Whoever supports the rights of the workers and the rights of the women must also support the rights of the sick; otherwise they are inconsistent, or worse, hypocritical.
Let us suppose that a boss and a worker agree that the worker will be exploited, harassed, humiliated, left without any protection, in exchange for a starvation wage. Even if the worker agrees, we say that no economic condition, even the most miserable and painful, no motivation whatsoever, justifies the boss in proposing those working conditions or the worker in accepting them. They simply must not do it, we forbid it. We do not care that they have reached an agreement, that both claim to be aware of their choices: we say that it is unjust, it is undignified, they must not do it.
We say this mainly for two reasons. First reason: the worker is subordinate to the employer, lies beneath him; it is not an equal relationship, the worker is not “fully” free. This is how trade unions come into being: they do not leave the individual worker alone but defend him. Second reason: if he accepts those conditions, where do we stop? If tomorrow we begin to remove one protection from some marginal worker in some other remote company, who is next? We are all concerned, because the “crime” does not end between that worker and that boss. If society says that it is right to treat each other this way, to accept those conditions, the “crime” begins to concern all of us. We are all involved.
Well. The Catholic also wants to forbid a sick person, whatever their health condition may be, even the most painful, from making an agreement with a hitman to be killed5. The Church is the “trade union” of the sick, crying out «You must not kill him!». It also does not want what is not dignified to be called dignified6. What is dignified for a human being is to be alive, not to die. Nor does it want people to say that it ends there, because it does not end there. Tomorrow it will be the depressed person who deserves to die, the day after tomorrow it will be the one who coughs too much. Let us say that no one deserves to die, and end the story there.
Now, if a worker has a health problem, whatever it may be, even and especially the most disabling one, I will tell you, even the most permanent one, we want to forbid the boss from firing him on the grounds that he is no longer useful to the company, not productive enough, and probably never will be again; that he has become too great a burden for his colleagues, an obstacle to the fragile economy of the company, which must hire new people and feed many others, first and foremost those who are more productive and have always been punctual at work.
Well. The Catholic also wants to forbid that a hitman kill a sick person, because he is too sick, too costly, too great a burden for his family or for the meager state budget, too sad for a society that already sees so much death on the evening news, so let us at least erase the one we have at home. He also does not want killing people to be called helping. To help a human being means to do what is good for them, killing does not fall under doing people good. Let us say that no one kills anyone else while claiming to do them “good”, and end the story there7.
Now, that same boss as before wants to relocate his production. Over there abroad, work is demeaning, wages are starvation-level, protections are nonexistent, but everyone is fine with it there, no one says a word. Perhaps that boss has not understood: what he is doing is wrong wherever he does it, whatever laws the rulers of some far-off country may decide. The rights of the workers are universal, they do not depend on the laws of states. If there is someone trying to persuade some worker here to go there, because there is work there, a kind of work that kills, we say that that is not work, and no one should go there.
Well. The Catholic also wants to forbid the transporting of sick people to countries where it is not forbidden to hire hitmen to kill people, even if everyone consents and even if democratically elected rulers, supported by the majority there, allow it. Transporting that sick person toward death is not saving, it is not liberating, it is leading to death, that is, killing. It is trafficking in human beings, like those in the Mediterranean, all consenting and paying, of course. And what must the relatives of the many sick people have thought, those with the very same conditions, perhaps from birth, and the sick themselves, silent and without spotlights, without applause, forced to witness those processions of death8? Maybe they thought: “now what are we to do with this unworthy life inside the house?”, “my dear, it seems they all want you to be dead”, “if you kill yourself, it seems they are ready to make you a hero”. Let us agree, then, and decide that from today onward, loving a person and doing them good does not mean killing them, nor having them killed, nor helping them to kill themselves .
It seems like those dysfunctional couples, where he kills her because “he loved her too much”. I love you so much that I take you to get yourself killed. I am so charitable toward the sick that I help kill them. I am the conductor of a train, full of prisoners of pain, who this time paid for their own tickets, I take them to a place where they are killed in silence, “gently”, everything is planned, they are specialists, educated people, they do no harm, promised, they will make you “free”6.
