National Catholic Register reports that Cardinal Frank Leo of Toronto has written to Prime Minister Mark Carney urging support for Bill C-218, which would block the expansion of euthanasia (MAID) to those whose sole condition is mental illness. The cardinal speaks of “choosing life,” the “dignity of the human person,” and the need for palliative care — all while operating within structures that have systematically dismantled the Catholic understanding of suffering, death, and the supernatural end of man. This appeal, however well-intentioned it may appear on the surface, is fatally compromised by the very system from which it emanates: the conciliar sect that has abandoned the integral Catholic doctrine on the sanctity of life, the redemptive value of suffering, and the Social Kingship of Christ.
The Sanctity of Life: What the Conciliar Sect Has Forgotten
Let us be unequivocal about immutable Catholic doctrine. The Fifth Commandment — Non occides (Thou shalt not kill) — is not a suggestion subject to parliamentary negotiation. It is an absolute divine law from which no dispensation is possible, under any circumstances, for any authority on earth. Pope Pius XI taught in Casti Connubii (1930): “God alone is the Lord of life and death, and no man, however just his cause, can take his own life or that of an innocent person.” The Catechism of the Council of Trent is explicit: “The law which prohibits killing is founded on this, that life is the gift of God, and therefore he who destroys it offends against God Himself.”
Pope Pius XII, in his allocution to the International Congress of Neuro-Psychology (September 13, 1957), reaffirmed that no authority on earth can legitimately authorize the direct killing of an innocent person: “Human life, even in its earthly phase, is of such a nature that its direct suppression is never permitted… The direct killing of an innocent person, even for reasons of state, is always illicit.”
This is the doctrine. It admits of no exceptions, no expansion, no limitation bills. The question is never how far euthanasia should be permitted, but whether it should be permitted at all. And the answer, from the perennial teaching of the Magisterium, is an absolute and irrevocable no.
The Fatal Compromise: Working Within the System That Legalized Murder
Now let us examine the fundamental contradiction at the heart of Cardinal Leo’s appeal. He is asking the Canadian Parliament — the very parliament that legalized euthanasia in 2016 — to limit its further expansion. This is not defending the faith; this is negotiating the terms of surrender.
Consider the trajectory. In 2016, Canada legalized Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID). Since then, nearly 100,000 lives have been ended. The conciliar structures in Canada — including the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops — did not declare this law null and void, as every pope before Vatican II would have done. They did not anathematize the legislators who voted for it. They did not threaten excommunication. They did not invoke the teaching of Pope Pius IX in the Syllabus of Errors (1864), who condemned the proposition that “civil authority has the right to interfere in matters relating to religion, morality and spiritual government” (Proposition 44), or that “the violation of any solemn oath… is not only not blamable but is altogether lawful and worthy of the highest praise when done through love of country” (Proposition 64).
Instead, they engaged with the system. They wrote letters. They lobbied. They asked for “free votes.” They requested “investments in palliative care.” In other words, they accepted the principle that the state has the authority to permit the killing of innocents, and merely disputed the scope of that authority.
This is precisely the error condemned by Pope Leo XIII in Immortale Dei (1885): “The Almighty, therefore, has given the charge of the human race to two powers, the ecclesiastical and the civil, the one being set over divine, and the other over human, each supreme in its own kind, and each fixed within limits which are defined by its proper nature and special object.” When the civil power claims authority over life and death — an authority that belongs to God alone — the Church’s duty is not to negotiate but to condemne absolutely and refuse cooperation.
The Silence on the Root: The Conciliar Abandonment of the Faith
Cardinal Leo speaks of the “dignity of the human person.” But what does this phrase mean in the mouth of a cardinal of the conciliar sect? In authentic Catholic theology, the dignity of the human person flows from the fact that man is created in the imago Dei, endowed with an immortal soul, destined for eternal beatitude, and — most critically — united to Christ through baptism and the sacraments. Suffering, in this framework, is not meaningless agony to be eliminated by a lethal injection; it is, when united to the Passion of Christ, a means of sanctification and redemption.
Pope St. Pius X taught in Lamentabili Sane Exitu (1907) — a document whose authority the conciliar sect has effectively nullified — that the modernist propositions which reduce faith to mere “self-awareness” or deny the supernatural order are to be “condemned and rejected” (Proposition 20). The entire conciliar project, from Dignitatis Humanae onward, has been built on precisely this modernist foundation: the “dignity of the human person” divorced from the supernatural, man’s end reduced to earthly well-being, and suffering redefined as an evil to be eliminated rather than a cross to be embraced.
Cardinal Leo’s appeal for “palliative care” and “mental health support” — while not wrong in itself — is framed entirely within this naturalistic paradigm. There is no mention of the sacraments as the true source of comfort for the dying. There is no mention of extreme unction (now reduced to the laughable “Anointing of the Sick” in the conciliar rite). There is no mention of the state of grace, the last things, the particular judgment, or eternal salvation. The dying person is treated as a patient to be managed, not as a soul to be saved.
This is the gravest accusation: silence about supernatural matters is the hallmark of modernist apostasy. As Pope Pius IX warned in the Syllabus, the proposition that “philosophy is to be treated without taking any account of supernatural revelation” (Proposition 14) is condemned. Cardinal Leo’s letter, for all its apparent concern for life, is a document of pure naturalism — the very naturalism that Pius IX identified as the foundation of all modern errors.
The “Free Vote” Heresy: Conscience Above God’s Law
Perhaps the most revealing element of Cardinal Leo’s appeal is his request that Prime Minister Carney allow Liberal MPs a “free vote” on Bill C-218. He writes: “This legislation raises profound questions of conscience that transcend partisan alignment and touch on deeply held moral, ethical, and spiritual convictions.”
