My dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

Christmas is a time to wish others the peace and joy that comes from the birth of Our Savior. Yet Jesus was born into a world that did not welcome Him or the Good News of God’s Kingdom that He came to proclaim. That did not deter Jesus, however, as the glory of His resurrection conquered the darkness of death. We need to keep that in mind so that the light of Christ will prevail over the darkness of the world around us.

It was literally in the dark of the night — at 2:54 a.m. to be precise — on Oct. 31^st that the Illinois Senate passed the bill authorizing physician-assisted suicide after the Illinois House of Representatives approved the bill on May 29^th. Gov. JB Pritzker then signed the measure into law on Dec. 12, 2025, just days after he met with Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican. It is a shame that Gov. Pritzker would use an audience with the pope to promote his own political agenda while disregarding the Holy Father’s strong pro-life message. In his address to the Vatican Diplomatic Corps on May 16^th shortly after he was elected, Pope Leo said, “No one is exempted from striving to ensure respect for the dignity of every person, especially the most frail and vulnerable, from the unborn to the elderly, from the sick to the unemployed, citizens and immigrants alike.” Speaking more directly about euthanasia at the Vatican on June 4, Pope Leo said, “Our world struggles to find value in human life, even in its last hour: May the Spirit of the Lord enlighten our minds, so that we know how to defend the intrinsic dignity of every human person.” 

Now adding euthanasia to his pro-death record, Gov. Pritzker’s own website boasts of his accomplishments to promote abortion, saying that he “Enshrined reproductive rights in state law before the Dobbs decision, protecting the freedom of choice from the overturning of Roe v. Wade by the U.S. Supreme Court” and that he “Founded Think Big America, an organization dedicated to expanding abortion rights that supported efforts in six states to successfully pass pro-choice ballot initiatives.” Gov. Priztker’s website has pictures of him at the 1992 rally of the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) and at the 2022 “Pro-Choice March,” and signing the 2023 Abortion Rights Bill. This past August, Gov. Pritzker signed two bills to facilitate the killing of unborn babies by providing legal safeguards for abortion providers and making the abortion pill more available across the state. After decades of attacking human life at its beginning, Gov.  Pritzker has now authorized the killing of those whose lives are deemed to be no longer deserving of legal protection.

In response, the Catholic Conference of Illinois issued a statement saying, “When Gov. Pritzker signed the physician assisted suicide bill into law, he put Illinois on a dangerous and heartbreaking path — one that legitimizes suicide as a valid solution for life’s challenges. Rather than investing in real end-of-life support such as palliative and hospice care, pain management, and family-centered accompaniment, our state has chosen to normalize killing oneself.”

Legally assisted suicide is reminiscent of the eugenics movement of the twentieth century that sought to rid the world of those who were seen as unfit for society — the poor, the disabled, the mentally ill, and people of certain races that were considered inferior. That movement had tragic results in the Nazi death camps, so we must be on guard to prevent that history from being repeated.

In this regard, President Donald Trump unfortunately also risks repeating disastrous history by pressuring Ukraine to accept a peace plan that would cede Ukrainian territory to Russia, similar to the way British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and other European leaders sought to appease Adolf Hitler in 1938 by turning over the Czech region known as the Sudetenland inhabited by ethnic Germans that Hitler demanded and annexed in 1938. Emboldened by the Munich Agreement, Hitler occupied the rest of Czechoslovakia by March 1939. Nazi Germany then invaded Poland on Sept. 1, 1939, marking the start of World War II. Appeasement did not work then, and it will not work now. Appeasement would only encourage Russian President Vladimir Putin to set his sights on greater gains in Europe and Asia.

As we pray during this Christmas season for peace on earth and goodwill towards all, we must take these words to heart, so they will not be merely empty slogans, but be reflected in the way we treat other people in law and in our actions, respecting all human life from conception to natural death.

May God give us this grace. Amen.