Showing posts with label Priests for life Canada. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Priests for life Canada. Show all posts

Monday, November 3, 2025

Fighting MAID - Priests must speak out against euthanasia

With a little help from AI: which countries perform the most euthanasia per capita?

  • The jurisdictions with the highest rates of euthanasia or physician-assisted dying (MAID) per capita are Canada and the Netherlands. Specifically, the Canadian province of Quebec reports the highest regional rate globally. 
    As a percentage of total deaths:
    • Quebec, Canada: Accounted for 6.8% of total deaths in a recent reporting period (April 2022-March 2023). In 2023, MAID accounted for 4.7% of all deaths across Canada.
    • Netherlands: Euthanasia and assisted suicide cases make up approximately 4.8% to over 5% of all deaths.
    • Belgium: The rate is around 2.3% of all deaths.
    • Switzerland: Assisted suicide accounts for approximately 1.5% to 2.3% of all deaths. 

From Priests for Life recent newsletter on what we Catholics and clergy need to do to counter the euthanasia lobby:

The euthanasia forces have a very clear program. Make killing not just available but make it socially acceptable, seen as a natural alternative and morally obligatory. Once a decision is made, it must not be discussed, but just accepted and lauded. 
...

I would challenge anyone reading this newsletter to realize that we must embark on several things at the same time, difficult though they may be. Firstly, our people are being educated by their front pages and newsfeeds. They are being bombarded by the pro-euthanasia campaign. We also need an engaging campaign teaching why suicide and being killed by physicians is wrong. This must be a sustained campaign - not just for one week or year. It must reach Catholics and non-practicing Catholics. 

Secondly, we must be very clear about fighting for the conscience rights of family members who are responsible for those who are weak and vulnerable. The conscience rights of our health care workers, the social necessity of protecting the weak and the vulnerable must be protected.

Thirdly, these are life and death situations. We need to educate our own priests and deacons to be leaders in this area and to militate for their own legal protections. The pro-death campaign is well on its way in our hospitals, hospices, and nursing homes. Is the pro-life campaign really up to responding? 

Fr. Tom Lynch (PFLC National President) 
Dying with Dignity obsessively lobbies the government. They receive millions in donations every year, yet they have the nerve to get funding from the Canada Summer jobs program, a program that pro-life organizations are ineligible to receive. 

All of us, clergy included, need to speak out publicly against Canada's evil euthanasia regime.

Friday, November 25, 2016

Dear pro-abortions: you can't handle the truth

Anonymous blogger "Fern Hill" doesn't like what Priests for Life US did when Fr. Frank Pavone put an aborted child on the altar.

She goes on to say that we Canadians are paying for this, that we paid these "offensive nutbars" tax dollars.
"Why am I going on about this? Because you, dear readers, and I have given these offensive nutbars more than $75K over the last five years."
Not so "Fern Hill".

What "Fern Hill" doesn't seem to comprehend, is that these are two entirely two different organizations. So I posted comments on her blog to educate her:


Patricia Maloney said...
Hey Fern Hill you realize that Priests for Life headed up by Fr. Frank Pavone is American and has nothing do do with Priests for Life Canada eh?
fern hill said...
Nothing to do with Canadian branch? Then, why does one get to the Canadian website from a link called "International" on the US site?
Patricia Maloney said...
Check your facts Fern Hill:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/steelmagnificat/2016/11/priests-for-life-canada-speaks-out-against-fr-pavones-actions/

