Brittany Maynard's Assisted Suicide Called 'Absurdity' by Vatican

— -- A Vatican official condemned the death of Brittany Maynard, the woman who chose to end her life after battling terminal brain cancer, calling assisted suicide "an absurdity."

"This woman [took her own life] thinking she would die with dignity, but this is the error," Monsignor Ignacio Carrasco de Paula, the head of the Pontifical Academy for Life, told Italy's ANSA news agency today.

"Suicide is not a good thing. It is a bad thing because it is saying no to life and to everything it means with respect to our mission in the world and towards those around us," he said.

Carrasco de Paula said that he can't know what was going on in Maynard's mind.

"Brittany Maynard's gesture is in itself to be condemned, but what happened in her conscience is not for us to know," he told ANSA.

Maynard, 29, ended her life on Saturday after she and her family moved to Oregon to take advantage of the state's death with dignity laws. She was diagnosed with brain cancer in January, and her plight went viral after she teamed up with the group Compassion & Choices to fight for assisted suicide laws.

Maynard and her family posted updates and photos in her final days as she ticked off trips on her bucket list, including visits to Alaska, Yellowstone National Park and the Grand Canyon.

A spokesperson for the Maynard family or Compassion & Choices could not be immediately reached for comment.