Ryan Carey-Mahoney

USA TODAY

Pope Francis came out against the right-to-die movement Saturday, denouncing euthanasia — or assisted suicide — as a "false sense of compassion."

His comments, made during a meeting with the Association of Italian Catholic Doctors, come on the heels of American Brittany Maynard's advocacy efforts to die with dignity. Maynard was battling terminal brain cancer and elected to take her life on Nov. 1 in Portland.

A Vatican bioethics official had already come out against Maynard's assisted suicide, calling it "reprehensible." Francis did not refer to her case in his statements.

"This is playing with life," Francis said. "Beware, because this is a sin against the creator."

Francis, however, has been seen by many as a socially progressive pope despite his public stance on euthanasia.

Earlier in October, he spoke to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences on the legitimacy of evolution and the Big Bang Theory, dispelling centuries of teaching on Creationism in the Roman Catholic Church. Just last week, an American cardinal was demoted from a top position for his more closed-off opinions such as denying Communion to Catholic politicians who support abortion.

Francis mentioned other contentious issues in the church, condemning abortion, in vitro fertilization and stem cell research in his remarks. He used passages from the Bible to affirm his claims, all of which remain unsurprising given the public stances Catholicism has made against them in the past.

"Your work wants to witness by word ... and by example that human life is always sacred, valuable and inviolable," he said.

Contributing: The Associated Press