Monsignor Renzo Pegoraro, President of the Pontifical Academy for Life, discussed the law on assisted suicide approved last Wednesday by the Veneto Regional Council in an interview published in Avvenire on September 6. A native of Padua, Pegoraro follows the matter with particular personal engagement, offering an analysis that intertwines law, bioethics, medicine, and anthropology.

Decriminalization, not a right

The first point Pegoraro wishes to clarify is both terminological and legal: In Italy, aiding suicide remains a crime that has never been removed from the Penal Code. Constitutional Court Ruling 242/19 merely decriminalized certain very specific instances of the act, while calling for intervention by the national legislature. Within this framework, regions can, at most, regulate a procedure; they cannot create a new right. For this reason, in his view, Veneto should have taken more time, listening more carefully to the local entities involved in patient care and the operation of the palliative care network. Haste, he notes, “is never a good counselor” when dealing with the very meaning of life.

Nevertheless, Pegoraro acknowledges a positive element in the Veneto legislation: the requirement for public authorities to guarantee a pathway involving palliative care, psychological support, and information about organizations that protect life — a provision that, if implemented effectively, could help those requesting the procedure to choose, instead, to continue living.

Wounded human closeness

When asked about the words of the Patriarch of Venice, Francesco Moraglia — who stated that the law had wounded “a certain model of human closeness” — Pegoraro links the concept to the Gospel compassion of the Good Samaritan: drawing near to those who suffer, staying by their side, and leaving no one alone. He recounts how, in the Veneto region, some individuals who had initially requested the procedure later chose to continue their treatment, thanks to counseling and support programs that enabled them to face their illness to the very end, accepting death without actively bringing it about. The deeper issue, he observes, is not the law itself but the risk that society as a whole might lose this model of closeness, succumbing to what he — echoing Saint Paul — calls “the mentality of this world.”

Medicine cannot become a science of death

When asked whether the debate on assisted suicide risks altering the very concept of medicine, Pegoraro answers unequivocally: no vision of medical science can conceive of it as a science in the service of death. In extreme cases, one can speak only of “letting die” — avoiding futile medical intervention — rather than actively causing death. He then touches upon a broader theme, also addressed by Pope Francis and Pope Leo XIV: We live in what he terms a “throwaway society,” where the value of life is diminished on multiple levels — from birth rates to the reception of migrants, and from the plight of the elderly to the vulnerability of the young. In this context, he argues, the seriously ill are at greater risk, because their need for care requires a frenetic society to pause and invest time and resources. Authentic medicine, even when it can no longer cure, must continue to care.

A national law, but with caution

Regarding the need for a national law on end-of-life care, Pegoraro notes that Parliament is sovereign and that the Constitutional Court can merely signal the advisability of legislative action without mandating it. He also points out that Italy already possesses two important legal instruments: Law 219/2017, covering informed consent and advance healthcare directives, and Law 38/2018 on palliative care; together, these already address a significant portion of the situations faced by the seriously ill. He proposes that the State assume the obligation to offer all citizens access to palliative care, securing the necessary resources: a concrete commitment, not merely a “trade-off” for the right to die. From this perspective, he provocatively observes, what is needed is “fewer weapons and more palliative care.”

Regarding a potential national law, Pegoraro urges vigilance to ensure it does not extend beyond the strict boundaries already established by the Constitutional Court. He then arrives at a crucial and contentious point, stating:

From a Catholic perspective, the task is to assess whether we are dealing with an “imperfect law” — one to which it would nonetheless be moral to give assent, given that Parliament might otherwise swiftly pass more permissive and libertarian laws that would be far more detrimental to the dignity of the sick and the value of life. It must also be reaffirmed that, according to the Church’s Magisterium, every healthcare professional should always strive to save life and to provide care during the final stages of existence, never to cause death or assist in suicide.

Finally, he reiterates that the role of healthcare remains to prevent suicide — never to facilitate it — by alleviating pain and questioning the extent to which, under certain conditions of illness, a person’s will can truly be considered free. He concludes with a quote from criminologist Nigel Walker, observing that the legislation of one generation can become the morality of the next, and leaves open the question of what kind of morality we wish to pass on to the youth of tomorrow.

Objections to Pegoraro

Unfortunately, Msgr. Pegoraro’s words reopen the wounds of a deep theological and bioethical rift within the Catholic world — words that echo those of the current president of the Italian Episcopal Conference (CEI), Cardinal Matteo Zuppi. It is worth reminding readers of this blog (should it be necessary) that Msgr. Pegoraro’s words clash with a fundamental pillar of contemporary Catholic Magisterium: Pope John Paul II’s encyclical Evangelium Vitae (1995). It is useful to briefly revisit its fundamental theological-legal points. The limit of the “lesser evil” (EV, no. 73) Catholic doctrine accepts the theory of the “lesser evil” and “harm reduction” only under extremely strict conditions.

A Catholic politician may vote for an imperfect law solely to limit the damage caused by an unjust law already in force. For instance, if an extremely permissive law regarding abortion or euthanasia already exists, it is morally permissible to vote for an amendment that reduces its scope. It should be noted that, regarding assisted suicide in Italy, no national law currently exists. Voting for a legislative text (even a restrictive one) would therefore mean introducing a “right” to suicide into the legal system for the first time, thereby committing an act that the Church considers intrinsically illicit. This point is surely clear to the President of the Pontifical Academy for Life, Msgr. Pegoraro. The question therefore naturally arises: Why this strange openness?

The distinction between case law and legislation

The ambiguity attributed to Msgr. Pegoraro (and, more broadly, to the approach championed by Msgr. Vincenzo Paglia) lies in the attitude taken toward Constitutional Court Ruling 242/2019 (the Cappato-DJ Fabo case). This ruling decriminalized assisted suicide under specific conditions, creating a legislative vacuum that some regions (such as Veneto) have attempted to fill with local laws. The “pragmatic” stance held by certain prelates is that — given that decriminalization is now a de facto reality, and observing the fragmented way in which regions are pushing for national-level approval — it is better to have a rigorous, restrictive law than a regulatory “Wild West.”

However, moral theologians and more orthodox Catholic legal experts object that a Constitutional Court ruling is not equivalent to an act of Parliament. Transforming a judicial finding of “non-punishability” into a “positive law” enacted by politicians represents an unacceptable conceptual leap, as it amounts to institutionalizing and legitimizing suicide. Such an unacceptable conceptual leap is the last thing one would expect from a prelate, let alone the head of the Pontifical Academy for Life.

The risk of the “slippery slope”

Msgr. Pegoraro ought to be well aware that accepting a law on assisted suicide — under the illusion that it can be contained by strict safeguards — is a strategy that has historically and legally failed. The laws on abortion and assisted reproduction clearly demonstrate this. An “intrinsically unjust” act cannot be regulated as if it were a conditional right. Once the legal system accepts the principle that the State may, in certain cases, facilitate a citizen’s death, the scope of the law is bound to expand — as evidenced by the examples of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Canada — thereby rendering the initial “cautious” or restrictive approach futile. In conclusion, we fear that Pegoraro’s approach risks conflating practical tolerance of a legally complex situation (the decriminalization mandated by the Constitutional Court) with formal cooperation in the creation of an unjust law, thereby crossing a red line that the traditional Magisterium has always forbidden anyone to transgress.