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Several years ago I came across a news article which shook me to the core. It was about a highly accomplished 104-year old British-Australian botanist, David Goodall. He travelled from Australia to Basel, Switzerland, to self-destruct by taking advantage of the liberal Swiss law which allows suicide on demand.

The reason I thought Goodall’s story was extraordinary is that his desire to end a long and apparently rewarding life by assisted suicide was for none of the reasons one would normally suppose. He was successful and honoured in his profession. He was not suffering from a terminal or excruciatingly painful condition that might have explained his ardent desire for oblivion in preference to an intolerably agonising life. Nor did he appear to be desperately lonely or even unloved since his last full day on earth was spent exploring the Basel University botanic gardens with three of his grandchildren.

Surrounded by family members, Goodall laconically offered a glimpse into the motive for the decision he had taken: “My life has been rather poor for the past year or so and I’m very happy to end it.” He went on to offer some more insights into his reasons for self-termination: “One wants to, at my age, even rather less than my age… to be free to choose death when the death is at an appropriate time.”

Is there an “appropriate time” for an unnaturally induced death and if so, what is it? Why would a 104 year-old, who could expect to pass on naturally a day or a week after the scheduled suicide, deliberately insist on accelerating his own departure? Goodall did not share his thoughts on that subject. But anyone who has insider’s familiarity with the contemporary Western frame of mind can rather easily supply the answer.

One suspects that the phrase “to be free to choose death” is the clue that explains Goodall’s rationale.

The modern West scornfully rejects transcendence and disdains its gifts, amongst which in all previous ages and in most known cultural traditions life has been considered of preeminent value. Perhaps for the first time in recorded history, in the West a significant and rising number of human beings are experiencing life not as a blessing but as an insufferable burden. Fascination with death, the universal invocation of Thanatos, is a topic that Toynbee dealt with only tangentially in his comparative study of civilisations. But had he lived to observe the cultural and moral disintegration of the contemporary West, there is little doubt that he would have given Thanatos more focused attention and probably would have listed obsession with death as a significant indicator of civilizational decline.

The word disintegration is not being used lightly. In Switzerland a suicide capsule which goes by the name of Sarco (for Sarcophagus) is being marketed to meet the needs of those who are weary of life. The ingenious device is designed to eliminate even the need for assistance. The suicide presses a button releasing nitrogen whose saturation causes the individual to lose consciousness due to lack of oxygen. A painless death is promised to follow in a few seconds.

And what have the leading institutional moral authorities of the West got to say on this subject?

On the doctrinal level, the Roman Catholic Church has traditionally been a principled defender of the sanctity of human life. Its denunciation of abortion and suicide in all forms has been unequivocal. What we are witnessing today however is a slow but steady modification of its magisterium. It is evolving away from its traditional moorings in the direction of appeasing the dominant spirit of the world whose evils and moral deformations it is presumably its mission to oppose.

The subtle withdrawal of Roman Catholic teaching from the emblematic principles it used to espouse in bold defiance of the world’s opinion is obscured by esoteric jargon generating the reassuring impression that the traditional teaching remains unaltered. However, the Novus Ordo church is chipping away at it steadily. The direction in which these barely perceptible modifications are taking it is unmistakable.

Case in point is the Advanced Treatment Provision law adopted in Italy. It gives legal recognition to circumstances permitting the suspension of what in Roman Catholic terminology used to be known as heroic measures to save human life. The Italian law thus paves the way for “mercy” killings, contradicting directly the perennial moral teaching of that country’s main religious authority. The Pontifical Academy for Life (Pontificia Accademia per la Vita) has dealt with this highly sensitive issue in such a manner that David Goodall’s future imitators may take heart.

One of the Academy’s collaborators, Monsignor Vincenzo Paglia, has responded to the Italian legislation in the form of a disquisition entitled “Small lexicon of the end of life” which takes a positive bent towards the former unequivocal evils, euthanasia and assisted suicide. It is left intriguingly open whether “end” refers to the purpose or termination of life. Although the Monsignor’s ruminations on this subject are not invested with the attribute of infallibility, they clearly reflect the views of his superiors in the Vatican and signify that a change in the party line is in the works. The formerly lauded “heroic” life saving measures have been discarded and are reformulated as the pejoratively intoned concept of therapeutic obstinacy, defined as insistence on “futile treatment” which the Monsignor frowns upon. But who decides at what point further treatment is futile, and what is the source of the authority to pull the plug on a patient fighting for his life? The Pontifical Academy document does not provide a clear answer to those important questions.

From condoning practices which are tantamount to euthanasia it is a very short walk to adopting a tolerant and “inclusive” attitude toward assisted suicide. The same sophistry drives both arguments.

“Reasons may emerge,” the Pontifical Academy says, “for questioning whether, in certain circumstances, mediations at the legal level in a pluralist and democratic society may be admitted. […] Helping to identify an acceptable point of mediation between different positions is a way of encouraging the consolidation of social cohesion and a broader assumption of responsibility towards those common points that have been reached together.” Suicide is thus shorn of its intrinsically evil character because its permissibility is made to depend on its legal status in a “pluralist and democratic” society. Conduct that in positive law is deemed legally legitimate casuistically becomes condoned as also morally just.

Couldn’t the same casuistry, just as plausibly, also be applied to morally rehabilitate other forms of conduct that traditionally have been regarded as evil, if their being legitimised by the laws of a “pluralist and democratic” society is all that is required?

Even in its great turmoil, for a considerable portion of the world’s population the Roman Catholic Church continues to be a morally normative institution. By sounding an uncertain trumpet and relativising core moral issues, it betrays not just its followers but also those outside its fold, including unbelievers, who hunger for moral guidance based on certainties rather than platitudes concocted to placate the desires of an errant world.

David Goodall might have considered other options had he heard a different trumpet from the Vatican, or whatever moral authority he may have trusted. Perhaps he would have been illumined to appreciate the awesome beauty and absolute sanctity of life. Instead of “putting himself to sleep,” like a dog, he might have continued to share his love and wisdom with his grandchildren, to their mutual joy and until his life came to its ordained end.