EWTN portal reports that Father Larry Holland, a 79-year-old priest from Vancouver, was twice offered Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) by healthcare staff at Vancouver General Hospital while recovering from a hip fracture — despite their knowledge that he was a Catholic priest and morally opposed to euthanasia. The article details how a doctor raised the option of assisted death, framing it as a routine “service,” and how a nurse later made a second offer, which Holland described as “false compassion.” The piece further exposes the Canadian Association of MAID Assessors and Providers’ guidance, which explicitly warns healthcare professionals not to assume that Roman Catholics — including nuns — oppose euthanasia, and even recommends proactively initiating MAID discussions with eligible patients. The article also references the broader context of Canada’s escalating euthanasia deaths approaching 100,000, legislative attempts to curb coercive practices, and the testimony of a Catholic chaplain at VGH who described the constant struggle to help suffering patients not lose hope. While the article presents these facts with evident concern, it fails to identify the root cause: the systematic apostasy of the post-conciliar sect and its “clergy” from the immutable Catholic doctrine on the sanctity of life, the redemptive value of suffering, and the moral law — an apostasy that has created the spiritual vacuum in which such diabolical practices flourish unchallenged.
The Sanctity of Life: A Doctrine Abandoned by the Conciliar Sect
The Fifth Commandment is unambiguous: Non occides — “Thou shalt not kill” (Exodus 20:13). The Catechism of the Council of Trent teaches that this prohibition extends to suicide and to any direct killing of the innocent, and that “the power of life and death belongs to God alone” (cf. Deuteronomy 32:39). Pope Pius XII, in his allocution to the International Congress of Anesthesiologists (November 24, 1957), reaffirmed that no one may directly cause the death of an innocent person, regardless of any alleged benefit, and that the moral law admits of no exception in this regard. The very notion that a healthcare professional — let alone one aware that the patient is a consecrated priest — would offer a fellow human being the “service” of death is not merely a failure of bedside manner; it is a manifestation of a civilization that has formally repudiated the sovereignty of God over life and death.
What makes the case of Father Holland particularly damning is not simply that he was offered euthanasia, but that the offer was made with full knowledge of his priestly character and his known moral opposition. The doctor’s justification — that he merely wanted to ensure Father Holland “knew of the different services” available — reveals a bureaucratic, procedural mentality that has entirely supplanted the natural law. In this framework, the deliberate killing of a human being is reduced to a “clinical care option,” no different from a referral for physiotherapy. This is the logical terminus of the secularism condemned by Pius XI in Quas Primas: “the secularism of our times, so-called laicism, its errors and wicked endeavors” — a plague that “began with the denial of Christ the Lord’s reign over all nations” and has now penetrated the very institutions entrusted with the care of the sick and dying.
The “False Compassion” of a Godless Medical Establishment
Father Holland’s observation that the nurse’s offer constituted “false compassion” is theologically precise. True compassion, in the Catholic sense, is cum passio — suffering with another — and it is ordered toward the good of the whole body and soul. It seeks to alleviate suffering while respecting the inviolability of the human person as created in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1:27). The “compassion” that offers death as a solution to pain is not compassion at all; it is a hatred of the human person disguised as mercy, a diabolical inversion that treats the suffering individual as a problem to be eliminated rather than a soul to be accompanied toward its eternal destiny.
Pope Pius XII, in his 1957 address, explicitly condemned the notion that suffering is meaningless or that the physician is justified in ending life to spare the patient pain: “Even if death is imminent, one is not permitted to do anything that would directly cause it.” The Canadian healthcare system’s practice of proactively offering MAID — as recommended by the Canadian Association of MAID Assessors and Providers — constitutes a systematic violation of the natural law and, for those who participate in it with knowledge and consent, a mortal sin. That this practice is directed even at a Catholic priest, a man consecrated to God and publicly identified as such, demonstrates the depth of the moral collapse.
The Conciliar Sect’s Complicity Through Silence and Relativism
The article notes that the Canadian Association of MAID Assessors and Providers’ document explicitly warns healthcare professionals not to assume that Roman Catholics oppose euthanasia, citing the example of “Roman Catholic nuns” who have requested MAID. This is presented as a reason to initiate discussions proactively. The document’s logic is breathtaking in its implications: the existence of Catholics who commit apostasy is used as a justification for tempting other Catholics into apostasy. This is not merely bureaucratic insensitivity; it is a deliberate strategy to normalize the violation of the Fifth Commandment within Catholic communities.
What the article does not address — and what is essential to understanding the crisis — is the role of the post-conciliar sect in creating the conditions for this normalization. Since the “Second Vatican Council,” the conciliar structures have systematically undermined the Church’s teaching on the sanctivity of life, the reality of sin, the existence of hell, and the necessity of suffering for salvation. The “clergy” of the neo-church have, in the vast majority of cases, either remained silent on euthanasia or actively facilitated it through ambiguous pastoral guidance, the denial of sacraments to those who oppose it, or the promotion of a “mercy” that is indistinguishable from moral relativism.
