“In daily life there is no question more suppressed than that of death”: so said Bishop Heinz Josef Algermissen of Fulda, on the occasion of the feast of All Saints. “The mechanisms of suppression with which we react to death are only a continuation of those we use to suppress what comes before it: old age. We can no longer tolerate pain; we don’t know how to confront death; we let ourselves be inveigled into the discussion on so-called active euthanasia”, said the bishop. “We don’t realise that the recourse to euthanasia as a hypothetical final act of self-liberation, is in actual fact the abandonment of the Christian “ ars moriendi” and a dramatic form of self-isolation”. “With the definition ‘active euthanasia’ we conceal the truth”, concluded Algermissen, because “anyone who calls a voluntary act of death an “aid to life” is deceiving himself”.