Even feminism, step by step, is coming to realize that in couples even consent is not enough: if a woman is persuaded to be humiliated and raped, in her body and in words, to be constantly mocked and demeaned, and she is fine with it—well, for us she could even put it in writing that she is fine with it, she could even go back a hundred times to the same executioner, she could even say she loves her prison—but it remains a prison. For us it will never be acceptable, she must not do it, and her executioner must be stopped. Today we call it “toxic love”: loving one's own death, one's own poison. It is everywhere. It is undignified, because it is not worthy for anyone to be killed. Love for one's own death is not love. No one can want to die, no one can truly love their own death9. “She was fine with it” will never justify any male murderer.
Drunk on false equality, Wonder Woman and plastic Barbie, we have forgotten a simple fact: the relationship between man and woman is not equal. Woman and man are different, in a relationship the woman pays more for any negative consequence that may occur, and the man always has the knife by the handle. Being blind to this is doing a favor to dragon-like, irresponsible men and doing harm to women, especially the most fragile. Feminists are right about this: there will never be justice as long as even a single woman is abused at home. A consenting couple that harms each other is not something that can end there within the walls of a house; it is a scandal for the whole world. A Catholic says: it is an injustice that cries out before God. It is an offense that rises up to Heaven, that offends our very human nature and concerns all of us.
In an analogous way, the relationship between doctor and patient is not equal: the patient “trusts” the doctor and believes they know less. The patient is suffering, and the consequences on their body and their mind are paid entirely by the patient, certainly not by the doctor who follows to the letter the “perfect” protocol handed to him. If a doctor, after recommending costly and painful life-saving drugs, presents killing oneself as an option, he is imposing a choice. Like the tax evader who offers under-the-table discounts, or the loan shark who lends money to those who are starving. No one should kill someone who asks to be killed, under any condition, even if they beg on their knees and weep. And if the doctor then becomes a hitman and a law allows him to kill his own patient, it does not end there within the walls of that hospital, but concerns all of us, sick and healthy alike. The next ones to be gotten rid of in hospital corridors will be us.
To sum up. There is no such thing as a boss mistreating a worker, even if they both agree. There is no such thing as a man treating a woman with violence, or humiliating her, or mocking her, even if they are together by choice. There is no such thing as a hitman killing a sick person, even if they both agree. We do not care at all about signatures, marriage contracts, letters of employment, or premeditated wishes written down to be killed by a hitman. What is being done is unjust, undignified, and must not be done, even if chosen and sealed in a written agreement. It must not be done out of respect for our dignity and in defense of everyone, especially the weakest, the least protected, and the most easily manipulated. Who thinks of them? We do.
In fact, we all say that every sick person is worthy of care, even free care10, every life is worthy of being defended, up to the very end11, but then if your suffering exceeds a certain threshold that someone has decided at a desk, or if your illness has never been cured so far by anyone, then your life potentially is no longer worthy of being lived, if you want, we can even kill you, none of us seems to think it makes much difference; on the contrary, there is someone willing to help you get out of the way, some are even ready to applaud you for this great act of freedom. It seems to be implied that the lives truly worthy of being lived are only those of people who are productive, who jump around, sing well, are always cheerful, and are successful. If you find yourself in a wheelchair, lose your voice, or are always depressed, or worse still, you bear the stain of depending on someone else, you are not 100% autonomous like an autarky, well, in the end your life is not all that great, it is not worth that much; if you want, you can even die, there is already someone who will help you kill yourself: “we are civilized people, after all”.
Thus the perimeter of human dignity is reduced, and the Devil calls this the new dignity6: the denial of dignity, the loss of the dignity that we all once had, especially the most disadvantaged. Now you are worthy only if you are well. It is like saying that all women must be defended and protected, and then forgetting foreign women who are not integrated, who do not even know whom to ask for help. It is like saying that all workers must be defended, and forgetting undocumented immigrants or the most subjugated people, who think they deserve to be mistreated. No, the exact opposite: to truly protect everyone, the one at the extreme margin must be defended, the most disadvantaged of all must be protected. The tiny, sick child who has not yet been born. The suffering elderly person who has now lost all hope11. It is far too easy to defend life only when it is perfect and shining. That is why God went to the very bottom, descended into Hell, to truly save everyone, with no one excluded. Thanks be to God, the Devil has been defeated forever12, his lies are worth nothing anymore, unless we remain attached to them.
