Discrediting of faith

It’s always precarious to argue from personal experience, since it inevitably draws from a population sample of one. But if anyone doubts the reality of the silencing Benedict warned against, I would serve up as evidence the current hearings going on here in Quebec on the issue of euthanasia and assisted suicide.

Now, my own beliefs on euthanasia are a matter of ample public record and I have no intention of rehashing them here. And as full disclosure: my wife is the director of an organization deeply involved in the effort to prevent medicalized killing being smuggled into the provincial health system.

What has been fascinating for me as an observer, admittedly one with a very definite perspective, is the way the religious faith of those opposed to euthanasia and assisted suicide has been used as a pretext to attempt to block them from the debate even when they are arguing from purely secular grounds.

During hearings held in Montreal two weeks ago by a special committee of the provincial legislature, for example, Dr. John Zucchi testified on behalf of 54 tenured professors at McGill University who signed a manifesto opposing attempts to legalize euthanasia or assisted suicide. Dr. Zucchi is an eminent Canadian historian, and chairman of the history department at McGill. Testifying beside him was Dr. Gerald Batist, chairman of the department of oncology at McGill University and author of more than 100 scientific publications including one in 2006 on “improved anti-tumor response rate with decreased cardiotoxicity of non-pegylated liposomal doxorubicin compared with conventional doxorubicin in first-line treatment of metastatic breast cancer in patients who had received prior adjuvant doxorubicin: results of a retrospective analysis.“

As might be expected, neither of the witnesses went into raptures of religious declamation during their appearance before the legislative committee. In fact, neither mentioned a word about any aspect of religious faith in making his arguments.

Barely had they finished testifying, though, when one of their fellow citizens on the other side of the euthanasia argument was working the hallway outside the hearings, busily lobbying committee members to disregard Dr. Zucchi’s presentation because he is a well-known Catholic in Montreal. (He took the Quebec government to court for violating the constitutional rights of school children at Montreal’s Loyola High School.)

All right, so one busybody lobbyist got overly enthusiastic. Gotterdammerung it isn’t.

But the fascinating thing was that throughout the hearings witness after witness for the pro-euthanasia side of the debate launched into tirades about the religious beliefs of those opposed (my wife timed one tirade at a full two minutes of full-bore Catholic bashing) . . . and the committee members just folded their hands and let it go on.

The discrediting of faith now seems so accepted in Canadian society that elected members of a provincial legislature (which still has a crucifix on its walls) sat listening attentively to verbal abuse of believers simply for being believers.

These are the seeds of intolerance that will bear poison fruit indeed unless all who have faith in liberal democratic freedom come together to root them out.