Following up on an article I posted earlier, the Belgian Brothers of Charity are insisting they will keep allowing euthanasia at their hospitals despite the Vatican’s order to reverse their policy.
The Brothers of Charity Group “continues to stand by its vision statement on euthanasia for mental suffering in a non-terminal situation,” its statement said.
The Group now faces possible canonical action, including potential excommunication from the Church, unless it complies.
The Board of Trustees for the Catholic charity said in April it would permit euthanasia to non-terminally-ill psychiatric patients who request it in the 15 psychiatric hospitals that it operates serving some 5,000 patients in its Belgian region.
The Board’s September 12 statement defending the policy allowing euthanasia for non-terminally ill psychiatric patients also said the Brothers of Charity “emphatically believe” the practice is compatible with Catholic teaching.
Euthanasia has been legal in Belgium since 2002. It is already being committed on psychiatric patients there, and nursing homes and hospitals resisting euthanasia have been under pressure since a court fined a Catholic nursing home €6,000 last year for preventing a resident from accessing euthanasia.
After the Board of Trustees April announcement allowing euthanasia in its facilities, the Superior General of the Brothers of Charity, Brother René Stockman, informed the entire Congregation that the Board’s decision violated the Order’s charism and was unacceptable.
The Board is made up mostly of lay people and is connected to the Brothers of Charity religious congregation though it is still separate.
Brother Stockman also notified the Belgian Bishops Conference, Belgium’s Papal Nuncio and the Vatican regarding the Board’s contravening Church teaching on euthanasia.
Pope Francis gave the Brothers of Charity until the end of August to stop making euthanasia available to psychiatric patients.
Brothers who serve on the Board of the Brothers of Charity Group were to each sign a joint letter to their superior general affirming they "fully support the vision of the magisterium of the Catholic Church, which has always confirmed that human life must be respected and protected in absolute terms, from the moment of conception till its natural end."
Brothers refusing to sign the letter are supposed to face canonical sanctions, according to the decree approved by Pope Francis, and the Brothers of Charity Group could face legal action up to and including being expelled from the Church if it fails to change the policy.
Now, we shall see what the Holy Father’s response to this latest intransigence will be.
We pray that it will be swift and proportionate to the evil the Belgian Brothers of Charity is perpetuating by their hard-heartedness.
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