Bishop Larry Silva has taken to social media to counter physician-assisted suicide which became legal in Hawaii on Jan. 1.
The Hawaii Catholic Conference has produced two video messages from the bishop — one 30 seconds long; the other three minutes long — which have been posted on the Facebook page of the Hawaii Catholic Conference.
The Hawaii Catholic Conference is the public policy voice of the Diocese of Honolulu.
Hawaii Catholic Conference director Eva Andrade, in an email to diocesan leaders, asked that video be distributed “as widely as possible.”
“Life is precious,” said the bishop is both versions. “We know that suicide is always tragic.”
The new law avoids calling doctor-assisted death by a lethal prescription of drugs “suicide,” the bishop said, “but it really is the same reality.”
“We pray that no one will do this, because it is short circuiting the way God intended us to live and to die,” Bishop Silva said.
Bishop Silva said that the natural process of dying is an “opportunity to allow others to love you in a very different way.”
In the longer video, he told the story of a friend dying of AIDS who told him the illness was the “greatest blessing that God had given him … because it allowed him to understand how much people loved him.”
“We pray that (dying) will be a time to be with loved ones, to reflect on the value of life and the value of eternal life, hoping that we will be able to enter into that peace of Gods kingdom forever. We pray for all those who are suffering, who are sick and we surround them with our love,” the bishop said.
The law allows a terminally-ill patient, determined to have six months to live and who is not suffering from depression, to request of his or her doctor a lethal dose of medication.
To view the video go to www.facebook.com/HawaiiCatholicConference.
