PARIS (OSV News) ─ Pope Leo XIV's forceful defense of human life during his Sept. 25-27 visit to France has reignited debate over the country's newly approved assisted-dying law, which lawmakers had largely considered settled after its passage in July.
The pope's words are now interpreted by pro-life movements as a call to protect life despite the new law, which took effect in August.
For Lucie Pacherie, a lawyer and spokesperson for the Jérôme Lejeune Foundation, the pope's words are a "great encouragement to continue raising awareness among the French people that this law is not good, even though it has been passed."
"The pope spoke in extremely firm terms," she told OSV News. "He really made it clear that what is legal is not necessarily moral."
Jerome Trillard, one of the six altar servers with Down syndrome who served papal Mass at Place de la Concorde Sept. 26, told French channel C News that people like him should not be "excluded" from society. "Instead, we need inclusion for people with disabilities," he urged.
The presence of these altar servers at the papal Mass in mainstream television channels and viral papal blessings of the sick and disabled from Paris, through Lourdes to Metz, sent a signal that life is sacred, pro-life advocates and bishops underlined following the trip.
Pope Leo in France: 'What is legal is not necessarily moral'
Pope Leo used his first visit to France to deliver a forceful defense of human life at every stage, condemning abortion, surrogacy and assisted dying while urging lawmakers and caregivers to protect the vulnerable.
At the Élysée Palace in Paris Sept. 25, the pope told French civil authorities that "the protection of the right to life constitutes the indispensable foundation of every other human right," warning against "trends in society that risk turning science and technology into profit-driven ventures promoting genetic manipulation, surrogacy, the trade in human organs or the possibility of arranging one's own death."
The pope called for a conversion of minds and hearts "to welcome life unconditionally, to support frailty with loving care, to accompany every stage of life with respect and mutual trust, and to defend with courage and compassion those unable to make their voices heard and those who feel ignored or overlooked."
Two days later in Lourdes, speaking to patients and caregivers at the Accueil Notre Dame, Pope Leo applied that appeal particularly to those who are sick, elderly or disabled.
"Dear brothers and sisters who are sick, I want to tell you that you are not a burden," he said. "You are the beating heart of our humanity and a precious treasure for the Church."
He rejected the idea that human worth can be determined by utility, technology, or under legal decisions. "No one ever has the right, on the basis of laboratory algorithms, to decide the life of a given embryo or elderly person!" he said. "Medicine must never become the servant of programmed death."
"No human law should ever make you lose the certainty of your dignity," the pope told the sick and disabled. "It is impossible to regard causing death as something normal. What is legal is not necessarily moral."
Pope to critics in France: 'We're applying the Gospel to people's lives'
The papal words caused an avalanche of reactions in France. While his address at the Élysée Palace was considered to be delivered "peacefully," France's top-rated television channel TF1 noted the pope took a "tougher stance" in Lourdes.
"The pope must still respect the laws of our country," Jean-Luc Romero, a former deputy mayor of Paris known for actively campaigning in favor of the assisted-dying law, commented on France Info TV.
Olivier Falorni, who served as the principal architect of the bill on assisted dying while he was a member of parliament opposed any "interference by the Church" in French law, speaking on France Info, a public news radio station.
The pope, asked about the hot button issue on a plane from Metz to Rome, said he "didn't cross" the line of separation between the state and the Church, and encouraged to "read or re-read" his first encyclical "Magnifica Humanitas."
"When it speaks about questions of social doctrine, we're not entering into politics," the pope told journalists. "We're applying the Gospel to people's lives."
While noting there "can be politicians" who say "no, religion should only be in the private sphere. Let people do what they want on their own," the pope underlined, "That is a state."
But in the Church, "we have to be separate," he said.
"I went to France ... primarily to preach the Gospel, to preach the good news, to reaffirm what Jesus Christ himself says when he says: 'I am the way and the truth and the life.'"
The defense of life, the pope said, "is something that, as you all know, the Church teaches and believes very deeply."
While acknowledging laws similar to the French assisted-dying bill are spreading in Europe, Pope Leo said his encounter with the sick in the sanctuary of Lourdes carried a different kind of message.
In Lourdes, he said, people who are sick are "searching for something much deeper," for "understanding that their lives, even in the midst of sickness or disability or pain of different kinds ... has meaning."
The Church, the pope said, "because of Jesus himself, wants to be close to those people and to affirm the values that that life itself ... holds for all of us. So ... I would say if that's politics, I did that, but it was not to get involved in French politics. It was to teach what the Church really believes."
Lejeune Foundation: Pope's affirmation of life not 'too late' even if law passed
Many French journalists and politicians, from all corners of politics, reacted positively to the papal appeals for the protection of life.
French weekly Journal du Dimanche hailed a "vibrant speech against euthanasia." "It is true that the pope sounded the charge against this law," Rokhaya Diallo, a left-wing activist, commented on France Info.
"But this is not just a right-wing opinion." "This issue transcends the left-right divide," she emphasized, referring to the Franco-Chilean lawyer Élisa Rojas, an left-wing activist opposed to euthanasia, who published a book in April titled "To Die, Press One" to oppose this law.
For Pacherie, spokeswoman at the Lejeune Foundation, the remarks of the pope were shaped by the June 22 audience with members of the Lejeune Foundation to mark the centennial of Jérôme Lejeune's birth.
"It was on that very same day that young boys and men with Down syndrome asked the pope if they could serve at his Mass during his visit to France," Pacherie said. When the pope agreed, "it was a beautiful symbol to honor them and bless them in this way on that occasion," Pacherie told OSV News.
The Lejeune Foundation carries on the work of the French scientist, professor of genetics who discovered that an extra chromosome in human DNA causes Down syndrome. What he hoped would be a breakthrough in protecting people with Down syndrome became a reason to eliminate them by abortion. In France, the abortion rate in cases of a prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome is 68%.
"Professor Lejeune understood that while technology can assist medicine, it can never replace it. He also knew that technology can be used against medicine -- which by its very nature is at the service of life -- whenever it escapes essential ethical oversight and is governed instead by calculations of efficiency, profitability, or utility," Pope Leo told Lejeune Foundation representatives on June 22.
"But the value of the human person does not depend on what he or she accomplishes or produces. For this reason, a physician should never be allowed to decide on the life of a particular embryo or a particular elderly person, on the basis of laboratory algorithms! Medicine must never become the servant of programmed death!" Pope Leo added in what was a preludium to the papal address in Acceuil Notre Dame in Lourdes.
Pacherie believes that "the pope's statement has not come too late," even though the law has already been passed."
"On June 22, the pope had already told us that neither he nor the Church as such was in a position to halt the ongoing process that would lead to the passage of this law," she explained.
"Even if he had come to France earlier, he would not have been able to stop this measure, which was orchestrated by activists deeply involved in French politics."
But for Pacherie, "the pope's remarks in Lourdes come at just the right time to ensure we do not give up the fight against these deadly laws."
She said the pope shed a light on people who are fragile and vulnerable in face of legislation and "our task is to continue caring for them, so that they do not have the weight of this law on their shoulders, and to raise awareness among the French public that just because something is legal does not mean it is a good thing."
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Caroline de Sury writes for OSV News from Paris.
