The bill follows on the heels of two regions, Tuscany and Sardinia, regulating assisted suicide in 2025.
A Constitutional Court decriminalized assisted suicide under a set of narrow conditions in Italy in 2019, but has urged Parliament to legislate on the practice. If Parliament passes this bill, a national law would be put into place.
Fighting for life
Cardinal Zuppi unequivocally stated the pro-life position in an address to the CEI, affirming:
Human dignity is not measured by its efficiency or usefulness. Life always has value, despite illness, frailty, and limitations. The answer to suffering is not to offer death, but to guarantee forms of social support, continuous health care, and home health care, so that the patient does not feel alone and families can be supported and accompanied.
He expressed concern that individuals could choose to end their lives because they are “convinced that they have become a burden to their families and to society as a whole, deciding to step aside prematurely.”
Indeed, he countered the idea that assisted suicide only affects the person choosing to end their own life, “but profoundly impacts the fabric of relationships that constitute the community.”
Taking action
He reminded his fellow bishops that a person’s choice to end their life, especially when they are weak, may depend on the amount of support that they are given.
We must choose and strengthen, at the national level, interventions that best protect life, promote support and care during illness, and support families in times of suffering.
In addition to a personal support network for the elderly or vulnerable, Cardinal Zuppi also emphasized the importance of palliative care, which is specialized medical care that seeks to improve quality of life, not end it.
Palliative care — which must be guaranteed to all, regardless of social or geographic distinctions, yet is not implemented — represents a true antidote to the logic that considers assisted suicide or euthanasia as viable options.
Cardinal Zuppi particularly called for Christian communities to step up and reach out to people experiencing this end-of-life stage, treating them with true charity.