It seems certain that Vincent Lambert will be euthanized by a doctor because of his brain handicap. This shameful episode, recently the subject of a L.I.F.E. blog post, has divided a family and exposed to plain view the mandate of enforced euthanasia – more properly defined by Saint john Paul II as a form of murder – which is spreading over the insipid cultures of morbid post-industrialized First World. 

In his masterful opus Evangelium Vitae John Paul the affirmed “that euthanasia is a grave violation of the law of God, since it is the deliberate and morally unacceptable killing of a human person. This doctrine is based upon the natural law and upon the written word of God, is transmitted by the Church’s Tradition and taught by the ordinary and universal Magisterium.” (n. 65)

Vincent Lambert will die because he is disabled and members of his family, excluding his loving parents and a minority of his siblings, have deemed his life not worthy of life. Some say it is his will; that he did not want life on such disabled terms. Regardless of the justification offered, what is happening to Lambert is a crime. John Paul speaks directly to each of these circumstances: 

True “compassion” leads to sharing another’s pain; it does not kill the person whose suffering we cannot bear. Moreover, the act of euthanasia appears all the more perverse if it is carried out by those, like relatives, who are supposed to treat a family member with patience and love, or by those, such as doctors, who by virtue of their specific profession are supposed to care for the sick person even in the most painful terminal stages.

The choice of euthanasia becomes more serious when it takes the form of a murder committed by others on a person who has in no way requested it and who has never consented to it. (n. 66) 

John Paul went on to describe euthanasia, along with abortion, as “crimes which no human law can claim to legitimize.” No one is obliged in conscience to obey such unjust laws but rather “there is a grave and clear obligation to oppose them (n. 73). 

God bless the parents of Vincent Lambert who have witnessed to love and fought a courageous battle against the sadness of modern culture which has lost the art of loving.