Cardinal Sturla defends life as Uruguay debates euthanasia

ACI Prensa Staff, Oct 2, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).

The archbishop of Montevideo, Cardinal Daniel Sturla, testified before a Sept. 30 hearing of the Uruguay Senate’s health committee, where a euthanasia bill is being debated.

Presented by the Frente Amplio (Broad Front) party, the bill, which has already been passed by the Chamber of Deputies (lower house), provides that any person over 18 years of age “who suffers from one or more chronic, incurable, and irreversible pathologies or health conditions that seriously impair his quality of life, causing unbearable suffering,” may request assisted suicide. 

If the bill is passed by the Senate, Uruguay would become the third country in Latin America to allow euthanasia, in addition to Colombia and Ecuador.

In this context, the Catholic Church has spoken out on numerous occasions, maintaining a “firm no” to euthanasia.

After the hearing before the health committee where he presented the Catholic Church’s position, Sturla spoke to the media, stating that “the Church’s position is well known, which is in defense of life and is against the euthanasia bill,” according to Noticias 5.

Uruguay’s ‘main problem’

“What I presented [to them] is that Uruguay’s main problem, for me, as a bishop and citizen of this country, is a spiritual problem, which has to do with the meaning of life and the devaluation of human life that exists among us.”

This bill, the cardinal considered, “instead of contributing to valuing life, contributes to thinking that some lives are disposable, and that is why we believe it is fundamentally bad.” 

Regarding the possible passage of the bill, Sturla clarified that “other laws have also been passed that we disagree with.” However, “we presented our position, and it has been very well received by the health committee, with great respect, also due to the fact that the Church has come [in the person of] the archbishop to present its position,” he said.

“We still believe that there is still something in this law that needs to be changed, especially the name. I radically disagree with the fact that the euthanasia law is called death with dignity, because I think that confuses people, and then how do we classify other deaths?” he questioned.

“Obviously, there will always be very painful, very dramatic situations, which I fully respect,” the archbishop clarified, noting that “this law goes far beyond the most dramatic situations that are sometimes presented as arguments for its passage.”

A ‘slippery slope’

The euthanasia law, the cardinal explained, creates “a slippery slope,” where “many doors are opened that are sometimes not taken into account when defending the value of human life.”

The path to take for patients with terminal illnesses, he considered, is “palliative care: caring for, respecting, loving, attending to people.” 

As an example, Sturla mentioned an institution that was founded two years ago in the Catholic Church: “St. Joseph’s Hospice, where people whose families cannot care for them, who are in the last stages of dying, go and receive care, affection, and palliative care. They spend their final days, weeks, or months in peace, giving thanks for the care they receive.”

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

Source: https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/266895/cardinal-sturla-defends-life-as-uruguay-debates-euthanasia