Priests seek guidance for pastoral response to Catholics seeking euthanasia

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Canada — A national initiative is urgently needed to address the “real problem” of Catholics accessing medical assistance in dying (MAID), said Father Thomas Lynch, president of Priests for Life Canada.

Lynch, who serves in the Diocese of Peterborough, Ontario, said the majority of priests with whom he has spoken “have experience with [Catholic] people being killed — I refuse to say, ‘dying by MAiD.’”

“This is a real problem,” Lynch told Canadian Catholic News (CCN) in an interview. “I can say this, categorically, because I’ve presented at a large number of priest study days, speaking on this specifically, and if you ask priests if they’ve had any firsthand experience [with the problem], the majority put up their hands.”

Lynch said the Church “needs to be far clearer” about promoting life. “It can’t just be diocese by diocese” or a letter from the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB), he said.

Because the federal MAID reporting system does not track the religious affiliation of those who die by euthanasia, there is no way to determine how many of the 16,499 Canadians who received MAID in 2024 were practicing or lapsed Catholics.…