League asks for day of prayer May 4
By Agnieszka Krawczynski
The B.C. Catholic

With assisted suicide creeping into Canada, the Catholic Women’s League is working hard to promote an alternative.

“We feel strongly that if our governments can allow people to choose to die, we need to allow people to choose to live, and to live their last days well,” said CWL national president Barbara Dowding.

Palliative care is a better alternative than assisted suicide, she said. It aims to control the pain and symptoms of people who are dying, and in most cases allows patients to die peacefully of natural causes.

Dowding said only 16 to 30 per cent of Canadians, depending on where they live, have access to palliative care. Her organization, with more than 85,000 members across the country, is hoping to change that.

“We’re asking people to pray for our country, that we can begin to find a way to make palliative care available for everybody.”

The CWL has set a national event it is calling 12 Hours of Prayer for Palliative Care for May 4. The league is urging its members to promote prayer and education about palliative care in their parishes, communities, and at home.

Dowding said some bishops and Knights of Columbus councils have already been invited to get involved.

“You don’t have to pray for 12 hours. You don’t have to be in church for 12 hours. But for 12 hours, on that day, across the country, the hope is that some praying and learning will be going on.”

The day of prayer, which lands during National Hospice Palliative Care Week May 1-7, also provides a chance for some activism. Many CWL members and other Catholics are already visiting the sick and comforting the afflicted, but Dowding said there is something new they can do: sign a new petition asking that palliative care be included under the Canada Health Act.

This would require the federal government to provide funding to palliative and hospice care under the Canada Health Transfer system. “If we pay the doctor to kill you, can’t we pay the doctor to alleviate your pain?”

Members are also signing commitment cards about other ways they promise to promote palliative care and comfort those who might consider killing themselves before death takes them.

The CWL will release the petition, educational materials, and prayer suggestions on its website: www.cwl.ca.