Providence answers MAiD onslaught with authentic medical care

 
As I reported earlier this month, the B.C. government and its operatives at Vancouver Coastal Health have relentlessly forced euthanasia facilities into or near several Catholic spaces in the Metro Vancouver area.

 Given the Catholic facilities’ pro-life beliefs, this can only be seen as a grave incursion. It’s certainly one that has profoundly upset many of the faithful.

 But what are the consequences within those facilities? How deeply has this fatal infection reached? And how rigorously has Providence Health Care, the Catholic medical-care agency, been able to maintain its pro-life principles?

 The answers I recently received to these questions give me some hope, and I’ll will share them below. First, though, a quick review.

 My original story found that a Vancouver-Coastal-operated Medical Assistance in Dying facility on the campus of the Providence-operated St. Paul’s Hospital has been operating since January 6 of this year. It’s called the “Shoreline Space” and is attached, with no intervening corridor, to a wall of the hospital. See photo below.

 To my eyes, it’s a carbuncle—a death chamber facilitating homicide and, in doing so, performing a function that is exactly the opposite of the medical care to which St. Paul’s is dedicated.

 My story also disclosed how I had discovered, through a freedom-of-information application, that Vancouver Coastal is planning to impose a 2,800-square-foot MAiD facility on the new St. Paul’s, which is scheduled to open in 2027. No agency—not the B.C. government, Vancouver Coastal, Providence, or the Archdiocese of Vancouver (which oversees Providence)—has ever announced this.

 And finally, my story reported that Vancouver Coastal has established MAiD rooms in the same buildings as two Providence-operated hospices. Providence does not own those buildings.

 The story has now received international coverage. Alex Schadenberg, of the London, Ont.-based Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, featured it on his blog. The Canadian Catholic News website carried my story. Campaign Life Coalition carried the news on its Facebook page. Two pro-life websites, lifenews.com and liveaction.org, reported on it. And, finally, anti-MAiD firebrand Kelsi Sheren wrote about on her Substack space.

 My reporting on MAiD was sparked five years ago by acquaintances who told me that, while in hospital, they had been pestered by hospital staff about accepting MAiD, even though they weren’t dying.

 I was shocked and launched an investigation into what the MAiD-delivery policy was at one large, public health agency, Fraser Health. My freedom-of-information request found that its policy was that MAiD is supposed to be a patient-led process.

 But, clearly, if hospital staff were pestering patients about MAiD, such a policy isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.

 Moreover, I discovered that at Fraser Health hospices, staff are instructed to inform every incoming patient that, among the services they were entitled to, was a cocktail of deadly drugs. The policy led to the resignation of at least one doctor.

 I also learned that at least one Australian health agency maintains a policy prohibiting staff to initiate any discussion about euthanasia. This, I believe, should be the policy everywhere.

 Hospital patients are in a vulnerable state. They’re sick, often elderly, and sometimes harbouring feelings that they are being a burden on their families.

 Suggesting MAiD to such patients can be misinterpreted as recommending it. And when the question is asked over and over again, day after day, patients will undoubtedly feel pressured.

 With all this in mind – the imposition of MAiD at Providence and the must-mention MAiD policy of Fraser Health – I asked Providence how exactly it handled requests for MAiD and whether it had a policy about initiating discussions about MAiD.

 I am happy to report now that a Providence spokesperson, Shaf Hussain, very promptly sent me a detailed policy statement on how staff should respond to a request for MAiD.

 But, I responded, does Providence allow its staff to actually initiate a discussion about MAiD?

 “To clarify, no, we don’t proactively mention MAiD as an option to consider,” Hussain wrote. “We never initiate an offer of MAiD. If a patient enquires about it, we contact the VCH MAiD team. From PHC’s perspective, we ensure the patient is provided information about all [non-MAiD] end-of-life options, so the patient can make an informed decision.”

 Hussain then quoted from a policy document that further explained the policy:

 “A person can ask a member of their care team about MAiD if it is something they want to explore.” The document states. “Assessments for MAiD eligibility will be conducted by two doctors and/or nurse practitioners. A health authority MAiD care coordination service, like the [Vancouver Coastal] Assisted Dying Program, leads arrangements for assessment.

 “To assist with making an informed decision, both the care team at PHC and the MAiD assessors will discuss the person’s medical condition with them. They will also discuss services and treatments that are available to relieve suffering.

 “Services and treatments may include adjusting a current treatment plan, engaging palliative care services, community support services or other options. A person does not have to accept any of these services, but it is legally required for a person requesting MAiD to be offered care options to address the person’s suffering.”

