Pope Francis says medically-assisted dying is ‘false compassion’

Pope Leo XIV on Sunday blasted the legalization of medically assisted death as immoral “false compassion,” as he doubled down on Catholic teaching about life during a visit Sunday to Lourdes, the French Catholic shrine associated with miraculous cures of the sick. On his third day in France, Leo again waded into the end-of-life debate that has erupted in countries around the world. It roiled French politics for years before resulting recently in legislation allowing adults with incurable illnesses to receive lethal medication.Leo’s visit to the once staunchly Catholic and officially secular France has been marked by huge crowds — 800,000 at Leo’s Mass on Paris’ iconic Place de la Concorde — and his messaging against abortion and assisted dying.On Sunday, the American pope celebrated Mass before some 150,000 people — many in wheelchairs — on the prairie next to Lourdes’ main basilica. He then visited a care center for sick people on the sanctuary’s grounds. He sought to encourage especially those who live in “terrible pain” that they have inherent dignity that no law or algorithm can “eliminate.” Story continues below advertisement “On the contrary, it is precisely in the name of th...