"I humbly beg forgiveness for the evil committed by so many Christians against the Indigenous peoples," the pope said. Canada's own government has previously expressed its regret.

Francis was in Canada to apologize, not to preach — which may be why he said relatively little about that country's legalization of euthanasia in 2016.

Rebranded as "medical assistance in dying," or MAID, the formerly taboo practice is now hailed in Canada as both humane medical care and essential to patient autonomy. It enjoys strong support in opinion polls and the full backing of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's federal government.

Still, Francis's church is doctrinally opposed to euthanasia, and he has personally condemned it, so the pope did allude, in one of his public addresses, to "patients who, in place of affection, are administered death."

He could, and should, have said more. Even before Francis's visit, there was evidence euthanasia has problems.

Between 2016 and 2021, Canadian medical personnel administered lethal doses to more than 31,000 people who were usually — but not always — terminally ill.

Since 2019, Canadian law has said that "intolerable" suffering due to "incurable" illness, which could include various chronic disabling conditions, may be sufficient to qualify for a lethal injection.

These permissive standards may be resulting in avoidable death or distress for vulnerable people, and disability rights advocates are expressing concern, as Maria Cheng of the Associated Press reported Aug. 11.

She told the story of 61-year-old Alan Nichols, who requested — and received — euthanasia less than a month after entering a British Columbia hospital in June 2019, suffering from suicidal thoughts, dehydration and malnutrition.

The decision was apparently based on a medical history that included serious but typically non-life-threatening conditions such as depression and hearing loss.

His grief-stricken family has sought explanations as to how doctors could have found their loved one competent to "choose" death much less needful of it.

"Somebody needs to take responsibility so that it never happens to another family," Trish Nichols, Alan's sister-in-law, told Cheng.

The family's inquiries to provincial and federal authorities have so far produced only officials' insistence that Alan met the criteria for physician-assisted death.

Cheng described the case of a man with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease, who felt driven to seek euthanasia because British Columbia officials would not provide him adequate support to live at home.

In a case separately reported by Canadian media this year, a 31-year-old Toronto woman with a disability sought and received approval for euthanasia after what she said was a futile search for safe housing — only to decide to continue living after private parties helped her find an appropriate dwelling.

While the details of these and other instances are difficult for outsiders to parse, and while it is true, as Canadian officials told Cheng, that 65 percent of euthanasia procedures have been performed on cancer patients, the issue's very murkiness and subjectivity is a warning sign.

In this context, any mistake could be irreversible.

Cheng reports that, as compared with the other six countries where euthanasia is legal, Canada's margin for error may be wider.

Canadian patients are not required to exhaust all treatment options before seeking MAID. Canada allows nurse practitioners as well as doctors to end patients' lives.

Another warning sign: Last year, a top United Nations disability rights official wrote to Trudeau advising him that legalizing euthanasia for the non-terminally ill creates an implied negative judgment on "the value or quality of life of persons with disabilities." Continue reading

I spoke those words in 2009, in a casual conversation with other inclusive ministry leaders about what it might look like for churches to be truly accessible to disabled people.

I wasn't opposed to online church at the time. I simply couldn't imagine how to make it work.

The ideal model, we were convinced, would be a hybrid church, building online communities linked with traditional in-person churches, so attendance could be fluid and connections built-in ways that included people of all ages, abilities and availability to be present in the same space as the church building.

Well-equipped megachurches with large budgets already had the technical abilities to stream services and host online discussion groups.

Most churches were and still are small and faithful, though, with resources more limited.

To implement a hybrid model, we knew we would need a system of training, funding and support.

We lacked all three.

But even if we had the money, time and expertise to do it all, we would need buy-in.

We needed leaders to believe disabled people deserved to be fully included in the church, as people like anyone else rather than as service projects to pity, perpetual children to patronize, or pets to pat on the head.

At that time, every American church with a robust inclusive ministry had one thing in common: The pastor had a child or a grandchild diagnosed with a disability.

Churches didn't change to become welcoming unless leaders loved one specific disabled person first. I didn't know what it would take for more churches to say yes to even considering inclusive online services.

