A 79-year-old Catholic priest says hospital staff in Vancouver, Canada, offered him assisted suicide twice during his recovery from a hip fracture.
Father Larry Holland explained to The B.C. Catholic, the Archdiocese of Vancouver’s newspaper, that he was treated at Vancouver General Hospital (VGH) after breaking his hip on Christmas Day. He said he told the doctor he opposed euthanasia on moral grounds, and hospital personnel were aware of his Catholic beliefs.
The doctor had mentioned euthanasia — committed in Canada through what’s called the “Medical Aid in Dying” (MAiD) program — as an “option” if the priest’s condition worsened.
Fr. Holland said he was shocked the subject was raised at all.
He told The B.C. Catholic the doctor claimed “he just wanted to make sure that, if a [terminal] diagnosis came up or not ... I knew of the different services I had access to.”
The doctor had also told him euthanasia is “something they have to discuss with someone who’s been given a terminal diagnosis,” Fr. Holland recalled.
Canada expanded eligibility for MAiD in 2021, allowing some people without terminal illnesses to “qualify.”
Several weeks into Fr. Holland’s hospital stay, a nurse brought up assisted suicide as an option again. The priest later said the nurse appeared uncomfortable broaching the topic and seemed motivated by compassion for his suffering.
Fr. Holland described the nurse’s attitude as “a false compassion, really.”
The idea of false compassion leading people to embrace euthanasia – and the specific terms “false mercy” and “misguided compassion” – were popularized in the teaching of Pope St. John Paul II. In his apostolic letter Evangelium Vitae, the late Pope warned that caretakers can be “moved by an understandable even if misplaced compassion” to seek euthanasia for suffering patients.
“Even when not motivated by a selfish refusal to be burdened with the life of someone who is suffering, euthanasia must be called a false mercy, and indeed a disturbing ‘perversion’ of mercy,” John Paul II also wrote in the same document. “True ‘compassion’ leads to sharing another's pain; it does not kill the person whose suffering we cannot bear.”
A VGH spokesperson told The B.C. Catholic that hospital staff might “consider bringing up MAiD based on their clinical judgement, provided they possess the necessary knowledge and skills to do so.”
Coercion — whether overt or implicit — has been a major concern among anti-euthanasia activists for years. Some have argued that even the existence of euthanasia as an option is coercive, because the eligibility criteria suggest some lives aren’t worth protecting.
The growing pervasiveness of the offer of euthanasia has been a concern for some years as well. Amanda Achtman, a Catholic Canadian anti-MAiD activist, warned in a July 2024 interview that patients are offered euthanasia “unsolicited, often repeatedly.” She said such conversations can be “devastating” for vulnerable people.
The offer of euthanasia “deflates a person’s sense of worth and shatters their confidence that the people to whom they have entrusted themselves will actually fight for them,” Achtman said.
In 2024, 16,499 people were killed by MAiD, according to the Canadian government’s annual report on euthanasia.
Fr. Larry Lynn, a pro-life chaplain for the Archdiocese of Vancouver, told The B.C. Catholic that offering euthanasia to vulnerable patients raises serious spiritual concerns.
“It places the medical practitioner into the role of the devil, tempting a vulnerable person into mortal sin,” he said.
Fr. Holland shared with the outlet that amid his intense pain at the hospital he could “feel the temptation” to consider euthanasia.
“It’s a human reaction,” he said. “We always look for the easy way out.”
Fr. Ronald Sequeria, VHG’s Catholic chaplain, told the outlet that encouraging patients not to despair is an ongoing spiritual challenge. He strives to comfort people but, tragically, many patients give up, he said.
“The moment you lose hope,” he said, “the devil comes in, in different personalities, and says, ‘Do you want MAiD? I don’t want people to suffer.’”
Fr. Holland said he hopes sharing his experience of having the grace to reject euthanasia and persevere through the pain will help others.