Anglicans in Canada Normalize Murder Through Official Ritual Liturgies for Euthanasia
Anglican Church of Canada released pastoral resource for ministers on medically assisted death. The document refrains from taking a moral stance, focusing instead on pastoral accompaniment for those suffering or approaching death. Its release has sparked both support and sharp criticism within the Church and broader community. The resource reflects the Church’s engagement with a sensitive ethical debate in Canada.
3 months ago
The Anglican Church of Canada has issued a new pastoral resource that offers liturgical accompaniment for people who choose medically assisted death, sparking both support and sharp criticism for its perceived role in normalizing the practice. 1
Medical assistance in dying (MAiD) was legalized across Canada in 2016 and has since become one of the world’s most permissive regimes, with a steady rise in the number of Canadians opting for the procedure. 1
The church released “Pastoral Liturgies at the Time of Death in Contexts of Medical Assistance in Dying,” a guide that explicitly states it does not settle the ethical debate on assisted death. Instead, it emphasizes the church’s duty to accompany those who are suffering, seriously ill, or approaching death, regardless of their decision to pursue MAiD. 1
The liturgies are presented as a means to ensure that no individual faces death without spiritual support, even when the death is medically assisted. 1
The Canadian newspaper National Review condemned the initiative, arguing that surrounding assisted death with religious rituals could normalize the practice and unintentionally influence vulnerable people toward choosing death. 1
Critics contend that offering liturgical blessings may blur the line between pastoral care and moral endorsement, potentially reinforcing despair in those contemplating suicide. 1
Most Christian denominations—including the Catholic Church, many evangelical bodies, and Orthodox churches—maintain that intentionally causing or facilitating death conflicts with the moral obligations of medicine and the protection of innocent life. They continue to promote comprehensive palliative care, pain management, and pastoral accompaniment for the terminally ill. 1
The Anglican resource highlights a growing dilemma for religious communities in jurisdictions where assisted dying is legal: how to provide compassionate accompaniment without appearing to endorse a practice many consider morally impermissible. 1
How does the Catholic Church define moral limits on euthanasia?
The Catholic Church’s moral limits on euthanasia rest on a central distinction: one may never intentionally cause an innocent person’s death, but one may sometimes decline burdensome treatment and provide intensive comfort care when death is not intended.
Euthanasia is an action or omission that causes death either by its nature or by intention, in order to eliminate suffering. The decisive factors are therefore:
It is not made morally permissible by the patient’s consent, the severity of suffering, the person’s prognosis, financial considerations, or a judgment that life has insufficient “quality.”
For example:
The Church teaches that euthanasia is intrinsically evil—that is, wrong by its very object and therefore never justified by a good intention or difficult circumstance. The Catechism calls direct euthanasia “morally unacceptable” and describes it as gravely contrary to human dignity and reverence for God, the Creator.
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith states that euthanasia is a direct choice to cause the death of an innocent human being and that no authority may legitimately recommend or permit it.
The Church does not require every possible medical intervention to be used indefinitely. A patient may refuse or discontinue treatment that is:
This is not euthanasia when the intention is not to cause death, but to avoid an unreasonable or burdensome intervention and to accept that death is approaching. John Paul II explains that when death is imminent and inevitable, a person may refuse treatment that would provide only a precarious and burdensome prolongation of life, provided that ordinary care is not abandoned.
The moral question is therefore not simply, “Was treatment stopped?” It is:
Was treatment stopped because it was disproportionate, or was it stopped in order to cause death?
The first can be morally legitimate; the second is euthanasia.
A decision not to resuscitate may therefore be permissible in some circumstances—for example, when resuscitation would be medically futile or excessively burdensome. But a “Do Not Resuscitate” order must not become a covert decision to abandon or kill the patient. Samaritanus bonus warns that end-of-life protocols can be misused when they are interpreted in a “euthanistic” way or when patients and families are excluded from decisions about care.
Even when burdensome treatment is withdrawn, the patient remains entitled to ordinary care, including appropriate nursing, hygiene, human presence, and basic attention to comfort. Withdrawing an extraordinary intervention is not the same as withdrawing care altogether.
The Church’s principle is that one may allow the underlying illness to take its natural course, but one may not intentionally bring about death by neglect or abandonment. John Paul II explicitly says that ordinary care due to the sick person must not be interrupted when disproportionate treatment is declined.
Catholic health-care guidance similarly insists that dying patients should receive loving care, psychological and spiritual support, and appropriate treatment of pain and other symptoms until natural death.
The Church strongly supports palliative care, which seeks to relieve pain and accompany the person rather than hasten death. Painkillers or sedatives may be used even when there is a foreseeable risk that they could shorten life, provided that:
This reflects the moral distinction between foreseeing a possible side effect and intending death as either the means or the goal. John Paul II notes that palliative care makes suffering more bearable and raises the question of using painkillers or sedatives when there is a risk of shortening life.
Thus, a medication given to control unbearable pain is not euthanasia merely because death might occur sooner. But giving an excessive dose specifically to kill the patient would be euthanasia.
Assisted suicide is also prohibited. It involves intentionally providing the means or assistance by which a person kills himself or herself. The Church rejects it because human autonomy does not include the moral right to directly destroy innocent human life. Samaritanus bonus treats euthanasia and assisted suicide together as practices that must be excluded, even where civil law permits them.
Catholic institutions therefore may not condone, prescribe, arrange, or participate in euthanasia or assisted suicide.
The Church recognizes that severe illness can involve intense physical, psychological, and spiritual suffering. Nevertheless, suffering does not make killing morally acceptable. A person’s dignity does not depend on independence, productivity, cognitive ability, or perceived quality of life.
The Church also distinguishes respect for a patient’s legitimate decisions from an absolute right to demand any action whatsoever. A patient may refuse a burdensome or disproportionate treatment, but neither the patient nor a medical professional has a moral right to demand or perform an act whose purpose is to cause death. The Church specifically rejects the idea that autonomy or decision-making ability can be weighed against life as though life were merely one value among others.
When a dying person asks for euthanasia, the Church does not treat that person primarily as a moral offender. Such a request may express fear, loneliness, depression, uncontrolled pain, or a longing not to be a burden. The appropriate response is compassionate accompaniment, medical attention, psychological support, spiritual care, and human presence.
The Church’s teaching emphasizes that pleas for death are often an anguished request for help and love rather than a settled desire for killing.
The proper Catholic response is therefore:
| Permissible in principle | Never permissible |
|---|---|
| Refusing futile, disproportionate, or excessively burdensome treatment | Intentionally killing a patient |
| Allowing an incurable illness to take its natural course | Giving lethal medication to cause death |
| Withdrawing treatment when death is not intended | Assisting suicide |
| Using proportionate pain relief, even with a foreseeable risk of shortening life | Deliberately overdosing medication to end life |
| Providing ordinary nursing, comfort, spiritual care, and companionship | Withholding ordinary care in order to cause death |
In summary, Catholic morality permits accepting the limits of medicine, but never permits intending death as a solution to suffering. The patient must be cared for, comforted, and accompanied, while death may be allowed to occur naturally when further treatment is disproportionate.