The “bishops” of the conciliar sect in Canada — themselves appointed by the usurpers in the Vatican — have failed to exercise their duty as custodians of the moral law. Where is the categorical, public, and unambiguous condemnation of MAID as intrinsically evil? Where is the excommunication of those who promote or participate in it? Where is the defense of Catholic healthcare institutions against the imposition of euthanasia protocols? The silence of these men is not neutrality; it is complicity in the culture of death. As St. Robert Bellarmine teaches, a prelate who fails to oppose manifest heresy and moral evil is himself guilty of scandal and, if the conditions are met, may be judged to have forfeited his office.
The Redemptive Value of Suffering: A Truth Forgotten
Father Ronald Sequeira, the Catholic chaplain at VGH, is quoted as saying: “God makes us more pure, more strong, through the suffering when we offer it up.” This is sound Catholic theology — the doctrine of the communion of saints and the merit of suffering united to the Passion of Christ. St. Paul writes: “I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the Church” (Colossians 1:24). Pope St. John Paul I (Albino Luciani), in his pre-conciliar writings, consistently taught that suffering, when accepted with faith and love, is a means of sanctification and a participation in the redemptive work of Christ.
Yet this truth is precisely what the conciliar sect has obscured in its relentless pursuit of a “Church” that is “relevant” to the modern world. The post-conciliar emphasis on “quality of life,” “personal autonomy,” and “dignity” (redefined as the absence of suffering) has effectively evacuated the Christian meaning of the Cross. If suffering is merely an evil to be eliminated, then the Crucifixion itself is a tragedy rather than the supreme act of love. The offer of euthanasia to a priest — a man configured to Christ the High Priest, called to offer sacrifice and to unite his sufferings to those of his Divine Master — is thus not merely a personal affront but a blasphemy against the priesthood itself.
The Legal and Political Dimension: A Nation in Apostasy
The article references legislative attempts to curb the coercive offering of MAID, including Bill C-260 introduced by Conservative MP Garnett Genuis and the Alberta government’s proposed Safeguards for Last Resort Termination of Life Act. While these efforts are commendable in a purely natural sense, they are ultimately insufficient without a return to the public reign of Christ the King over the Canadian state. As Pius XI declared in Quas Primas: “The State is happy not by one means, and man by another; for the state is nothing else than a harmonious association of men” — and that association must be ordered toward its supernatural end under the authority of Christ.
Canada’s euthanasia regime is not an isolated policy failure; it is the fruit of a nation’s formal apostasy from Christ the King. The legalization of MAID in 2016, its subsequent expansion to include non-terminal conditions, and the current push to normalize its proactive offering to vulnerable patients are all symptoms of a society that has rejected the divine law. No amount of legislative tinkering will restore the culture of life without the conversion of Canada to the Catholic faith and the recognition of Christ’s sovereign authority over the nation — a conversion that the conciliar sect, with its false ecumenism, religious indifferentism, and refusal to proclaim the necessity of the Catholic Church for salvation, is structurally incapable of effecting.
The Temptation of the Priest: A Testimony of Faith Under Siege
Father Holland’s admission that he “could feel the temptation” to accept MAID is a sobering reminder that even those consecrated to God are not immune to the pressures of a culture of death. His resistance — rooted in his faith and his priestly formation — is commendable. Yet the fact that a priest must resist such a temptation in a Catholic hospital, at the hands of healthcare professionals who know his vocation, is a scandal that should provoke outrage among the faithful.
The article’s framing of Father Holland’s experience as an isolated incident — a case of “insensitive” healthcare providers — obscures the systemic nature of the crisis. This is not a matter of individual malice or poor training; it is the logical consequence of a civilization that has embraced the culture of death as its organizing principle. The Canadian healthcare system, like the Canadian state, operates on the assumption that human life is a commodity to be managed, not a sacred trust from God. Until this assumption is overturned — which requires, above all, the restoration of the Catholic Church in her full doctrinal and moral authority — such incidents will only multiply.
Conclusion: The Necessity of the True Church
The case of Father Larry Holland is a microcosm of the crisis facing the Catholic world in Canada and beyond. A priest, consecrated to God and publicly identified as such, is offered death by the very institutions entrusted with his care. The “clergy” of the conciliar sect, who should be the first to defend him and to proclaim the inviolability of his life, are largely silent or complicit. The state, which should recognize the authority of Christ the King and the moral law, instead promotes the culture of death as a “right.” And the faithful, deprived of sound catechesis and true pastoral leadership, are left to navigate this spiritual battlefield alone.
The remedy is not better legislation, more “sensitive” healthcare protocols, or improved “chaplaincy training.” The remedy is the restoration of the Catholic Church in her fullness — the Church that proclaims without ambiguity that life is sacred from conception to natural death, that suffering united to Christ is redemptive, that euthanasia is an intrinsic evil, and that the state is subject to the law of God. This Church endures in the faithful who profess the integral Catholic faith, who reject the conciliar apostasy, and who look not to the usurpers in the Vatican but to the immutable Tradition of the ages. As Pius XI declared: “The peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ” — and there is no other.
Source:
Canadian priest offered euthanasia twice while recovering from hip fracture (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 04.05.2026