Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois, joined a Lutheran nursing home and four doctors in filing a lawsuit to halt the implementation of the state’s new assisted-suicide law.
“At the heart of the Catholic Church’s healthcare ministry is the healing work of Christ—to stand with the suffering, to comfort the dying, and to affirm the God-given dignity of every human life,” Bishop Paprocki said. “Illinois’s assisted suicide law undermines that mission by forcing Catholic hospitals and those who serve in them to push death onto their most vulnerable patients.”
“We must be free to serve the sick and the dying according to our faith, not according to the state’s mandate,” he added.