 All this is good to know—good that Providence is adhering to authentic, pro-life medical care in the midst of a very difficult situation.

Let's pray that Providence is able to sustain and grow its admirable pro-life policies and practices. After all, it's a life and death matter. 

MAiD unit, forced onto St. Paul’s campus, now operational.

And second is planned at new hospital

A B.C.-government-ordered euthanasia facility on the downtown Vancouver campus of the Catholic-operated St. Paul’s Hospital is now fully operational.

My half-year-long investigation into the impact of the NDP government’s MAiD-imposition edict has also uncovered the fact that planning is underway for another euthanasia facility, also to be operated by the provincial government’s Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, to be forced onto the site of the new St. Paul’s on False Creek Flats, currently being built three kilometres east of the existing hospital.

MAiD facility at St. Paul's: Operating since January 6.

As well, I have learned that Vancouver Coastal is now operating MAiD rooms in the same buildings that house two Catholic-run hospices in Vancouver, and that the hospices were powerless to block them.

All those Catholic facilities are operated by Providence Health Care, which is controlled by the Archdiocese of Vancouver. Providence has long maintained pro-life policies which prohibit abortions and euthanasia from being performed on its premises.

The imposition of MAiD units alongside pro-life Catholic facilities has left Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, with deep concerns.

“This is incredibly sad news,” Schadenberg said in an interview. “It’s sad that the unit is now operational. And I’m also incredibly saddened by the fact that the new St. Paul’s will also have a euthanasia clinic attached to it.”

The provincial government forced the euthanasia facility onto the current St. Paul’s site in November 2023 in response to relentless death-on-demand activism and mainstream media pressure.

The utilitarian-looking structure, which Vancouver Coastal built at an undisclosed cost, is sited in an interior courtyard of St. Paul’s, which was founded 131 years ago by the Sisters of Providence.

The laneway-home-sized structure opened on January 6 of this year, a Vancouver Coastal spokesperson said in an email dated April 17. “The new space provides patients with options for specialized end-of-life care in a way that supports and respects them, their loved ones, and health-care providers,” he said.

Called the “Shoreline Space,” the MAiD facility is attached directly to courtyard-facing exterior wall of the western section of the hospital’s Providence Building. Public access to the facility from the courtyard is blocked by a locked gate and a two-metre-high, black chain-link fence.

Pedestrians using the nearby Thurlow Street entrance to the hospital are given no hint of what the green-metal-clad facility is used for, although the fence, multiple security cameras, and floodlight fixtures suggest something needing high security.

Inside the hospital, patients and families walking through a ground-floor corridor would have no idea of what is behind a locked door with a sign reading: “Shoreline Space. Vancouver Coastal Health.” 

MAiD 'Space': Entrance directly from St. Paul's corridor.

The current St. Paul’s will close in a few years, but MAiD will apparently continue on the campus of the new hospital.

Vancouver Coastal emails, which I obtained through a freedom-of-information application, show that the health authority has now launched a planning process to insert a euthanasia facility at the new St. Paul’s, which is currently undergoing finishing work in advance of its planned opening in 2027.

No agency—the B.C. government, the Ministry of Health, Vancouver Coastal Health, Providence Health, or the Archdiocese of Vancouver—has announced that the new St. Paul’s is being forced to accommodate a MAiD facility.

Yet, the text of a Nov. 15, 2024, email from Laurel Plewes, operations director of Vancouver Coastal Health’s “Assisted Dying Program,” to Jennifer Chan of Providence Health Care (PHC) shows that such planning is taking place.

Under the subject heading, “Preliminary VCH requirement for MAiD space at the new SPH [St. Paul’s Hospital],” Plewes wrote: “Here is a list of preliminary requirements, subject to refinement and additions.”

That list, in bullet form, reads as follows:

• Internal 2800 sq feet

• We suspect PHC requirement will still remain, and VCH agrees, that the pathway must allow for patients to remain in their PHC bed

• 5 min or less travel time from pharmacy located in SPH

• Ramp or ground-level entry—ramp is not included in square footage above

• Require connections for sewage, water, electricity, and IT connections similar to what is listed in previous partial agreement

• At least two parking spots for staff, easy access for transfer van

• Physical address to support emergency services knowing where to go

Heavily redacted email in response to my FOI request.

Most emails I received in response to my FOI request were almost completed redacted, but one, entitled “Future Planning: MAiD spaces,” was sent by Vancouver Coastal’s Nina Dhaliwal, a “senior project manager,” to four of her colleagues on Nov. 27, 2024.

