Following on from my Thursday column1 on medical assistance in dying (MAID), some readers criticized me for stating that the advertising campaign which encourages people to discourage a loved one from having MAID is the work of a “religious group “.
A reader, Mr. Dupire: “On the site of this group, there is no religious mention and it is made up mainly of people from the medical field…”
And it is precisely that the group in question (Living with Dignity) responded on Friday in our pages2. I note two quotes from coordinator Jasmin Lemieux-Lefebvre…
First quote: “We presented her [la campagne publicitaire] wrongly considered the work of a religious group…”
Second quote: “We are not a religious group, but an apolitical and non-religious network. »
The “Our Team” section of the Living with Dignity website features eight people.
We read their biographies and, in fact, we say to ourselves that this is not enough to cause a bacon crisis in a bowl of holy water. Religious affiliations are almost absent.
The thing is, to find out how the hand of God is guiding these eight people, you have to dig outside the Living with Dignity website. I’m starting the fact check…
Coordinator Jasmin Lemieux-Lefebvre notes that he was director of communications for the Archdiocese of Quebec. You can of course be the communications director of an organization without embracing its entire mission.
But Mr. Lemieux-Lefebvre is a devout Catholic who watches every Philadelphia Eagles game “unless it falls during mass” and is a “lover” of the Church.
The president of the Board of Directors of Living with Dignity is Alexander King. He explains in his biographical note that he holds an MBA and is involved in fundraising for NPOs. We also read that Mr. King is senior director of development at the Montreal General Hospital Foundation.
Here is Mr. King’s testimony on the Catholic media website The verb : “I support The verb because I love its dynamic team, full of faith and hope, full of courage and confidence in this God-Word who became flesh and who takes flesh in the life of all Christians. I really like the fact that The verb put forward those who testify to the new life that Jesus offers us freely…”
Another member of the Living with Dignity team: Dr Patrick Vinay. The Dr Vinay multiplies conferences under the aegis of the Catholic Church. Here is how the Catholic Church of Saint-Hyacinthe presented this doctor who came to give a conference on January 31 in the basement of Sainte-Eugénie church: “Firstly a man of faith and a nephrologist…”
The DD Paola Diadori is also a member of this organization. She published an essay in a book where the authors take a position, for example, against medical assistance in dying. Former cardinal Marc Ouellet also writes an essay in this collection. Description of the book: “The modern secular State attacks the dignity of the human person by denying its source. Human rights detached from their origin in God are a consensus…”
These essays grew out of a conference held in 2010 under the aegis of the Canadian Federation of Societies of Catholic Physicians. Motto of this Federation: “The glory of God is Man fully alive. »
The DD Catherine Ferrier, now. Professor at McGill, geriatrician at the Montreal General Hospital, tells us about his biography. What her biography on the Living with Dignity website does not say is that the DD Ferrier won the Catholic Civil Rights League’s Catholic Excellence in Public Life Award in 2018…
Title of a text from a Catholic media which covered this prize awarded to the Quebec doctor: “La DD Ferrier sees the hand of God in his work against euthanasia. »
Oh, I forgot: the DD Ferrier is affiliated with Opus Dei, the Catholic organization that does “God’s work,” as revealed The duty in 2013.
Mme Marie Bourque describes herself as a trained teacher who promoted parents’ rights. What Mme Bourque does not specify in her biography that she was vice-president of the Catholic Parents’ Association!
Here is what she said in 2015 about sex education classes in schools: “The minister can ramble on whatever he wants, if a parent decides that their child will not attend the sex education class, they can exercise your right to withdraw it. »
Cory Andrew Labrecque is professor of theology at Laval University. You can teach theology without being involved in the Church, of course. But one word in his biography gives an idea of his religious commitment, the word “pontifical”. By searching a little outside the Living with Dignity website, we discover that Mr. Labrecque is a “corresponding member of the Pontifical Academy for Life”, which advises the Vatican on bioethics issues.
And finally, Carmie Forlini describes herself as a bachelor of commerce and life coach, “who firmly believes that every life is precious, from conception to natural death.” It’s vaguer than what we find on M’s websiteme Forlini: “My greatest strength comes from my faith. I believe God has plans for our lives that we can’t even imagine. »
Now, we can decide to play with words and say, like the spokesperson for Living with Dignity, that this is an organization that has nothing religious about it.
When the eight people who make up your team are people whose public commitment is guided by the Christian faith (it took me a morning to find traces of it), we can say that it is a group religious.
And there is nothing wrong with being religious, I point out.
From there, the question is not whether Living with Dignity is a religious group, it is.
The question is elsewhere…
Why hide it?
1. Read the column “Leave the dying alone (and love them)”
2. Read the line from Living with Dignity