Catholic Vancouver February 25, 2021
Euthanasia activists will be able to ‘recruit just about any unhappy soul’: pro-life chaplain
By Terry O'Neill
Third of three stories.
The same attitude that pressures women with end their unwanted pregnancies will push the sick and elderly toward euthanasia, says the pro-life chaplain for the Archdiocese of Vancouver.
“The mindset that allows and even encourages [abortion …] would allow, nay, encourage, taking the lives of people at the other end of life. And they’re not stopping there,” Father Larry Lynn said in an email.
“When Bill C-7 goes through, the purveyors of death will be able to recruit just about any unhappy soul to give up their burden and sleep in the arms of death.”
Amid growing concerns about both the administration of assisted suicide in B.C. and the expansion of euthanasia’s availability in Canada, Father Lynn reminded Catholics why the Church views the practice as morally unacceptable.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church says direct euthanasia is “morally unacceptable” and that an act or omission that causes death in order to eliminate suffering “constitutes a murder gravely contrary to the dignity of the human person and to the respect due to the living God, his Creator.”
St. John Paul II wrote in his encyclical The Gospel of Life (Evangelium Vitae), “‘Man is not the master of life, nor is he the master of death. In life and in death, he has to entrust himself completely to the good pleasure of the Most High, to his loving plan.’ We need to shout that from the rooftops.”
The Catechism also addresses the possibility of widespread acceptance of euthanasia, saying, “The error of judgment into which one can fall in good faith does not change the nature of this murderous act, which must always be forbidden and excluded.”
If you’d like let Terry O’Neill know about a negative or wrongful experience with assisted suicide/MAiD, email him at [email protected].