It describes the need to connect all the parties to ensure that “future planning for MAiD spaces” is being done efficiently. Dhaliwal also asks whether “the MAiD team” had an “SOA” (presumably meaning Service-Oriented Architecture) and a “Functional Program.”

Although the email does not specifically mention the new St. Paul’s, Vancouver Coastal released it to me in response to a request for the texts of communications regarding the possible construction of a MAiD unit at the new hospital.

Neither Vancouver Coastal nor Providence Health has commented in response to questions about MAiD facilities at the new and old St. Paul’s.

Providence Health’s service contract with the provincial government guarantees that it can prevent abortions and euthanasia from taking place within Providence facilities. Instead, patients seeking such procedures are discharged from Providence and transferred to a Vancouver Coastal facility.

Pro-euthanasia groups criticized the arrangement as soon as MAiD was legalized in 2016, and then ramped up pressure when, as revealed in a May 2022 B.C. Catholic story, the B.C. branch of Dying with Dignity Canada launched a multi-platform public-relations campaign aimed at forcing the B.C. government to amend the service agreement in order to compel Providence to allow MAiD.

Dying With Dignity called the “forced” transfer of patients to MAiD-allowing facilities “cruel and unusual.”

The pressure peaked the following year when news media seized on the case of a Vancouver woman, Sam O’Neill, whose family complained that she was forced to transfer from St. Paul’s to access MAiD. In response, the B.C. government announced what observers called a “workaround” or “end-run” solution in November 2023.

The arrangement called for the province to take land at the St. Paul’s campus to create a “clinical space” for MAiD to be performed. The space would be staffed by Vancouver Coastal’s health-care professionals and was to be connected by a corridor to St. Paul’s Hospital.

“Patients from St. Paul’s Hospital accessing MAiD will be discharged by Providence Health and transferred to the care of Vancouver Coastal Health in this new clinical space,” the release said. The MAiD chamber was originally scheduled to open in August 2024.

Archbishop J. Michael Miller was quoted at the time as saying the directive “respects and preserves Providence’s policy of not allowing MAiD inside a Catholic health-care facility,” and the new patient-discharge and -transfer protocols would be consistent with existing arrangements for transferring patients at other Providence facilities.

But that did not end the matter. In June 2024, Ms. O’Neill’s mother, Dying with Dignity Canada, and a doctor launched a lawsuit against Providence, Vancouver Coastal, and the provincial government, alleging that they had denied Ms. O’Neill her a constitutional right to access MAiD. 

They seek to have MAiD conducted within all provincially funded facilities, such as those of Providence Health Care, which relies on provincial funding for its operating costs. Providence owns the hospitals.

 In its formal response to the claim, Providence not only described the St. Paul’s arrangement, but also disclosed that, at the May’s Place and St. John hospices that it operates, “patients who choose to receive MAiD are provided with MAiD by a VCH healthcare provider in a space operated by VCH which is located down the hall from the Providence operated hospice rooms in the same building that houses the hospice.”

But that does not mean MAiD is actually being performed within a Catholic facility, said Shaf Hussain, a communications officer with Providence.

Hussain said in a May 30 email to me that both St. John Hospice and May's Place Hospice are in buildings and on lands that are not owned by Providence.

“Regarding St. John Hospice: I believe the building is owned by the Sovereign Order of St. John of Jerusalem, Knights Hospitaller, the land is owned by [the University of B.C], and the whole building is leased by VCH,” Hussain said.

“Since September 2013, Providence has been operating a 14-bed hospice in the building and continues to do so. In 2021, VCH took some space in the building for its Vancouver Community palliative programming. A room in that space is used for MAiD.”

As for May's Place, “Providence doesn't own the building; we lease the space on one of the floors from its owner and operate a six-bed hospice in that space,” he said. “VCH also leases space in that building from the owner; this space, which they use for MAiD, is separate and away from our hospice operations.”

On the issue of MAiD being performed adjacent to Catholic facilities, Schadenberg said the situation

Schadenberg at Grafenick: 'Very upsetting.'

reminds him of the Nazis’ conversion of a Lutheran-run care home at Grafenick, Germany, into a euthanasia facility for physically and mentally disabled Germans.

“Sadly, it appears history is repeating itself,” Schadenberg said. “I know it’s not an exact parallel, but I find it very upsetting.”

