By George Conger, Anglican Ink.
The Anglican Church of Canada has authorized trial liturgies for euthanasia deaths, giving clergy a prayer book for the bedside when doctors are ending a patient’s life.
The Council of General Synod in June 2026 commended “Pastoral Liturgies at the Time of Death in Contexts of Medically Assisted Dying” for use “where permitted by the Ordinary,” extending a process that began with General Synod’s pastoral statement In Sure and Certain Hope in 2017 and continued with the 2024 essay collection Faith Seeking Understanding: Medical Assistance in Dying. The new rites are billed as pastoral care, not ethics. In practice, they wrap euthanasia in familiar Anglican sacramental language.
The introduction says the purpose is “to provide liturgical and pastoral guidelines… when they are called to accompany the dying, specifically with those who have opted to use Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD),” and adds: “It is not our intent to enter into the ethical arguments regarding MAiD, nor to provide a moral argument for or against MAiD.”
The church, the authors say, has a “duty of pastoral care” to all who are dying, and “when someone reaches out for pastoral care, the church responds.” Those who choose MAiD are “creatures of a loving God,” whose baptismal dignity makes them “worthy to receive the ministry of the church.”
The booklet offers a cornucopia of death rites. The main bedside service, “Ministry at the Time of Medical Assisted Dying,” is designed “for use on the day and in the moments before and after the person dies.” It includes Scripture, general confession and absolution, intercessions, laying on of hands and anointing, Holy Communion—either a full Eucharist or communion from the Reserved Sacrament—and prayers at the time of death. At the moment when the medical team is preparing its syringes, the priest may say one of the traditional commendations: “Depart, O Christian soul, out of this world… May your rest be this day in peace, and your dwelling place in the paradise of God,” or “Into your hands, O merciful Savior, we commend your servant N… Receive them into the arms of your mercy, into the blessed rest of everlasting peace.”
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From an Evangelical Anglican standpoint, several problems stand out.
First, the claim to ethical neutrality does not survive contact with the rites. Authorizing clergy to celebrate Eucharist, pronounce absolution, anoint, and commend at the moment of a planned euthanasia death is not neutral. It treats a doctor-assisted killing as an ordinary Christian death to be enfolded in the church’s sacramental hope.