Cardinal Pietro Parolin The Vatican is investigating the decision by a group of Belgian psychiatric care centres run by a religious order to allow doctors to perform euthanasia of “nonterminal” mentally ill patients on their premises.
Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican Secretary of State, is personally examining the situation, according to Bro. Rene Stockman, superior general of the Brothers of Charity, who complained directly to the Holy See after the Brothers of Charity Group rejected his formal request that they reverse the new policy.
Expressing a hope that clear directions would come from Belgium’s bishops and the Vatican, he said the new policy could force the brothers from providing psychiatric care in Belgium, where the group – which runs 15 psychiatric care centres – serves 5,000 patients every year and are considered the country’s most important providers of mental health care services.
Patients
The group announced it would allow euthanasia on its premises in a nine-page document in March, about a year after a private Catholic rest home in Diest, Belgium, was fined for refusing the euthanasia of a woman with lung cancer. It is understood that over the past year about 12 of the brothers’ psychiatric patients have asked for euthanasia, with two patients being transferred elsewhere to receive lethal injections.
Observing that for the brothers, in line with Church teaching, “respect of life is absolute and cannot be offered for the autonomy of the patient”, he said, “The whole mentality in Belgium is changing very fast and there is pressure from the government against any refusal of euthanasia.”