Vancouver’s Dr. Will Johnston, who heads the Euthanasia Resistance Coalition of B.C., said he believes that the B.C. government’s decision to force MAiD into previously life-affirming, medically positive spaces is a form of totalitarianism.

“This is another example of zealots who won’t allow the population any freedom from euthanasia,” Johnston said. “They obviously control the provincial government ... I think it’s totalitarianism, and it shows none of their claimed virtues of inclusion and diversity.”

My journey with Jimmy

Originally published in the BC Catholic 

 With his eyes closed and head slumped forward, Jimmy seemed to be asleep as he sat in his wheelchair in the common room of his New Westminster long-term care home.

 The three dozen or so other seniors in the room appeared to be in exactly the same state—a melancholy tableau amid the Christmas decorations and the bustling, cheery staff. 

As I bent down and greeted my old friend, he immediately perked up and, his eyes remaining closed, smiled and whispered hello. I noticed that a part of his breakfast remained on his face—porridge, I thought. 

I found a tissue and wiped his face, recalling that I had done much the same for my children and grandchildren when they were infants.

 I had started visiting Jimmy about six months earlier while he was in hospital being treated for a chronic heart condition. His prospects for recovery didn’t look good.

 At age 87, Jimmy was fading fast, and the once-star soccer player, globe-trotting coach, dynamic salesman, and founding member of our parish’s Knights of Columbus chapter was now but a shadow of his former robust self.

 His mind had started fading as well, and with that decline he experienced sadness and troubling thoughts about his limited future. In response to a request from his wife (who, herself, was in and out of hospital at the time), I had made it my mission to help dispel his growing gloom by visiting him. 

And so, on this December morning, I leaned in and started singing one of his favourite songs for him. His smile broadened and he moved his lips in an attempt to sing along. 

Today, increasing numbers of seniors find themselves in situations like Jimmy’s, but without family or friends to accompany them through their final days.

 A report by Canada’s National Institute of Ageing, released in December 2023, found that 41 per cent of Canadians aged 50 years and older are at risk of social isolation and up to 58 per cent have experienced loneliness. 

News coverage of the report focused on how loneliness can adversely affect both mental and physical health. But there’s an even graver, deadlier impact: increased likelihood of desiring to access Canada’s permissive euthanasia regime. 

Indeed, Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, says most people who request Medical Assistance in Dying do so not because they are in excruciating pain but for emotional and psychological reasons that are being fuelled by a “culture of loneliness.”

This is why he believes that, after having lost the legal and political battles to prevent the legalization of MAiD, Catholics and other anti-euthanasia advocates should turn to “caring and compassion” to prevent the growing tide of requests for MAiD. 

“We need to focus on visiting and being with others and being a caring part of this culture,” Schadenberg said in a presentation to Catholics in Langley two years ago. “There is nothing easy about this situation, but the answer to this evil of killing is to love each other.” 

That’s certainly what our parish’s Blooms into Rooms initiative has been attempting to do for 30 years. Now part of Life Compass’s ministry, Blooms into Rooms sees dozens of volunteers from 10 parishes and schools visiting hundreds of seniors on Holy Saturday, giving them a flowering plant, a homemade greeting card, and some precious company. 

 Last Easter, we visited 1,500 seniors at care homes, long-term care facilities, group residences, and hospices. We have no way of knowing for sure how many lives we’ve touched or, perhaps, even saved from premature death. But we can certainly count the smiles, and they now number in the tens of thousands. 

My last visit with Jimmy was on Dec. 21. On leaving, I gave him a hug and wished him a Merry Christmas. He replied with a faint smile and a whispered “goodbye.” 

 Jimmy passed away in his sleep during the early hours of Jan. 1. Our parish celebrated his funeral Mass on Jan. 9.

 His widow, son, daughter-in-law, and their three grown children all thanked me for the time I spent with Jimmy. 

They told me that my visits and singing always cheered him up. I shared with them his joy when I sang Danny Boy because his grandfather used to sing it to him while they snuck off on pub crawls every Sunday—his increasingly tipsy grandfather having a pint of Guiness at each stop and young Jimmy a glass of lemonade.

 The family hadn’t heard that story and said they would treasure it. 

What’s clear to me now is that, as much as I may have given Jimmy during his final days, I received at least as much in return. 

All the more reason for us to reach out to those who need it most, including the thousands of Canadians who end their lives every year for lack of companionship. ok

What Amazon doesn’t want you to see

I have been censored. 

