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Wesley Smith is a pro-life bioethicist with the Discovery Institute who frequently writes in conservative publications like National Review. A recent essay was titled: “Assisted-Suicide Death Ceremonies Becoming Normalized.”
People should not be surprised. In Canada, where getting a doctor to kill you (they call it “Medical Assistance in Dying,” MAID) has been legal since 2016, almost one in every twenty Canadians now dies from MAID. America’s ten or so “physician-assisted suicide” states have also successively loosened restrictions, including on eligible conditions, certainty and proximity of death, and residency to make this a tourist growth industry.
Anthropologist Mary Douglas once observed that “[a]s a social animal, man is a ritual animal.” That’s true. There’s a reason why there are more churches with set liturgies than free-style prayer. There’s a reason people who eschew doctrine and morals still like smells and bells. There’s a reason people who reject organized religion still indulge in vacuous “spirituality.”
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As atheistic secularism transmogrifies into a religion, it takes on aspects of religion. The zealous creedal commitments of the woke is one sign. But the search for visible signs, for ritual actions that mark belonging, is also there. The fact that those upset by Donald Trump’s victory fumbled for ways to “identify” fellow believers—bracelets, nose rings, shaved heads—proves that.
But it’s not always about inventing new rituals. Sometimes, it’s just about co-opting old ones. A while back, I did a little study of the Presbyterian marriage rite, which is now being used in homosexual and lesbian “weddings.” The rite was almost verbatim what it had been. You had to look closely to see what changed: excision of references to sexual differentiation and to potential parenthood. Otherwise, it was your mom and dad’s Presbyterian wedding ceremony. One could call it bait and switch.
Wesley Smith has identified a new area for ritual invention: ceremonies to say farewell to those planning on committing suicide.
Once upon a time, such activities might be called aiding and abetting a suicide. In some contexts, they still might, though the “Western liberal democratic” state has suicides it likes as well as dislikes. Many of these ceremonies would probably make a 1970s guitar-Mass “liturgist” perk up, so touchy-feely but spiritually banal. That’s not the point. The point is that man, the ritual animal, needs to ritualize death. And why his new, secularized religion needs to ape the sacraments. Man, the ritual animal, needs to ritualize death. And why his new, secularized religion needs to ape the sacraments.Tweet This
This problem does not leave Catholics unaffected. Eight years ago, I wrote in these pages about how two groups of Canadian bishops planned to respond to MAID—including requests for the last sacraments. Those in Alberta and the Northwest Territories intended to hold the line. Killing yourself is morally evil and thus does not reflect the repentance required for validly receiving Penance, Eucharist, or Anointing. Priests should try to dissuade people from these actions. Bishops in some of the Maritimes took a much mushier approach, babbling about “accompaniment” while blurring lines.
Pontifical Academy for Life head Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia ignited a similar firestorm in 2023 when his moral and pastoral gymnastics created a Kamala Harris-like verbal salad over what a priest should do in physician-assisted suicide cases. Eventually forced somewhat to walk back his mishmash, he seemed in the end to channel his inner Beatle, “I want to hold your hand.”
The archbishop’s critics said he avoided prophetic witness in favor of “strategic ambiguity” and scored him for that. I’d argue the Church is harmed by such “leadership.”
Many Catholics are unfamiliar with concepts from moral theology like “formal” and “material cooperation.” Many are probably also unfamiliar with the fact that by Baptism they were incorporated into Christ’s threefold office of priest, prophet, and king. A prophet bears witness to the truth, often in a community that wants to stop its ears.
Catholics will increasingly be pressed to address how to speak and behave in questions where the new, secular religion wants their participation: attending same-sex “marriages” and “celebrating” their “parenthood” or, as Wesley Smith notes, ritualizing somebody’s plans to kill themselves (whether that happens later or becomes the “death of the party”).
In this clash between the cultures of life and death—a fight the future John Paul II presciently identified in 1976 during his Lenten retreat for then-Pope Paul VI—Catholics need clear leadership from their clergy, not “strategic ambiguity,” “accompaniment,” hand-holding, “discerning,” or the slogan du jour. Smith is pointing out that push will soon come to shove. The Church cannot be a pushover.The scriptural witness is clear: “the last enemy to be destroyed is death” (1 Corinthians 15:26). Pace the secular religion, it is not the friend to be surrendered to, much less “celebrated.”
Thank you for mentioning the Bishops of Alberta and NWT. You can find their Guidelines for the Celebration of the Sacraments with Persons & Families Considering or Opting for Death by Assisted Suicide or Euthanasia – and much more – on the Archdiocese of Edmonton’s website, Hope & Dignity: A Catholic Response to Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide (https://hopeanddignity.caedm.ca/). That particular document is on the page for Clergy, Chaplains and Cemeteries.