A decade later, COVID-19 proved to be the catalyst for such change.

Churches began shifting to online models en masse, to keep people safe from a deadly virus.

As weeks passed and we could see that this new normal wasn't leaving anytime soon, church leaders began moving their faith communities online.

Disabled people who had begged for more accessible models of ministry, who had been told online church wasn't possible, watched as their requested accommodations became realities.

While we were excited to finally be able to engage with our churches through new programs, our pain was undeniable.

Jesus tells a parable, recorded in Luke 15 and Matthew 18, known as the parable of the lost sheep.

In it, a shepherd has 100 sheep and one goes missing. The good shepherd goes after the one lost sheep and brings it back to the other 99 with a spirit of joy and celebration. But is that a cute story we read like pure fiction, or do we believe it?

Consider, for a moment, that the story is one disabled person and 99 abled people, and instead of a field, the setting is a church.

When one needed to be able to participate in the community of believers from home or a hospital using technology, we in the church stuck with the 99.

Those virtual church options that were called impossible for the one became possible when COVID-19 safety measures, like not meeting in person, were necessary for the remaining 99 as well.

The accommodation was never impossible for the one.

We made a choice that the 99 abled people were worthy of such an option becoming available, which revealed what we believed about the one disabled person: They alone were not worthy, not in how church worked prior to the pandemic.

Now, as churches reopen their in-person services, the inclusive hybrid model can finally work, right?

Yes, but some people don't want it that way.

Recently, Tish Harrison Warren, a priest in the conservative sect of Anglican churches and an opinion writer for The New York Times, argued for the end of online church, even though she acknowledged the practice would re-marginalize some members who have been included by online worship connection.

As for whether or not online church should be an option, it already is and it's not going away.

The logistics of Communion practices, for example, are worthy of consideration and planning, but let's consider and plan those.

Should online church happen?

No matter your answer, it is happening.

This debate extends to how we classify relationships as well; is a person you only know online a friend, or does friendship require physical proximity?

Communal embodied experiences within friendships or worship don't require physical proximity.

Conversely, I have been physically present in church services without anything being embodied beyond the most superficial appearance.

My personal preference will always include in-person engagement with the people I call my church, usually in the building we also call church.

I understand other people have their own preferences, and I see no benefit in weighing whose disabilities or circumstances justify each choice.

As with other accommodations for disabled people, abled people will benefit as well: Shift workers and single parents and displaced individuals, be it by choice or necessity, can all benefit from worship models including online possibilities.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 26% of adults are disabled.

One in 10 adults age 18 and older — and double that for those 65 and older — have a disability that impacts one or more areas of functioning enough to require support from others.

We know COVID-19 disproportionately harms people with medical vulnerabilities, and some people who need to stay home to avoid COVID also stay home for part or all of flu season, in addition to hospitalizations, surgeries, sleep disorders and other circumstances preventing church attendance.

The most important fact we keep overlooking in these debates, though, is that disabled people are more likely to have those conditions that make COVID-19 the riskiest: three times more likely to have heart disease, twice as likely to have diabetes and the most likely to be immunodeficient by nature or due to medications.

Relatedly, disabled people experience higher rates of poverty, less stable employment and lower rates of both driving and having access to a vehicle to drive than abled people do — all of which hinder church attendance as well.

Given those statistics, we aren't talking about one lost sheep but more like 10 or 20 lost out of every 100.

With online church, disabled people — including me and my family — were welcomed to church in more ways and more often than ever before.

Let's keep that up rather than shouting, "Hey, Jesus, we're gonna take that one you brought back and throw them to the elements and predators! We're going back to the way it was."

We have the framework in place to continue to welcome disabled people who worship from home, even as in-person services become safer.

The choice is easy. Keep welcoming us.

• Shannon Dingle is a Christian writer and activist.
• First published in RNS. Republished with permission. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily represent those of Religion News Service.

I should pause to mention that, before this happened, I was feeling particularly holy. Continue reading

They were babies with severe disabilities, abandoned at a few months old, with no trace of the family who left them behind.

China's one-child policy was not enforced in the rural countryside, like here in Hebei province, where families continued to have an average of three or four children.