Amazon sent me an email informing me that my review of Truth Be Told, an important new book written by #selinarobinson, does not meet its "guidelines." See the screenshot for the list of the possible ways in which the piece has run afoul of Amazon. 

How ridiculous! Here is the full text of the review:

 It was said of the French Revolution’s degeneration into a movement that ended up guillotining some of its own most fervent supporters that, “the revolution devours its children.”

 We might conclude the same of our own era’s “woke” revolution, whose cancel-culture guillotine was responsible for the political beheading of one of British Columbia’s most prominent social democrats, Selina Robinson.

 Ms. Robinson’s fatal problem was that, even though she and her left-wing fellow travellers were linked arm in arm on such core “progressive” issues as LGBTQ+ rights, her pro-Israel, pro-Zionism views on the Palestinian question were profoundly out of step with the denizens of Canada’s left and its political vehicle, the New Democratic Party.

The prevailing orthodoxy of these ideological warriors is that the Jews of Israel are colonialist settlers whose very existence oppresses the Palestinians. 

As Robinson—who proudly described herself as “the Jew in the crew” of the B.C. NDP government—points out in her book, Truth Be Told, this ahistorical belief has become a fixation of the left, one that she argues is grounded in de facto anti-Semitism. 

Truth Be Told tells the story of how Robinson’s courageous defence of Israel, in the wake of Hamas’s October 2023 massacre of 1,200 Israelis, made her the target of virulent anti-Semitism, for which she received precious little support from her colleagues in government. It also eventually led to her political decapitation after she flippantly described the territory, that Jews were given after the Second World War, as a “crappy piece of land.”

 Robinson tells of how, even though she quickly and deeply apologized for the remarks, B.C.’s NDP Premier, David Eby, succumbed to relentless demands, for her political head on a platter, from Muslim leaders and others who characterized those “four fatal words” as racist because they demeaned the Palestinians who also claimed the area as their own. 

After Eby pressured her into resigning from her position as Minister of Post-Secondary Education, Robinson then suffered a final insult when her plan to bring B.C.’s Muslim and Jewish communities together—a plan she had been asked by Eby to develop—was dismissed by Eby’s chief of staff as “too political.”

 This was the final straw for Robinson, who decided in March 2024 to quit her party’s caucus and sit as an independent Member of the Legislative Assembly.

 In a public letter she issued explaining her decision, she said she could no longer tolerate the hypocrisy and “cowardice” of her party.

 “This is not the party I signed on with—it has become a party that is afraid to stand with people, people who are hurting. It is now a party that puts politics and re-election before people,” she wrote.

 On the subject of politics, while Truth Be Told can best be described as Robinson’s cri de coeur about the importance of standing up to hatred in defence of the truth, it can also be read as a primer on the characteristics of poor leadership, as epitomized by Eby.

 I served alongside of Robinson for two years on Coquitlam City Council and found her to be a principled politician who did not let dogma stand in the way of doing the right thing for the people she served. She earned my respect.

 This important book, for which I provided some pre-publication editorial advice, only deepens this respect. (More info on the book here: https://www.amazon.ca/Truth-Be-Told-Selina-Robinson/dp/1069165107)

Making news with my news reporting!

The story appeared in the BC Catholic in June of 2023: The document shown is related to my four-year campaign to wrest information from the Fraser Health Authority about its policies and practices relating to Medical Assistance in Dying.

