MAiD and the Catholic hospital: ‘We are faced with a conundrum,’ pro-life chaplain says 

More than half a year has now passed since the provincial government ordered Vancouver Coastal Health to build a euthanasia facility next to St. Paul’s Hospital, thereby doing an end run around the Catholic hospital’s principled opposition to assisted suicide.

But despite this passage of time, a host of important questions remain unanswered about Vancouver Coastal Health’s construction and operation of the MAiD facility and its physical connection to St. Paul’s.

As well, nagging questions remain about the moral implications, on the St. Paul’s situation, of Church teaching that prohibits “collaboration” between Catholic and other institutions “when it involves referrals for persons who request euthanasia.” It’s a vexing issue that even the Archdiocese of Vancouver’s pro-life chaplain says, “is a conundrum.”

The B.C. Catholic has asked Vancouver Coastal Health exactly how the euthanasia facility will be connected to St. Paul’s, how it will operate, and when it will open. The health authority has failed to answer, and a recent B.C. Catholic tour of the exterior of St. Paul’s found no signs of construction, even though the “clinical space” (as the province has called it) is scheduled to open in August.

Similarly, the Ministry of Health has repeatedly failed to provide information about the process by which it obtained land on the St. Paul’s campus to build the euthanasia facility.

Initial reports about the land acquisition led some observers to believe the ministry had taken the land from Providence Health Care, the Catholic organization that operates the hospital.

But the archdiocese’s pro-life chaplain, Father Larry Lynn, said in a June 3 interview that the government did not take the land from Providence. Father Lynn was unable to identify the owner of the property from which the land was taken.

As reported by the Vancouver Sun in October 2021, Concord Pacific, a development company, is in the process of taking ownership of the 6.6-acre St. Paul’s site and will demolish the old hospital when a new St. Paul’s, currently being built on False Creek Flats, opens.

As reported in the Sun, Concord signed an $850-million right-to-purchase agreement with Providence in 2020 but will not actually gain title to the site until July 2027.

A related unanswered question involves the new St. Paul’s Hospital. Providence itself has not answered repeated requests from The B.C. Catholic for information about whether the provincial government has ordered the construction of a euthanasia facility at the new St. Paul’s.

Father Lynn said Providence doesn’t want such a facility but that the issue is clearly “on the table.”

Meantime, pro-life activist Mary Wagner, who has spent close to six years in jail as a consequence of her peaceful and prayerful anti-abortion civil disobedience, is concerned that Providence’s official policy on euthanasia and responding to MAiD requests is in contradiction to Catholic teaching.

The policy states that its purpose is to provide “a consistent ethical and compassionate approach” when responding to someone who has requested MAiD, within the context of MAiD’s “incompatibility [with] Catholic teaching.” 

Among its principles is that patients and their families’ personal beliefs “are respected and honoured.” It says, “inquiries or requests for MAiD are actively engaged in a timely manner and access to the lawful MAiD request process is not impeded.”

The policy states, in part, that patients should be supported in a non-judgmental way, that their request for MAiD be engaged in a timely manner, and that Providence staff “will liaise” with Vancouver Coastal Staff to ensure a safe transfer of care to a MAiD provider.”

In a series of phone and e-mail interviews with The B.C. Catholic, Wagner said she believes such a policy is in direct violation of Church teaching.

Citing Samaritanus bonus, a 2020 letter from the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on the care of persons in the critical and terminal phases of life, Wagner cites Section 9, which says, “institutional collaboration with other hospital systems is not morally permissible when it involves referrals for persons who request euthanasia. Such choices cannot be morally accepted or supported in their concrete realization, even if they are legally admissible.”

Beyond the “scandal” related to the secrecy surrounding the establishment of the new euthanasia centre, she said “what is already public knowledge is enough for the Catholic community and beyond... to say, ‘stop!’”

She said people are being killed by euthanasia because of Providence Health Care, which “employs people to liaise with Coastal Health to discuss and arrange the killing of their own patients. This is unconscionable!”

She acknowledges that Providence likely does not “eagerly choose” to facilitate the transfer of patients and sees its role as choosing “the lesser of two evils.”

Catholic teaching says intrinsically immoral actions cannot be used to justify a greater good (CCC 1759), although in come cases, it may be permissible to tolerate a lesser evil to avoid a greater one (CCC 1756).

Wagner urged Catholics not to tolerate the status quo and to resist the expansion of MAiD. “We can do this, first and foremost, by prayer and fasting,” she said, “as well as by continued efforts to express, charitably, our concerns to those who govern Providence, education on Catholic teaching, outreach to employees about conscientious objection, and civil disobedience.”

Father Lynn said he has heard from many Catholics who have such concerns, and as a result met with Archbishop J. Michael Miller on May 31 to seek clarity on the issue.

The next day, he addressed the concerns in his homily at the Archdiocese’s monthly pro-life mass, at St. Bernadette’s Parish in Surrey, and he elaborated on his thoughts during a later interview with The B.C. Catholic.

“We are faced with a conundrum,” he said. “It’s a difficult and intricate problem, with no easy answer.”

Father Lynn described as “legitimate and valid” the moral arguments against any sort of cooperation between St. Paul’s and Vancouver Coastal Health and stressed that Providence had opposed and was continuing to fight back against euthanasia.

At the same time, he also said Providence is acting “in charity and justice” and cannot keep people seeking MAiD in the hospital against their will.

He agreed Providence is attempting to make the best of a bad situation. “That’s where it’s at... It’s just an awful place to be.”

Catholics need not despair, he said, and like Wagner he pointed out they have powerful spiritual weapons to wield against the forces that are attacking society’s moral fabric.

“Every time I speak, I say the only answer, the only real thing we have here is prayer and fasting,” Father Lynn said. “That’s what we can do. And we need to do that, more and more. We have to gather the people, more and more... and we all need to be in this together, that’s the truth.”

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