A Canadian priest has called for a national initiative to address the “real problem” of Catholics accessing euthanasia in the country. Source: EWTN News.
Fr Thomas Lynch, president of Priests for Life Canada and a priest of the Peterborough Diocese in Ontario, said the majority of priests with whom he has spoken “have experience with [Catholic] people being killed – I refuse to say, ‘dying by MAID [medical assistance in dying].’”
“This is a real problem,” Fr Lynch told Canadian Catholic News in an interview.
“I can say this, categorically, because I’ve presented at a large number of priest study days, speaking on this specifically, and if you ask priests if they’ve had any first-hand experience [with the problem], the majority put up their hands.”
Fr Lynch said the Church “needs to be far clearer” about promoting life. “It can’t just be diocese by diocese” or a letter from the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB), he said.
Because the federal MAID reporting system does not track the religious affiliation of those who die by euthanasia, there is no way to determine how many of the 16,499 Canadians who received MAID in 2024 were practising or lapsed Catholics.
However, the acceptance of MAID among Catholics is sufficiently significant that Deacon Laurence Worthen, executive director of the Christian Medical and Dental Association of Canada, agrees that much more needs to be done to educate the laity about the moral peril posed by MAID.
“Yes, it is a huge problem,” Deacon Worthen said in an interview. “We need information sheets passed out at the parishes, we need our priests preaching about it. We need a full-court press.”
The CCCB’s strong opposition to legalised euthanasia was evident well before Parliament passed MAID legislation in 2016 and has continued over the past decade with formal statements, briefs, letters to government, and pastoral messages.
In an emailed response to questions from CCN, a spokesperson for the communications office of the CCCB said the organisation continues to publicly voice its strong objection to MAID.
“In addition, the CCCB does offer the free resource ‘Horizons of Hope: A Toolkit for Catholic Parishes on Palliative Care,’” the spokesperson said.
“This resource seeks to empower and educate the faithful by addressing questions surrounding palliative care, dying, death, suffering, accompaniment, and bereavement in a holistic fashion.”
FULL STORY
Priests seek guidance for pastoral response to Catholics seeking euthanasia (By Terry O’Neill, Canadian Catholic News via EWTN News)