News coverage of euthanasia, pandemic restrictions, and Indigenous issues helped earn The B.C. Catholic 13 newspaper awards from the Catholic Media Association. The 2022 awards were announced at the association’s annual conference in Baltimore Friday. In addition to awards for news writing, design honours went to the newspaper’s senior visual designer Inca Siojo-Das. Writing awards also went to two long-time B.C. Catholic columnists and reporter Nicholas Elbers. The newspaper performed strongly in several reporting categories. Contributing writer Terry O’Neill won two news writing awards, including second place in in-depth news/special reporting for his article “Overdose Call to Action,” which examined through Catholic social teaching the issue of drug decriminalization as a solution to the drug overdose crisis. Judges called it a “timely piece that keeps key components of faith” at the centre “as it deep dives into the reality of the situation.” Terry O’Neill’s series on the impact of euthanasia on palliative care won second place in investigative news writing. O’Neill also took second place in investigative news writing for a piece describing how soaring assisted suicide is having a detrimental impact on palliative care. Judges complimented how O’Neil’s “clear and organized writing style” fit the investigative piece. O’Neill and editor Paul Schratz took third place in religious liberty reporting for a series of entries titled “Church Under Fire,” which judges said were “tightly written, thoughtful and well told.” Schratz looked at how government pandemic restrictions triggered conflict and confusion among parishioners. O’Neill contributed two columns looking at the rise in anti-Catholic attacks and church burnings following reports of unmarked graves being discovered in Kamloops. Schratz received an honourable mention in coverage of political issues for several articles addressing the growing division in Canada resulting from government restrictions on religious liberties. Schratz also took third place in national/international editorial writing for a piece examining the enactment of the Emergencies Act through a Catholic social lens. Judges said the article did “a good job of providing a sort of public policy post-mortem whose conclusions should be applied in other contexts and should be remembered in case future application might be warranted.” Inca Siojo-Das also received second place for her layout of a feature on icons at Holy Eucharist Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral. Schratz also won third place for regional news writing for “Divided in the North,” which looked at the impact of pandemic restrictions on a church community. Judges said the article nicely illustrated “multiple facets of the complex issue of COVID restrictions.” Reporter Nicholas Elbers received third place for sacramental reporting with his coverage of the translation of the liturgy into Indigenous languages. Judges said Elbers brought an important topic to light in a way that builds community and connection “through clear yet warm rhetoric.” The B.C. Catholic also won first place in the headline category for “Fiddling while Rome learns” on a story about a Metis fiddler in Rome for last year’s meeting between Indigenous representatives and Pope Francis. The newspaper and the Archdiocese of Vancouver Communications Office received an honourable mention in the diocesan annual report category for the 2021-2022 Archdiocese of Vancouver annual report, featuring Siojo-Das’ design work and content from the communications team. Siojo-Das also received second place for layout of a feature on icons at Holy Eucharist Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral. The layout was described as simple, creative, and both “easy to read” and “pleasing to the eye.” She also won an honourable mention for layout of a World Cup 2022 feature by Pat Macken entitled “Unity in Faith and Footie.” Two long-time columnists also picked up awards. Colleen Roy won second place in the Family Life category, while Alan Charlton took third in the Arts column category. Judges said Charlton offered “excellent insights,” “careful reflections,” and “effective retrospective” on art past and present. Nicholas Elbers’ coverage of the translation of the liturgy into Indigenous languages earned third place for sacramental reporting. Roy was praised as a “good conversationalist” and storyteller whose topics are interesting, “descriptive and well written.” The Catholic Media Association is the largest association of Catholic media professionals in North America, with more than 200 publication members and 800 individual members. The annual awards honour the contributions of Catholic media organizations and individual media producers in the United States and Canada.

Bouquets of love: offering the lonely blooms instead of tombs

A story I wrote for the B.C. Catholic about one of my projects, published in the spring of 2023:

