ROME – Two days after the Italian region centered on the city of Venice narrowly failed to adopt a law liberalizing physician-assisted suicide, Pope Francis announced that Italy’s most prominent pro-life leader, who had been the bill’s chief critic, I met with the instructor.
Given that Massimo Gandolfini, the founder of Italy’s Family Day movement, is routinely described as “ultra-conservative” in the Italian press, the fact that he was warmly received by Francisco is Despite the Pope’s reputation as a progressive, he is nonetheless capable of surprisingly traditional thinking on issues such as abortion, assisted suicide, and “gender theory.”
The match took place immediately after the result in Italy’s Veneto region.
After a marathon debate on January 16, local councils voted in a 25-25 tie to require medical institutions to evaluate patient requests for physician-assisted suicide within 20 days. As a result, the bill was not passed and was sent back to Veneto’s health committee for further consideration, although most experts believe it is unlikely to be voted on again in the near future.
The proposal was supported by the center-left Veneto government on the grounds that it would streamline a chaotic bureaucratic situation since a 2019 ruling by Italy’s Constitutional Court decriminalizing assisted suicide in certain circumstances.
However, as there is no law governing how approvals are granted at national or local level, many patients seeking this procedure encounter significant bureaucratic delays and end up traveling to neighboring Switzerland. Some patients end their lives there.
In a newspaper column ahead of the vote, Gandolfini called the proposal “totally inhuman” and a victory for what Pope Francis calls a “throwaway culture.”
“It is necessary to highlight the utter inhumanity (and disrespect) of the proposed assisted suicide law, which virtually ignores palliative care,” Gandolfini wrote.
“The reaction when faced with a situation of pain, suffering, and loneliness that clouds all hope so much as to evoke death is social apathy, abandonment, and the physical removal of the problem, hidden behind the most shameful alibis. ‘He asked for it!’
“If a law is approved that promotes the absurdity of the right to die, it is surely the weakest, most vulnerable, and loneliest who will pay the price. We will quickly move from individually requested death to state-determined death, as has already happened in all states that have enacted legislation,” Gandolfini said.
In the aftermath of the vote, Gandolfini met with Pope Francis at the Vatican on Thursday, where he said the pontiff was well aware of the results in Veneto.
“He was happy and thanked me again,” Gandolfini said.
Gandolfini said the pope was “very affectionate” during their meeting and responded positively when he asked Francis for his blessing ahead of the next Family Day gathering in Rome in March. He said he showed it.
Gandolfini, now 72 years old, is a neurosurgeon who lives in the Italian city of Brescia. Gandolfini, a devout Catholic and member of the Neocatechumens, was one of the first doctors in Italy to declare conscientious objection after abortion was legalized there in 1978, and he Life’s first experience as a public leader of emotions came three years ago. Then a referendum campaign to overturn his 1978 law, known as “Act 194,” ultimately failed.
The Gandolfinis, who married in 1977, have seven adopted children. One is Peruvian, two are Brazilian, and the remaining four are Italian. He also served as a consultant to the Vatican’s Congregation for Saints, providing medical analysis of purported miraculous cures in saint cases.
The first Family Day gatherings in Italy were held in 2015 and 2016, but at the time there were mixed opinions from Italian bishops about the extent to which the initiative received official church support. . Nevertheless, Gandolfini continued his advance, gradually winning gestures of approval from both the Vatican and the leadership of the Italian Congress.
One sign of the rallies’ influence is that a highly rated Italian TV show aired a series of semi-satirical episodes titled “Family Day vs. Gay Pride,” portraying the former as pro-life and culturally conservative gay It was made to look like something equivalent to pride. movement.