In Italy, the political debate on end-of-life issues is at the center of the parliamentary agenda, in a context marked by judicial pressure and deep divisions between parties. Following several rulings by the Constitutional Court that have urged the legislator to intervene on assisted suicide, Parliament is set to resume parliamentary work in the coming weeks, scheduled for next February 17. the discussion of the bill on so-called “medically assisted death”, in a scenario of strong ethical and legal controversy.
It is in this context that the president of the Italian Episcopal Conference (CEI), Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, has expressed a firm condemnation of euthanasia and assisted suicide during the opening of the CEI’s Permanent Council. According to La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana, Zuppi stated that “the response to suffering is not to offer death” and warned that regulations that legally legitimize assisted suicide or euthanasia risk weakening public commitment to the most fragile and vulnerable. In that sense, he called for the current legal framework to strengthen, at the national level, measures aimed at protecting human life.
A clearer tone than in previous interventions
These statements have been interpreted as a hardening of the CEI president’s discourse compared to positions expressed in previous months. Last November, during the general assembly of Italian bishops held in Assisi, Zuppi had mainly expressed his concern about a possible fragmented regulation of assisted suicide at the regional level, emphasizing the difference between recognizing a supposed “right” and the decriminalization of certain conducts.
That formulation was read by various observers as a more nuanced stance, especially in a context in which Avvenire, a newspaper linked to the CEI, had published articles favorable to the bill under discussion at the time, insisting on the distinction between decriminalization and legal legitimization.
Explicit message to Parliament
In his most recent intervention, however, Zuppi explicitly rejected any norm that legitimizes assisted suicide or euthanasia, without entering into technical nuances, and positioned the defense of human life as a non-negotiable criterion of legislative action.
This positioning also coincides with recent pronouncements by Pope Leo XIV, who has reiterated the sanctity of human life from its beginning to its natural end and has emphasized the responsibility of States to offer authentic responses to suffering, such as palliative care, instead of presenting death as a compassionate solution.