The Catholic Weekly 19 December 2021

$2 Here is the statement given by Archbishop Anthony Fisher OPon Friday 10 December to the NSW parlia- mentary inquiry into euthanasia T hank you for the opportunity to ad- dress the Commit- tee this morning. I appear on behalf of the Catholic Bishops of NSW and the Bishops of the Australasian‐Middle East Christian Apostolic Churches. The faithful of our communities make up a quarter of the population of this state. The Catholic Church in NSW operates 11 hospitals and 59 nursing and aged care facilities, each of which is directly affected by this bill.The Catholic faithful also provide a significant propor- tion of the state’s healthcare workforce. Catholic health and aged care institutions are founded on the belief in the sanctity of human life and the inaliena- ble dignity of the person. The proposition that human life is inviolable has been part of the common morality of the great civilisations, the best secular philosophies, the common law, international human rights documents, pre-Christian Hippocrat- ic ethics, the codes of the World Medical Association and the Australian Medical Association, and the world’s great religions. Unsurprisingly, we op- pose any attempt to legalise euthanasia or assisted sui- cide in this state. Our oppo- sition is based not only on re- ligious beliefs, but also upon the desire to protect the most vulnerable in our society. Legalising euthanasia and assisted suicide will be a rad- ical departure from one of the foundational principles of our society. CONTINUED P5 Don’t do this, NSW! Archbishop Anthony Fisher OPmakes impassioned plea to parliamentary inquiry on euthanasia IF, AS many Australians seem to believe, the Catholic Church has largely lost its rel- evance to modern life there was no evidence of that in St Mary’s Cathedral as Catho- lics from across Sydney and bishops from across Austral- ia came together to celebrate a major moment in the life of their Church on the evening of 8 December. Archbishop Anthony Fish- er OP consecrated Sydney priest Fr Daniel Joseph Mea- gher, a former parish priest and Rector of the Seminary of the Good Shepherd in Home- bush, the school for the priests of the archdiocese of Sydney, as the newest bishop of the Catholic Church in this coun- try. He was joined by co-conse- crators Bishop Anthony Ran- dazzo of BrokenBay andArch- bishop Christopher Prowse of Canberra-Goulburn. It was an CONTINUED P2 ¾ Staff writers Evangelisation, personby person 19, December, 2021 APOSTLE OF THE BARRICADES P14 Archbishop Anthony Fisher OP Newly-consecrated Bishop Daniel Meagher kneels as the Gospels are held above his head by two deacons during his consecration in St Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney on 8 December, the Feast of the Im- maculate Conception. The moment symbolises both the solemnity of the office he has undertaken and his responsibility to preach Jesus Christ in and out of season PHOTO: ALPHONSUS FOK CHRISTMAS GRACE: DON’T FORGET IT! P16 EXCLUDING RELIGIOUS perspectives from the discus- sion over euthanasia is “re- jecting the views of one of the chief providers of end-of-life care”, Archbishop Anthony Fisher told the NSW Standing Committee on Law and Jus- tice on 10 December. “Religious believers can- not approach this issue from a sanitised distance, as care of the sick and dying is core to our mission,” Archbishop Fisher said. The Archbishop appeared alongside the Grand Mufti of Australia Dr Ibrahim Abu Mo- hamed, and his medical ad- visor Dr Abdulrazak Moham- ad, in a truncated 45-minute session on the second of only three days of hearings. Archbishop Fisher protest- ed in his opening statement that “this inquiry is the short- est in duration of any inquiry ¾ Adam Wesselinoff before this Committee, and perhaps any committee, in the history of the New South Wales Parliament”, eliciting a cry of “No it’s not!” from one MLA. Archbishop Fisher faced an unlikely alliance of ALP, Greens and Nationals MLAs, who presented case studies of the terminally ill and asked why they ought to be denied euthanasia. Nationals MLA Trevor Khan recounted the evidence given by Abbey Egan, whose partner Jayde had an abdom- inal tumour so large it cracked the vertebrae in her spine. “It is not just pain manage- ment; it is gross suffering in the most profound ways. So I invite you again to explain how we deny young women like Jayde— and, indeed, Ab- bey—this bill,” Khan asked. The Archbishop repeatedly insisted throughout question- ing that the church endorses the efforts of palliative care doctors to do “everything that was morally and practically available” for such people, in some cases even inducing coma for the terminally ill in “extreme cases”. “I would point out though that these awful cases—and I do not want to diminish them for a moment—are not all this bill is allowing eutha- nasia for; it is allowing it for a much broader class of peo- ple,” Archbishop Fisher added in response to Khan’s ques- tioning. “While we do not for a mo- ment diminish the suffering of these extreme cases, let’s be frank about what will be the normal case. If you look, say, at the Victorian experience so far, [situations like Jayde’s] would not be all of the cases like that or even the majority.” The committee’s report is due on 22 February when par- liament returns next year.