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Pope Leo XIV said on Sunday that assisted dying should not be considered “normal”, as he continued his landmark visit to France, where parliament has voted to legalise the practice for certain patients.
“We must reject the temptation to cause death under the guise of false compassion. It is impossible to regard causing death as something normal,” he told sick and disabled worshippers at the pilgrimage site of Lourdes.
The US pontiff met with the bishops of France at the Saint Bernadette auditorium at the Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes on Sunday morning before heading to mass at the prairie.
He is also due to meet with victims of clerical sex abuse in Lourdes, which sits in the foothills of the Pyrenees in southwestern France.
On Monday, he is then scheduled to arrive in Metz in northeastern France, where he is set to attend an “interreligious meeting” and give a speech “to the roots of Europe for peace and unity” before a farewell ceremony at Metz–Nancy–Lorraine airport.
Watch Pope Leo XIV’s trip here.