VATICAN CITY -- Looking for a way to provide both spiritual and physical care on Easter, a group of Italian doctors received their bishop's permission to distribute Communion to those infected by the coronavirus.

It was a dramatic scene at Queen’s Park on Jan. 31: NDP Leader Andrea Horwath waving a copy of The Health System Efficiency Act 2019, a leaked bill that would see the Ontario government create a “super agency” to manage the province’s health care system.

Britain’s Royal College of Physicians has adopted a neutral position on assisted suicide until they hear back from British doctors on whether they favour changing United Kingdom laws against doctors helping their patients commit suicide.

Medical ethics can’t be limited to patient choice, or even the health problems patients face, according to the president of the World Medical Association.

Ontario’s palliative care doctors are warning that the government is not ready for “an imminent spike in the number of people facing end-of-life.”

As Parliament awaits the imminent arrival of a report on assisted suicide that may make a bad situation even worse, it’s worth noting some chilling stories from the first countries to legalize medically induced death. This could be our future.

Canada’s sudden withdrawal from the World Medical Association is likely due to a Canadian delegation feeling wounded and angry after their proposal to alter the world body’s code of ethics on euthanasia was resoundingly rejected, according to a Canadian doctor.

Catholic doctors from Canada are heading to Iceland to block Canadian Medical Association efforts to change the World Medical Association’s code of ethics.

I am a second-year medical student at the University of Toronto. Next year, my peers and I will embark on a series of rigorous and demanding clinical rotations, shortly after which we will decide which area of medicine we will pursue in our professional lives. Conversations about the future abound. 

Rather than fighting to change the system which imposes euthanasia, health care professional bioethicist Bob Parke wants to create a private hospice that bans assisted killing and where dying will only come the natural way.

TORONTO – It’s rare for an hour-long, academic lecture to get a standing ovation, but Dr. Ewan Goligher earned thunderous applause from about 100 people who turned up on a cold, rainy night to hear his defence of medical conscience.

VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict added 12th-century German abbess St. Hildegard of Bingen and St. John of Avila to the roster of doctors of the universal Church.

The Pope proclaimed the new doctors at Mass Oct. 7 in St. Peter’s Square, where the thousands in attendance included pilgrims waving Spanish flags, and Germannuns in traditional habits.

In his homily, Pope Benedict noted St. Hildegard’s knowledge of medicine, poetry and music, and called her a “woman of brilliant intelligence, deep sensitivity and recognized spiritual authority. The Lord granted her a prophetic spiritand fervent capacity to discern the signs of the times.”

He said that St. John, “a profound expert on the sacred Scriptures,” knew how to“penetrate in a uniquely profound way the mysteries of the redemption worked by Christ for humanity.”

The Doctors of the Church,saints honoured for particularly important contributions to theology and spirituality, come from both the Eastern and Western Church traditions.

The 35 doctors include early Church fathers such as Sts. Jerome, John Chrysostom and Augustine, and theologians such as Sts. Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventureand John of the Cross, but also St. Therese of Lisieux, who was honoured by Blessed John Paul II in 1997, despite her lack of scholarly accomplishment.
St. Hildegard is the fourth female doctor of the Church, joining Sts. Therese, Catherine of Siena and Teresa of Avila.