It’s been 29 years since the pro-life committee at St. Joseph’s Parish in Port Moody launched Blooms into Rooms as a way to animate the Prayer for the Reverence for Life’s call to support the sick and the elderly. The committee also intended the project to signal opposition to the then-ominous spectre of legalized euthanasia. Today, with the virus of “Medical Assistance in Dying” infecting all too many of the sick and elderly, projects like Blooms into Rooms are proving to be more important than ever. The idea for Blooms into Rooms was simple: a few volunteers from St. Joseph’s would visit a single care centre on Holy Saturday and give patients a flowering plant, a homemade greeting card and, most important of all, some companionship. Since then, the flowers project has blossomed, with the result that this Easter weekend volunteers from two Catholic high schools and six parishes will be delivering flowers to almost 1,300 seniors and patients in six communities. Life Compass, the north-of-Fraser Catholic pro-life group, has become a key partner in this project and, for the first time this year, the Archdiocese of Vancouver is providing financial support with funds raised through the Pro-Life Sunday collection. Post-pandemic restrictions still rule out one-on-one visits, but organizers hope the flowers and cards will lift the recipients’ spirits and send the message that they are valued. The importance of projects like Blooms into Rooms is becoming more evident now that MAiD is not only legal and shockingly permissive in scope but is also being actively encouraged as an end-of-life-care option. Blooms into Rooms volunteers from St. Patrick’s Parish in Maple Ridge. Moreover, statistics show the primary reason so many elderly are choosing to seek assistance in ending their life is because they are lonely, depressed, and feel their life lacks meaning or value. Life-affirming Catholics have worked hard over the decades to oppose assisted suicide laws, but even as their warnings of a slippery slope have come true, Catholic opposition has failed to change public opinion, failed to influence politicians, and failed to sway the courts. Many in the pro-life movement are now pointing out how vital it is to connect with the most vulnerable in order to give them the love and support they need to continue to choose life. Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, delivered that message in a series of presentations in B.C. in early March. He encouraged Catholic parishes to establish outreach programs aimed at supporting the sick and elderly. Alex Schadenberg of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition speaks with listeners. “Most people ask for euthanasia because they are going through a difficult time of life,” he said. (Nicholas Elbers photo) And a single flower can make all the difference. In the pre-pandemic days when Blooms into Rooms volunteers visited seniors personally, one volunteer brought a small flowering plant to an elderly woman living in a Coquitlam seniors home. The woman was confused and angrily ordered the volunteer to take the plant away. “I didn’t order it and I don’t want to pay for it,” she said. The volunteer explained that it was a gift. The woman responded, “A gift? For me? No one ever gives me anything. Thank you!” She then shed a few tears of happiness. Blooms into Rooms organizers have watched as this sort of connection, multiplied hundreds or thousands of times over, has a positive, life-affirming impact. And they’re not the only ones. Michele Smillie, of the archdiocese’s Life, Marriage, and Family Office, points to the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Horizons of Hope program, a toolkit on palliative care, as one of several initiatives aimed at supporting the sick and the elderly. Smillie also says the archdiocese’s Spiritual Care Training program, the latest installment of which wrapped up on March 29, offers effective training to help Catholics connect with persons who are suffering and need support. “End-of-life care is difficult for many, and there are sometimes significant physical, as well as psychological issues,” Smillie said. “We all feel helpless sometimes, overwhelmed, lonely and have some fear of the future. This doesn’t mean we want to be killed. It only means we are human. What we need is good medical care including palliative care and we need community. We need to feel important and that we mean something to someone.” The Compassionate Community Care organization, which is associated with the EPC, provides resources for those looking to advocate for loved ones who are in care. The archdiocese will be presenting the organization’s volunteer-training sessions in the fall. LifeCanada National is also now looking to expand its Dying Healed program in response to the spread of MAiD. The program trains individuals to help those who are suffering mentally, physically, and spiritually, so they can experience “healing of a deeper kind.” Pat Wiedemer, the organization’s president, said she not only wants to make the program more accessible by making it available online but also plans to expand its scope to include individuals who are living alone or have no friends, as well as patients in palliative care. “People have lost meaning in their lives,” she said. She stressed that young people also need support, especially given the looming expansion of MAiD to mature minors. “Despite social media, they’re suffering great loneliness. Look at the rise in the rate of suicide, the rate of anti-depressants,” she said. “We have a generation that doesn’t know how to deal with human relationships.” For Wiedemer it’s sadly ironic that at a time when so many deny the existence of God on the grounds that human connection is sufficient, those connections are being denied to the sick and elderly when they most need it. “We’ve got to do better. We’ve got to make time for life.” Which is what Blooms into Rooms is doing now that it has expanded into Christmas, although its main focus continues to be Easter, when Catholics celebrate not only life here on earth but eternal life. Forms of outreach like these offer yet more ways Catholics can support the culture of life, if for no other reason than such work embodies the second great commandment, to love our neighbours as we love ourselves.