Finally, playing the hero does not mean killing oneself to show how cruel the world is, how unjust God is. Burning oneself in a public square may make the fortune of some photographer, committing suicide in public may feed the hunger of some journalist, but it will never remove the doubt that, in secret, they loved death. To be heroes is to think of life and of others even when death and personal pain have conquered every corner of one's existence. It is Jesus on the Cross13, gasping, “abandoned” by the Father, who prays for the forgiveness of his executioners, gives his Spirit, pours out his blood, and gives eternal life to all of us. The true heroes are the Saints, who on their deathbeds filled this world with life and hope, often more than when they were healthy14. They did not advertise death, but life —abundant, joyful, and shared—, as Jesus Christ taught us in the Gospels.
To conclude. Whoever supports the rights of the workers and the rights of the women must also supportthe rights of the sick, otherwise they are inconsistent, or worse, hypocritical.
This post is dedicated to the elderly who are alone and to the sick who have now lost hope. May the prayers of Mary bring them comfort, and may the light of Jesus illuminate their lives. May Saint Michael the Archangel protect their minds from every dark temptation. May God remind them that there are no lives more or less worthy of being lived: we are all loved by the Lord.
- About abortion
- From the Prologue of Saint John the Apostle on the Son: “In the beginning was the Word [or Logos], and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John 1:1).
- The testimony of the arrival of three “Magi” at the court of the New King —the stable of the Child Jesus, the new “Solomon” (Matthew 12:42), with his Throne, the manger, or the hug of Mary— is contained in the second chapter of Matthew: Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of King Herod, behold, Magi from the East came to Jerusalem (Matthew 2:1). The original Greek word is “magos”, from which magiciansis derived, but a good translation for the period is “wise men”. That they were kings, probably from Arabia, comes from the prophecy in Psalm 72:10-11, to which Saint Matthew seems to allude; that they were threecomes from the three gifts mentioned in the Gospel: And going into the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. (Matthew 2:11); Catholic tradition understands these as being connected respectively to the kingship of Christ, to his divinity, and to his suffering humanity on the Cross (since myrrh is an ointment for burial).
- Following in the footsteps of an Italian singer-songwriterlink, who is also appreciated by the “educated” and by those who like to strike a pose, we would say: never believe in a God of the wise. The God revealed by Jesus speaks to children (Luke 18:16) just as he does to the most erudite in the Temple (Luke 2:46-47); he does not require degrees in order to be understood, but an open heart (Matthew 11:25); he does not speak in cryptic and secret messages so as not to be understood, but reveals everything to whoever wishes to listen (Luke 8:10). Indeed, he reveals even more to thepoor in spirit, who have fewer obstacles in their ears, and in their pockets (Matthew 5:3). As another Italian singer-songwriter suggestslink to a “very seriously ill young man”, advised by “scholars, doctors, and wise men” to consider himself “already dead”, we too advise, at the very first hints of suggestions of suicide, to “get up and run away, before it ends badly”, “run, run, run!”. As Saint Paul teaches, the scandalous Crucifixion of God has destroyed “the wisdom of the wise and the intelligence of the intelligent” through “the foolishness of preaching” (1 Corinthians 1:19-20), or as Mary proclaims, “he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts” (Luke 1:51).
- Throughout the article we deliberately do not draw much distinction betweenassisted suicide and euthanasia, which from a legalistic point of view correspond to the indirect or direct killing of a consenting sick person. Christianity looks more to the spirit than to form, and both have the same spirit of death behind them. Indeed, assisted suicide has that hypocritical washing of hands of Pontius Pilate, who hands over the cross and the scourge to others in order not to dirty his own hands, which almost worsens the moral profile of the act.Here we wanted to use the same clear and precise language introduced by Pope Francis when speaking about doctors who, instead of caring for human beings, kill them, in abortion as well as in euthanasia: “I ask you: is it right to ‘do away with’ a human life in order to solve a problem? Is it right to hire a hit man in order to solve a problem? No, it cannot be done, it is not right”. And again, in very clear terms: “A sick child is like any other needy person on earth, like an elderly person who needs assistance, like many poor people who struggle to get by. He or she who is seen as a problem is in reality a gift from God that can save me from egocentrism and help me to grow in love.” May he rest in peace. Here is the full text of the 2018 audience.
