CANADIAN BISHOPS LACK CLARITY REGARDING PHYSICIAN ASSISTED SUICIDE LAW

In 2015, the Supreme Court of Canada, in their decision Carter v.Canada, found the criminal prohibition of physician assisted suicide to be unconstitional. 

In 2106, the Liberal Party government passed legislation decriminalizing the practice and establishing a regimen to regulate who could obtain medical assistance in dying.  The legislation received Royal assent that same year.

The new law has exposed the deep divisions that exist within the Catholic Church in Canada.

Catholic bishops of Alberta and the Northwest Territories issued a document entitled “Guidelines for the Celebration of the Sacraments with Persons & Families Considering or Opting for Death by Assisted Suicide or Euthanasia” in which they instructed priests under their jurisdiction to deny the Sacraments of Confession (Penance) and Extreme Unction (Anointing of the Sick) and a Catholic funeral, in certain circumstances, to an individual who helped someone die or who died themselves by assisted suicide.

But, Cardinal Gerald Lacroix of Quebec City and Archbishop Christian Lepine of Montreal both reacted differently to the new law.  They jointly stated that they would not give specific guidelines to their priests about refusing the funeral services to the people who requested assisted-suicide.

Bishop Douglas Crosby OMI, the Bishop of Hamilton and President of the Conference of the Catholic Bishops of Canada (“CCBC”) strongly criticized the new law, stating on behalf of the CCCB: “Physician-assisted suicide is an affront to what is most noble, most precious in the human endeavour and a grave injustice and violation of the dignity of every human person whose natural and inherent inclination is indeed the preservation of life.”

Yet, despite those strong words, Bishop Crosby indicated that he did not “foresee that the CCCB will be putting out guidelines” setting out a uniform response from the Catholic Church in Canada.

Here we find another example of what I have lately termed as “morality by geography”.  One must ask how it is possible that the Bishops of Canada would risk seeming to be in disagreement on fundamental issues such as this. 

We commend those Bishops who desire that the Church be a source of comfort and solace to families who mourn the deaths of their loved ones in any circumstance.  Denying Sacraments and funeral rituals to grieving families will only alienate Catholics from a Church which makes itself appear heartless and spiteful.

And yet, one would expect that the Bishops would speak with one voice in condemning the secularism which is entrenching itself ever more deeply into society and which is the cause of such blatant attacks against the sanctity of human life.

I’m afraid that as the Bishops’ disagreements about how families will accompanied in their grief will be interpreted as the Bishops disagreeing regarding the grave immorality of the practice of euthanasia.

The Bishops need to be very clear that physician assisted suicide is a serious contradiction of the Gospel as well as the dignity of the individual human person. 

While every care should be taken to assist those who mourn, the Church must decry the inhumanity of physician assisted suicide and its betrayal of the Gospel to which every Christian believer is called upon to witness.

On this point, the Bishops of Canada must clearly reaffirm the Law of God without compromise.