In recent days, social media has been abuzz regarding a video posted by Fr. Frank Pavone, head of Priests for Life (U.S.A.), in which the body of an aborted child was openly displayed on an altar. Many were rightly disturbed, shocked and horrified by such an action. While Priests for Life Canada would certainly concur
with the need for the public to be aware of the stark reality of abortion, we are deeply disturbed by such actions...In closing, we would like to make it clear that Priests for Life Canada is completely independent of Priests for Life (U.S.A.), and although we, along with many other pro-life organizations, do share common goals and objectives, we cannot concur with all of their actions and the recent actions of Fr. Pavone are not supported by Priests for Life Canada. Priests for Life Canada shares the same concerns as recently issued by Fr. Pavone’s Ordinary, Bishop Patrick Zurek of the Diocese of Amarillo:
“Priests for Life Inc. is not a Catholic institution, but a civil organization and is not under the control or supervision of the Diocese of Amarillo. The Diocese of Amarillo deeply regrets the offense and outrage caused by the video for the faithful and the
community at large. The action and presentation of Father Pavone in this video is not consistent with the beliefs of the Catholic Church."
Priests for Life Canada supports the investigation around the release of this video that is now being undertaken by the Diocese of Amarillo. We continue to pray for all of the good work done by Priests for Life (U.S.A.)
Fr Thomas Lynch
President Priests for Life Canada
fern hill said...
Link to furious back-pedalling. Completely separate but sharing a website. Hokay.

In any case, these fetus freaks are getting Canadian taxpayers' money to further stigmatize abortion and shame women who access a legal, common, and moral medical procedure.

That is insupportable. 

So what happened next? Well I posted another comment to "Fern Hill"'s blog, a comment she did not post:
"Priests for life US and Canada do not share a website. The US website links to the Canadian website. That's like saying my blog shares your website because I have linked to your website. I don't think so. 
Abortion may be legal and it may be common but killing an unborn child is not moral."
I guess my comment was too close to the truth.


Thursday, June 19, 2014

Priests for Life Canada support incremental legislation

Priests for Life Canada supports incremental legislation. They also support the weneedaLAW.ca campaign.



As far as I know Campaign Life Coalition and Alliance for Life Canada still do not support incremental legislation. It's too bad they don't.

It would be nice if we could all work together to obtain some legal limits for the pre-born children of this country. I would love to see a ban on late-term-abortions in Canada. Or on sex-selection abortions. Of course we will continue to work for accomplishing this. With CLC and AFLO, or without them.

Thursday, March 13, 2014

Gestational abortion laws are moral and logical

Alliance for Life Ontario has responded to the gestational legislation approach to abortion.

I am concerned with this statement. Many pro-life people do support a gestational approach, an approach that is clearly not intrinsically immoral, as Archbishop Miller has already stated, and confirmed by Cardinal Collins, and Priests for Life Canada. Yet AFLO continues to say there is something morally wrong with this approach.

 Archbishop Miller said:
"Under the conditions articulated in Evangelium Vitae, n. 73, it is morally licit to work for and to vote for legislation, including gestational legislation, which limits the harmful effects of an unjust legal regime that permits abortion. 
At the same time, it is also morally licit to withhold support for gestational legislation — and other incrementalist legislative strategies intended to limit access to abortion — if, after prudent reflection, one is convinced that it is an unwise legislative strategy. 
The conditions articulated in Evangelium Vitae, n. 73 can be applied to the situation in Canada today with regard to gestational legislation. The Catholic faithful are free to support such legislation in good conscience. This does not mean, however, that Catholics are compelled to support gestational legislation. 
We pray that the prolife movement may not be divided in spirit by disagreements regarding the practical wisdom of gestational legislation. We implore all within the movement to refrain from questioning the good will or motives of those who have taken a different stand from their own on this issue."
Respected spiritual leaders have told us that a gestational approach is not an inherently immoral strategy, but a matter of prudential judgement. AFLO/CLC continues to contradict this. Saying that a gestational approach is immoral and intrinsically evil, judges these spiritual leaders as acting immorally. It also judges my actions as being immoral. That is what it means to support an immoral act: one is acting immorally. This is troubling.

In this latest statement, AFLO brings up a drowning baby analogy and says:
"Some supporters of gestational legislation have compared the present abortion situation in Canada with the scenario of two drowning children. “Aren’t you going to save one?” they ask. This is so misleading."
I don't know what is misleading about this at all. I actually think the analogy doesn't go far enough. Let me expand upon it.

I am standing by a river with a friend. We see two babies drowning.

I know that I will probably only have time to save one baby so I want to jump in and save her. I do this knowing that the other baby will probably drown. At least I know I can probably save one of them.

But my friend believes it would be immoral to save only one of those babies because both babies equally deserve to live. So when I attempt to save one baby, my friend pulls me back because she knows there is only time to save one baby and she believes it’s wrong to save only one baby.