- A well-known characteristic of the Devil is that of calling things by their opposite, overturning the definitions of words (Isaiah 5:20): from the very Beginning, he called the imprisonment of sin freedom, ignorance of God knowledge, and the true words of God falsehood (Genesis 2). In our case, we have begun to call worthy what is not worthy for a human being at all, namely, being killed by another human being, or being helped by someone else to kill oneself. It is no coincidence that “Dignitas”link is the name of the largest association that helps to kill people in distress who ask to be killed —or to kill themselves— operating freely in Switzerland for far too many years.In a similar way, it is no longer even considered correct to say “to kill”, one must say “to liberate”, as if life were a prison and being dead were true freedom, echoing the sadistic motto of the Nazi labor campslink. Christian symbolism —and plain common sense— regards sin, and therefore death, as a prison to be avoided, and a life dedicated to God as the highest degree of freedom. The Nazi camps expose the lie: if life seems like a concentration camp, the solution is to get out of the concentration camp, not to dive into the gas chambers; it is to have faith that a liberator will arrive, sooner or later, and to find glimmers of life in the small gestures of love that are still and always possible even inside a camp. Father Maximilian Kolbe is a perfect example of a Saint who brought life and love even into the most atrocious darkness of the Auschwitz camplink: he was martyred in order to save the life of another prisoner, who was weeping to see his wife and his two children at home again.
- We want to shore up every passage against the lies that circulate about the Catholic Church, in particular those tied to its position on the death penalty. Even when it was admitted with many cautions in pre-2018 Catechisms, it was never seen as a means to “save” or “do good” to the condemned person, because death does not automatically save anyone. It was permitted mainly as an “extreme measure” to limit harm to the common good, especially in historical periods when imprisonment was not considered possible. One can instead argue that Christianity, by placing forgiveness and the dignity of the person at the center, was a driving force —if not the triggering cause— of the gradual abolition of the death penalty throughout the world, especially from the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) onwardsource.
As for the use of torture and violence as a means of “conversion” or forcing “repentance”, this has always been against the Gospel. Pope John Paul II publicly condemned this historical practice, which had its darkest page in the period of the Inquisitionlink. It is a useless practice, as well as unjust and cruel: Saint Peter, who used the sword to defend Jesus from death, ended up making a Jewish servant deaf in one ear; Jesus rebuked him and healed the wounded servant’s ear (John 18:10–11). Condemnations of do-it-yourself justice, threats used to convert, and conversion detached from Grace run throughout the entire New Testament (Matthew 26:52; Luke 9:54–55; John 18:36; Romans 12:17–19). From the Old Testament: “I take no pleasure in the death of the sinner, but rather that they turn from their ways and live.” (Ezekiel 33:11). - Here our doubts concern the actions (so far always legal) of the Luca Coscioni Associationlink, which for years has been active in transporting sick people from Italy to countries where the killing of a consenting person or assistance in suicide is legal, first and foremost neighboring Switzerland.The Association is part of the author's conversion, because by taking part in one of its demonstrations in 2018 he realized that something was not right: standing on Piergiorgio Welby Garden (the association's second president, who died by suicide), with the beautiful Basilica of Saint John Bosco in the background, an actor read aloud the letter of a terminally ill person which, at its climax, contained a blasphemy that echoed through the square at night, crowded with people, comparing God to a Nazi kapo. There I decided to believe in other gods, more true and less resentful.
- No one can truly love death, but some believe they manage to do so. It is often, in reality, a misguided and useless way to exorcise it: to surround oneself with skulls, dust, monsters, and everything that is ugly and decaying, with the pretense that in the long run one will feel at ease.It will never happen —we may pretend and fool ourselves into thinking it is beautiful, but it is not— because each one of us is destined for eternal life, for Love, to long for the Light, which is God. An equally foolish and widespread way of dealing with the problem of death in a do-it-yourselfmanner is to pretend it does not exist: to clean every trace of dust in one's house, to shower twice a day, to keep everything orderly and shining in one's life. God is the only one who offers —and can offer— a way out of all thismodern madness, through the perfect Sacrifice of the Cross. What is beautiful about the Cross is not the death of God, which is horrible and obscene and displeases us, but the Love of God that towers over it and conquers it, invades it, overwhelms it with the Hope and the joy of the Resurrection, forever.
