The Bishop of Augsburg, Monsignor Bertram Meier, has warned against any «easy compromise» by Catholics regarding assisted suicide and has called for a defense of human life from conception until natural death. The German prelate made these statements during the celebration of the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Virgin at the Marian shrine of Maria Vesperbild in Bavaria, where he presided over the Mass in place of the Benedictine Abbot Primate Jeremias Schröder, who was absent due to illness.
Meier linked the issue of the end of life with previous debates in Germany on abortion and warned that the Church could face a similar situation with proposals to regulate assisted suicide. «Where life and death are concerned, there is no compromise,» he stated.
«We protect and defend life from conception until natural death»
The bishop took the Virgin Mary’s «yes» as his starting point to address the position that, in his view, Catholics should maintain regarding issues related to human life.
«Mary, we admire your yes to life and take you as our model to say yes as a Church; not to the criteria of the world, but to the measure established by the Word of God,» he noted.
Meier then referred to the German debate on assisted suicide and drew a parallel with discussions that took place decades ago regarding the pre-abortion counseling system.
«We must prevent what happened in the debate about the beginning of human life from happening at its end,» he said. The bishop recalled the controversy caused in the German Church by certificates issued by Catholic counseling centers to pregnant women, which could later be used as a legal requirement to access abortion.
In Meier’s view, the debate on assisted suicide currently poses a comparable challenge. «There can be no easy compromises for Catholic Christians here: we protect and defend life from conception until natural death, without any ifs or buts,» he declared.
Rejects assisted suicide as a service of charitable institutions
The bishop specifically addressed the possibility that Church-affiliated welfare institutions might offer procedures related to assisted suicide after a mandatory counseling process.
«If assisted suicide is considered to be offered as a service in charitable institutions after mandatory counseling, then the Church falls into a misunderstanding of itself,» Meier maintained.
The debate is particularly relevant in Germany after the Federal Constitutional Court declared in 2020 that the general ban on professional assistance in suicide was unconstitutional. Since then, the Bundestag has debated various proposals to establish new regulations, without a definitive legislative framework having been approved to date.
Meier warned during his homily that projects are already prepared to address the issue again.
«As a people of life, we are a people for life»
The Bishop of Augsburg also cited Saint John Paul II to define the responsibility of Catholics regarding these issues: «As a people of life, we are a people for life.»
Meier connected this defense with the attention currently given to environmental protection and called for the care of creation not to overshadow the protection of the human person.
«It is good that we place the conservation of creation very high, but please, not at the expense of man, the crown of creation,» he stated. He then used a comparison to express this priority: «We help frogs cross the road, but the small and weak, like embryos and the elderly, are left behind.»
The prelate concluded this part of his intervention with a call to maintain a recognizable position on issues related to life: «Let us choose life! Let us fight for life! Let us speak clearly! Christians must be identifiable.»
Bertram Meier and the debates of the German Church
Bertram Meier has been Bishop of Augsburg since 2020 and has participated in the debates that have marked the Catholic Church in Germany in recent years. In 2022, he was one of five bishops who formally requested clarifications from Rome regarding the competencies of the new structures planned by the German Synodal Way. The Vatican later responded that synodal bodies could not be placed above the authority of bishops.
Read also: One of the German bishops who signed the letter to the Vatican «explains himself»
The prelate has also maintained relations with the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter (FSSP), whose European seminary is located in Wigratzbad, within his diocese. In 2023, he ordained ten members of the fraternity as priests and explained at the time that, despite differences in theological and liturgical orientation, he sought to integrate the FSSP into the life of the local Church.
Read also: Bishop Meier ordains ten FSSP priests in Germany
At the conclusion of his address at Maria Vesperbild, Meier also referred to the shrine itself, a place of Marian pilgrimage since the mid-17th century, and asked that it continue to be a «spiritual source» for pilgrims. The bishop summarized the message he wished to convey during the celebration with a request directed to Catholics: to maintain a clearly recognizable position when the beginning and end of human life are at stake.