Not only does my friend not help me to save the one baby, but she also actively intervenes to prevent me from saving the one baby. As a result, both babies drown. I could  probably have saved one of them if my friend did not believe that it was intrinsically immoral to save only one baby.

My friend has actively thwarted my efforts to save a drowning baby’s life. I am devastated.

This is exactly how I feel when anti-gestational pro-lifers try to persuade other pro-lifers that gestational limits are intrinsically immoral; I feel like they are thwarting our efforts to save lives.

I urge those who believe setting a gestational limit on abortion is intrinsically evil and immoral, to re-read Archbishop Miller's entire statement and discern for themselves how they regard gestational legislation.

Sunday, February 9, 2014

Gestational abortion laws are not immoral

This week I came across a joint statement by Campaign Life Coalition and Alliance for Life Ontario. It was titled "WHY THE CASE FOR GESTATIONAL ABORTION LAWS IS MORALLY AND LOGICALLY INCOHERENT".

The title of the document sent off warning bells for me. I--along with many other pro-life people and pro-life organizations--am in favour of gestational, or incremental abortion laws.

The statement says that a gestational law is "intrinsically evil", and that a "gestational law is immoral". If this is true, then I would be a supporter of something both intrinsically evil and immoral. This is not the case.

As I continued to read the joint statement, I became more and more disturbed. The document itself isn't on line, but I'd like to quote a few paragraphs from it.
"we will never propose or support a gestational abortion law for Canada. We will never conclude that we must accept what is intrinsically evil so that some good may be achieved. Specifically, we reject the argument made to us by some pro-lifers that the faint and unrealistic prospect of the right to life of some unborn children being recognized in the Criminal Code of Canada at the current time justifies setting aside our longstanding opposition to affirming, in the same law, that some other unborn children may be lawfully killed." 
"A deliberate decision to propose, support, or vote for a gestational abortion law is a behaviour that is in itself immoral. Even if such a law might have some good effects, we can always refrain from engaging in such conduct altogether when to do so would itself not be immoral. If serious harm results from our refusal to participate in such conduct, we are not morally responsible for such consequences because no one can be morally required to sin. Our goal of establishing in civil law the right to life of all unborn children does not justify our use of evil means to accomplish that goal." 
"To counsel another person to choose an action as the lesser of two evils is immoral if both are moral evils, especially if the alleged “lesser evil” is an intrinsic evil." 
"We simply observe that a gestational abortion law would still affirm that a sub-class of unborn children may be lawfully killed, regardless of the motives of any particular legislator who may have voted for it, or of any pro-life activist who supported its enactment."
I respect a point of view different from my own. I believe that two people fighting for the same cause--the legal protection of pre-born children--can adhere to different strategies and ways of achieving the same end. For me to respect your viewpoint doesn't mean I have to agree with it, and vice versa. Both strategies are valid, and neither is morally or intrinsically evil.

I don't believe it is at all helpful though, for a pro-life organization to come out and attack another pro-life world view.

What is also troubling, is that this is an organizational statement, and not simply the view of a single person. It demeans and marginalizes pro-lifers who do not subscribe to CLC/AFLO's position.

This statement implicitly judges me as being immoral and supporting intrinsic evil. I am not and I do not. I am confident that my views are perfectly in line with Cardinal CollinsArchbishop MillerPriests for Life Canada, and my own spiritual director who is a Jesuit Priest and Canon Lawyer.

The other concern is that the statement can lead people--who might otherwise support gestational legislation--away from supporting a gestational approach, because they wrongly assume that if two large pro-life groups believe it to be wrong, then it must be wrong. This is very troubling indeed.

I believe in gestational legislation. Others do not. My conscience and my respected religious leaders agree with me. If others do not believe in gestational legislation as a valid strategy, that is fine. But making up reasons that are untrue to argue one's case, is not the way to persuade others to your viewpoint.

Saturday, June 9, 2012

Abortion incrementalism: the series

Here are all posts on this topic (Last updated April 12, 2013):

Archbishop Prendergast advocates helping pregnant women and placing restrictions on abortion (June 4, 2010)