"These are very poor families, and these parents have a lot of pressure, not only for taking care of the disabled kids, but also taking care of many other children," said Sister Niu Chun Mi, director of the Gaoyi Therapy Center for the Liming Family.

The Liming Family is the primary ministry for the St. Therese of the Child Jesus Sisters, known locally as the St. Therese of the Little Flower Sisters.

The Liming (House of Dawn) Family is a group of three institutions that serve children and adults with severe mental and physical disabilities.

"Parents began abandoning these children in front of the door to the church, and the bishop asked the sisters to take care of them," recalled Sister Xeufen Zhang.

Sister Xeufen was one of the original 10 founders of the St. Therese sisters in 1988.

"In the beginning, we kept the orphans in the same house as us, and we slept together, and we ate together," said Xeufen.

"Before I entered the community, I thought that sisters live in a house with a big wall and pray all day. When I entered, I saw that a sister's life was very different.

"We needed to build the house ourselves, brick by brick. We needed to take care of these orphans and students. I didn't choose to be a mother, but suddenly I needed to be a mother and a father, too." Continue reading

Sources

• Global Sisters Report article by Melanie Lidman, a freelance journalist in Israel.
• Image: Crux

This will be at the Father Carlo Gnocchi Foundation's Our Lady of Providence Centre, a rehabilitation and care centre on the outskirts of Rome for people with disabilities and the elderly.

Last year, the newly elected Pope Francis broke with tradition and washed the feet of young offenders - including a Muslim woman - in Rome's Casal del Marmo centre.

Previously popes conducted the liturgy at St John Lateran or St Peter's Basilica.

Continue reading

Some 200,000 people who were mentally ill or disabled were killed in Germany during the Nazi era. The cynical name for the extermination program was "euthanasia," which means "beautiful death" in ancient Greek. This horrific past has shaped the way Germany treats the terminally ill and the disabled. Germany's laws on assisted suicide are restrictive, and the country has stricter rules on pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, a form of embryo profiling, than most other European countries.

In 2006, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which Germany ratified in 2009. It calls for a so-called inclusive education system for all children, which means that children with disabilities and behavioral disorders should be allowed to attend mainstream schools. The German city-state of Bremen adopted the inclusion requirement in 2009, and other German states are in the process of implementing it.

Now a debate has unfolded on the pros and cons of inclusion. Proponents say that being different has to become normal. But opponents believe that inclusion comes at the expense of special-needs schools, that teachers are overwhelmed, that better students are short-changed, and that disabled children feel excluded in mainstream classes.

It is a debate in which some are berated as idealists and others as ideologues. But, ultimately, the real issue is how to define the moral standards of coexistence.

Berlin contemporary historian Götz Aly, 65, has a 34-year-old disabled daughter named Karline. In a SPIEGEL interview, he talks about the joys and hardships of everyday life with a disabled child. Aly has spent 32 years studying the issue of euthanasia. His book, "Die Belasteten" ("The Burdened"), was recently published by the S. Fischer publishing house.

SPIEGEL: Mr. Aly, you have studied the murders of the disabled and mentally ill in the Nazi era, or what was then referred to as "euthanasia." Didn't the issue strike a little too close to home for you?

Aly: I know, of course, that my daughter would have been one of the candidates for murder at the time. But Karline's illness 34 years ago was precisely the reason I approached the subject in the first place. Perhaps it was also a way for me to come to terms with it. That's what brought me to study the Nazis. It doesn't bother me when issues affect me personally. On the contrary, it bothers me that many Germans who write about the Nazi period behave as if they have no personal points of reference. I sometimes amuse myself by asking older colleagues: "Now what exactly did your father do in World War II?" Continue reading

Sources

• Spiegel Online
• Image: Deutschland.de

Continue reading

A statement from the Australian High Commission said the Suva-based secondary school was the only one in Fiji that specialised in teaching vocational and mainstream curriculum to children with disabilities.

"The Marist Champagnat Institute is different from other special education schools because it is a secondary school where disabled students learn side by side with non-disabled students," said principal Frances Varea.