life before birth and the destruction of human life at the end of life, or in cases of disability, or in cases where people are struggling, that will have a profound impact on the kind of culture that we have in this country. We should be expanding our energies and developing a culture of life rather than a culture of death.”
Speaking about Christmas, Archbishop Martin described it was “a beautiful time of the year” and an opportunity to “speak to people who are pausing in their hectic lives for a few days to be with family, to be at home, and to reflect on how 2024 has gone and how the new year will go”.
“My message for Christmas will be very much a message of hope, chiming with the Jubilee Year of Hope which Pope Francis will be launching on Christmas Eve, and which all the bishops in Ireland will be launching in their own dioceses on the weekend after Christmas, the weekend of the Holy Family.”
“There couldn’t be a better time to have a jubilee year of hope because we only have to turn on the television and look at the news, both internationally and indeed also the news on this island, to see that we are living in a world of huge amount of violence, war, aggression.”
“We are living in a world of the displacement of people, families on the borderline of survival in many parts of the world, from Gaza to Sudan, Myanmar, Ukraine, all of these places where we see the worst of humanity.”
“And yet the message of hope encourages us to remind ourselves that we are basically good people, that we have a lot of opportunities to bring joy, to build peace, to show harmony and love.”
“The Christian message of Christmas and the incarnation is really about God breaking into the destruction of the world and injecting love, faith and hope.”
Christmas, Archbishop Martin said, is “one of those times when the majority of people reflect on God, reflect on their own faith, and even those who are perhaps not practicing their faith during the year will make a special effort at Christmas time”.
“It is interesting that people equate, in many ways, faith and religion and prayer with family and upbringing.”
“I think it is a beautiful time, and one of the things that gives great joy to myself and to all priests and indeed ministers of religion in all denominations, is to see young people, to see families who are making a special effort to give some time to God during the Christmas season.”
He paid tribute to so many people who at Christmas time draw on the best of themselves.
“They reach out to neighbours. There is a huge outpouring of love, generosity and charity towards the poor, for example, through the collections for St Vincent de Paul Society, Crosscare and so many local initiatives – where people are bringing food to food banks, where they are buying an extra gift and putting it into their local supermarket or parish centre for somebody who is without hope and love this Christmas.”
“I think it is a message, again, of the basic goodness of humanity, which we need reminding about at this time of the year.”
Encouraging people to come to church this Christmas, the Archbishop of Armagh told the Tablet, “I think that when they do come there, in the Word of God, in the beautiful Christmas carols, in the sense of being together with others, I think that is really good for people. It is good for their health; it is good for their mental health, and it is good for their family relationships to be together.”
“I would certainly encourage families, particularly with young children, to bring them to their local church or parish to visit the Christmas crib; it is something which a lot of us did when we were children with our parents or grandparents. Explain to them the beautiful, positive, loving message of Christmas – that God loves each one of us. We need to remind ourselves of God’s love, especially nowadays.”