Why didn’t Vatican act sooner on euthanasia in Belgian Catholic hospitals?

By Phil Lawler (bio - articles - email) | Aug 11, 2017

At the beginning of May, the Brothers of Charity announced that they would allow euthanasia at their psychiatric hospitals in Belgium. At the beginning of August the Vatican ordered them to reverse that policy.

Why did it take so long? Why were fifteen Catholic hospitals on record for three months as providers of physician-assisted suicide? (Four months, potentially, since the Vatican directive gave the Belgian institutions a month to change their policies.)

We’re all in favor of due process, but in this case the facts were not in dispute. The Vatican investigated the situation, we are told; but what was there to investigate? The Brothers of Charity had made a public announcement of their policy. Why couldn’t the Vatican have issued an order to end the practice immediately, and then looked into the details? For that matter, where were the Belgian bishops, without whose permission the religious order could not work in that country?