New York archbishop joins religious sisters in suing state over assisted suicide law

New York Archbishop Ronald Hicks this week joined a lawsuit alongside several orders of religious sisters, suing to stop the state from forcing Catholics to adhere to its newly created suicide regime.

The archbishop added his name to a lawsuit that includes Rockville Centre Bishop John Barres, the Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm, the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne, the Missionary Sisters of St. Benedict, and the Little Sisters of the Poor. Hicks’s addition to the suit was announced by the religious liberty law firm Becket on Oct. 30.

The New York Archdiocese joins the suit after it was launched in July of this year by Catholic objectors to the state’s new suicide law. The Catholic plaintiffs in that suit argued that the state’s assisted suicide rules would force them to participate in the process of helping suicidal patients kill themselves, a violation of core Catholic teaching on the sanctity of life.

Shortly after the lawsuit was filed, a federal court ordered that the state could not enforce the suicide rules against the Catholic objectors while the suit itself played out.

Hicks said on Oct. 30 that Catholics “are guided by the compassion of Jesus to…