- The free healthcare envisioned by Catholics closely resembles what Saint José Gregorio Hernándezlink, the Venezuelan “doctor of the poor”, beatified in 2025, actually did: he studied in Europe, became a professor and a successful physician, and then began to care for the poor in the shantytowns of Caracas and to buy expensive medicines for them, even before public healthcare was established in the country. The Church, in fact, does not condemn in itself either wealth, or property, or knowledge; it condemns them when they are kept only for oneself and not given to one's neighbor, when they are pursued as an ultimate goal and not as a means to serve others, especially the most disadvantaged (CCC 2402–2405).
- We quickly refute the lie that portrays the Catholic Church as being in favor of therapeutic obstinacy. Quite the opposite, as usual. “Discontinuing medical procedures that areburdensome, dangerous, extraordinary, or disproportionate to the expected outcome can be legitimate; it is the refusal of "over-zealous" treatment. Here one does not will to cause death; one's inability to impede it is merely accepted.” (CCC 2278).Among the biblical prayers still celebrated today by the Catholic Church is the Nunc dimittislink (from Luke 2), in which Simeon asks God for leave from earthly life, after having held in his arms and seen with his own eyes the promised Savior. Many saints prayed in a similar way, among them Saint Francis (“our sister bodily Death” link) and Padre Pio (“My God! When will I die?” link). Obviously, the desire was never for death itself, but for the final reunion with God, the source of eternal life.
- Even some Catholics forget it from time to time, and it is always worth recalling it and keeping it in mind: death will not be defeated, it has already been defeated. Death, even today, is defeated. Death has already lost. Jesus has conquered it, has subdued it forever, placing his foot upon it, through his act of immense love: giving his life for a friend, doing the will of God who loves all of us. The head of the serpent, who wants us all miserable, dead, and far from God, has already been crushed by a woman who, in faith, said yes to all this. Cheering for death is not cheering for a team that will lose, but for one that has already lost: besides being wrong, it is useless. It is a self-condemnation. It is standing on the side of losers who have already lost: there is nothing more foolish and destructive. Our life is a saying yes to the saving plan of God, to the God who saves; it is aligning oneself with the victorious Christ, as Mary did, in faith. It is to say:«Yes, Jesus, let what you will be done in me, because I know that you want my good, because you are the Good, receive me into your eternal glory».
- There is a subtle lie that portrays Christian martyrs as suicides, including Jesus, the first Martyr, who supposedly “brought it upon himself”. A good opportunity to discredit it. Nothing could be further from the truth. Jesus prays to the point of exhaustion to be spared his Cross at Gethsemane (Luke 22:42-44). Concerning Judas, who committed a “conscious” suicide, the Scriptures spare no strong words (Acts 1:16-20; Mark 14:21; John 6:70-71). The holy martyrs loved Life first and foremost, who is Jesus Christ, in the faith that there is no one more alive, because closer to God, than the one who sacrifices his life out of love for others. Jesus loved to do the will of the Father and to speak the Truth, including saying that he was the Son of God, and he was killed for that. Mary dedicated her life to being the Mother of God, and she is now alive in Heaven. Saint Peter and Saint Paul spread the Word of God among the Gentiles, and they paid the consequences. For the Christian, dying for others is never an end in itself and is never detached from the will of God. The Cross thus becomes the greatest celebration of Life and Love, the definitive victory over death. Evil no longer has weapons in the face of the perfect Sacrifice of God, who raises up what death wanted buried. The Saints simply believed Jesus, who promised: “whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 10:39).
- A list of great Saints who gave the world almost more while sick than while healthy, who truly discovered themselves in illness: Saint Carlo Acutis, the young millennial saint who brought joy, light, and wonder to the corridors of the Monza hospitallink; Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, recognized as a Doctor of the Church for her works written during illness, little more than twenty years old; Saint John Paul II, who transformed his pontificate as a sick man into a living catechesis; Saint Teresa of Ávila, ill, exhausted, and confined to bed, and yet it was her nuns, together with lines of pilgrims, who came to her to ask for help.