"In a complex society, which is strongly affected the dynamics of productivity and the requirements of economy, the frail people and the poorer families risk, at times of economic difficulty or disease, being overwhelmed", and, "in the big cities, elderly and lonely people can be increasingly found, even when seriously ill or near death". In such predicaments, "the incitement to euthanasia becomes pressing, especially if a utilitarian view of the person seeps in". This is the analysis made by the Pope, who, in receiving in audience the participants in the Congress of the Papal Pro-Life Academy, repeated once again "his firm, recurring ethical condemnation of any form of direct euthanasia, according to the centuries-old teaching of the Church". "The standard of humankind is basically measured against its relationship with sufferings and with sufferers", stated the Pope, quoting his latest encyclical, "Spe salvi", and he added: "A society, which cannot accept sufferers and which cannot contribute through com-passion and make suffering be shared and carried inside as well, is a cruel, inhuman society" (continued).