Let us unpack this. The implication is that the question of whether the state should permit the killing of innocent persons is a matter of conscience — that is, a matter on which Catholics may legitimately disagree and vote according to their personal convictions. This is precisely the error of religious liberty condemned by Pope Gregory XVI in Mirari Vos (1832): “When the discipline of the Church is relaxed, when the judgment of the Church is despised, when the authority of the Church is rejected, then the most pernicious errors spring up, and the most absurd opinions are freely propagated.”
Pope Pius IX condemned the proposition that “Catholics may approve of the system of educating youth unconnected with Catholic faith and the power of the Church” (Proposition 48 of the Syllabus). By analogy, Catholics may not approve of — or vote for — any system that permits the killing of innocents. It is not a matter of conscience; it is a matter of divine law. A Catholic MP who votes to permit euthanasia — even with the “sole condition of mental illness” — commits formal cooperation with evil and places himself outside the communion of the faith.
Cardinal Leo’s request for a “free vote” is not a defense of conscience; it is a surrender to indifferentism. It treats the Fifth Commandment as a matter of political negotiation rather than an absolute divine precept. This is the fruit of Dignitatis Humanae — the conciliar declaration on religious freedom that Pius IX explicitly condemned in advance as “the liberty of perdition” (Proposition 80 of the Syllabus).
The “Help Not Harm” Campaign: Activism Without the Faith
The Archdiocese of Toronto’s “Help Not Harm” campaign encourages Canadians to write to their MPs in support of Bill C-218. By mid-April, about 5,000 letters had been sent through the online portal.
Five thousand letters. To a parliament that legalized murder. Asking it to be slightly less murderous.
Where are the rosaries? Where are the days of reparation? Where are the public processions, the exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, the prayers for the conversion of Canada? Where is the proclamation that Canada is under divine judgment for the legalization of euthanasia, and that no parliamentary maneuver can substitute for national repentance and return to Christ the King?
Pope Pius XI, in Quas Primas (1925), established the Feast of Christ the King precisely to remind nations that “not only private individuals, but also rulers and governments have the duty to publicly honor Christ and obey Him.” He warned: “When God and Jesus Christ — as we lamented — were removed from laws and states and when authority was derived not from God but but from men, the foundations of that authority were destroyed.”
Canada has removed God from its laws. It has derived its authority from men — from parliaments, from courts, from the shifting sands of public opinion. And now a cardinal of the conciliar sect writes letters asking these same men to be slightly less godless. This is not the Church militant; this is the Church surrendering.
The Missing Doctrine: Redemptive Suffering and the Supernatural End of Man
The entire framework of Cardinal Leo’s appeal is naturalistic. He speaks of “compassion,” “dignity,” “love,” “accompanying those suffering” — all earthly, horizontal, humanitarian concepts. Nowhere does he mention the one thing necessary: the eternal salvation of the soul.
Pope St. Pius X, in his Catechism on the Sacraments, taught that suffering in this life, when borne with patience and united to the merits of Christ, is a means of expiating sin and gaining merit for eternity. The Imitation of Christ (Book II, Chapter 12) teaches: “In the Cross is salvation; in the Cross is life; in the Cross is protection from enemies; in the Cross is infusion of heavenly sweetness; in the Cross is strength of mind; in the Cross is joy of spirit; in the Cross is the height of virtue; in the Cross is the perfection of sanctity.”
To offer a dying person a lethal injection instead of the Viaticum, the Last Blessing, the Prayers for the Dying, and the heroic confidence in God’s mercy — this is not compassion. This is cruelty. It is to rob a soul of its greatest opportunity for merit and to send it before its Maker in the very act of despair.
And the conciliar sect, having gutted the rites of the dying, having reduced Extreme Unction to a vague “anointing” that can be administered to anyone who is “seriously ill” (a category so broad as to be meaningless), having replaced the old prayers for the dying with banal invocations of “healing” and “comfort” — this same sect now presumes to speak of “accompanying the suffering.” They have destroyed the very means by which the Church accompanies the dying, and now they offer parliamentary lobbying as a substitute.
Conclusion: The Only True Response
The only true response to the legalization of euthanasia is not Bill C-218. It is not letters to MPs. It is not “free votes” or “palliative care investments.” It is the full, integral, uncompromising proclamation of Catholic truth:
- Euthanasia is always and everywhere gravely sinful, regardless of the condition of the patient, the wishes of the family, or the permission of the state. This is not a matter of opinion; it is the Fifth Commandment.
- Any law permitting euthanasia is null and void, as it contradicts the divine law. Catholics are bound to resist such laws and may not cooperate with them in any way.
- The state has no authority over life and death. This authority belongs to God alone. Any claim by the civil power to authorize the killing of innocents is an usurpation of divine prerogative and must be rejected absolutely.
- The true remedy for suffering is not death but the sacraments — Penance to restore the state of grace, Extreme Unction to strengthen the soul, Viaticum to nourish it for the journey to eternity, and the prayers of the Church to commend it to the mercy of God.
- Canada, and every nation that has legalized euthanasia, is under divine judgment. The only remedy is national repentance, the repudiation of the murderous law, and the recognition of the Social Kingship of Christ over all nations and all aspects of public life.
Until the structures occupying the Vatican proclaim these truths — and act on them with the authority of the Chair of Peter — no letter from any cardinal, no “Help Not Harm” campaign, no private member’s bill will avail. The conciliar sect has lost the faith, and without the faith, no political action — however well-intentioned — can restore what has been destroyed.
Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus. Outside the Church, there is no salvation. And outside the truth, there is no life.
Source:
Canadian Cardinal Calls on Prime Minister to Support Legislation Limiting Euthanasia (ncregister.com)
Date: 23.04.2026