Jazz Evensong: Gathering in the key of God

A small Christian church in Burnaby has embraced jazz music to revitalize its congregation and at the same time inspired a Catholic priest in Coquitlam to consider singing from the same songbook. Under the leadership of Rev. Dr. Brian Fraser, Brentwood Presbyterian Church began offering jazz-music-infused services in 2009 and then weekly Jazz Evensong events in 2017. Today, the church (which is immediately south of Holy Cross Church in Burnaby) has become something of a jazz mecca, allowing musicians to rent the acoustically rich space for rehearsals, and even commissioning composers to write Christian-infused jazz music. Father Larry Lynn speaking with Jazz Evensong organizer Rev. Dr. Brian Fraser. Inspired by Jazz Evensong, Father Lynn is interested in creating a “jazz vespers program” at his parish, Our Lady of Lourdes in Coquitlam. During each Wednesday-night Evensong event, Rev. Fraser devotes 10 minutes between musical sets to reflect on connections between the Christian message and jazz music. In late September, for example, he spoke about American jazz pianist Mary Lou Williams, a convert to Catholicism, who said, “Jazz is healing to the soul.” Fraser commented: “Now, I don’t have the musical capacity that Mary Lou Williams had. But one of the things that we talk a lot about here at Brentwood – especially the relationship between jazz and faith – is that we are all jazz musicians because the most common form of jazz in the human experience is ordinary conversation.” He explained, “Every time you open your mouth to have a conversation, you are playing jazz. There’s a structure, vocabulary, and grammar. Each of us, with our unique voices, in our unique ways, in our unique situations and contexts, use that structure differently ... One of the things that we keep focusing on is that jazz musicians and Christians tell love stories.” Father Larry Lynn, pastor of Our Lady of Lourdes in Coquitlam and a life-long jazz lover, is intrigued by what he has seen at Brentwood Presbyterian. “I love Pastor Fraser’s initiative to try to bring jazz into his church,” Father Lynn said. “I love that he prayed before the concert and that he invoked Jesus during his talks. He’s providing a space for people to encounter Christ through a medium that doesn’t usually acknowledge the spiritual, even though it can be a thoroughly spiritual experience. “Music moves the soul – that’s the reality and I think jazz, because it’s a kind of exploratory music, might be for those who are open to an exploration of their soul.” On a recent evening when Father Lynn attended Jazz Evensong, the Mike Allen Quartet performed the music of John Coltrane’s landmark jazz album, A Love Supreme, which is widely seen as a work of deep spirituality. Father Lynn said the event moved him to consider the question of where we encounter Christ. “When Christ was walking the earth, he met people at precisely the place he found them,” he said. “And they could be anywhere or anybody: rabbis, tax collectors, pharisees, paupers, beggars, governors, high priests, adulterers, thieves. demoniacs, widows, fishermen, you name it. “He loved them all and showed them the way. I’m sure if he had met some jazz musicians, he would have grooved along with them. But they would have known they were in special company and Jesus would have had them seeing clearly his Gospel message. He would have met them in the key of God!” Father Lynn said he thinks “it would be great” for a Catholic church to explore something like a jazz vespers program. “At my parish, I’m doing a renovation of the church basement and I’m thinking about allowing it to be a venue for small music groups, whether it’s jazz, chamber music, folk music,” he said. “What a beautiful thing it would be to invite folks in and see Jesus in their lives in and through the music they love. How awesome that would be!”

Understanding loneliness and isolation in the age of COVID

I've had the great opportunity, over the past month, to report and write for the BC Catholic newspaper on the issue of loneliness and isolation. All the pieces are below, in chronological order. I hope you find them informative and, ultimately, helpful!

HOME ALONE – introduction Isolated and lonely: we can do better than this

April 21, 2020

It came as no surprise to me when the Angus Reid Institute reported earlier this month that the number-one thing most people are looking forward to, once pandemic-prevention measures are lifted, is a simple hug. 

After all, we humans are social animals, and we ache because we are not allowed to shake hands, to hug, or to hold anyone but the family members with whom we live. No e-facsimile can replace an encouraging pat on the back, let alone a warm embrace from a loved one.

For me, so-called social distancing (it’s now physical distancing, right?) has boxed me in at exactly the time I would normally have cooed and cuddled with my newest grandchild, born April 5, and given my ever-more-fragile father a gentle hug on his 92nd birthday, celebrated April 20.

Don’t feel sorry for me. I’m fine. There’s actually a far larger and more important issue at stake: the unknown impact that the widespread quasi-quarantine is having and will have on members of our society, especially those who were already isolated and lonely.

This is no small problem. Loneliness and isolation are growing, and with them grow adverse physical and psychological impacts. And no amount of hyper-connected, 5G wizardry can take the place of physical presence and physical contact.

We’ve been seeing the problem worsen for decades now. It’s one of the reasons a little group of us at St. Joseph’s Parish in Port Moody started the Easter Flowers project more than a quarter of a century ago. Now called Blooms into Rooms, the project’s aim is to cheer up the sick and the elderly on Easter weekend by bringing them flowering plants, homemade greeting cards, and a bit of companionship. It’s also an important way we “bring to life” the Prayer for Reverence of Life.

Our teams visited 1,200 seniors a year ago, and we were making plans to visit 1,500 this Easter when we had to cancel the whole 2020 campaign because of the COVID crisis. How sadly ironic: at the exact time when the sick and the elderly were most vulnerable and could have most benefitted from some love, they were denied it.

Our increasingly fractured and isolated society was on my radar several years ago when, as a member of Coquitlam City Council, I wrote a report for my colleagues and senior staff with a proposal to help bring our community closer together.

Three troubling trends needed addressing, said the report: growing isolation of seniors; barriers to integration of new Canadians; and the rise of the “gig economy,” which meant the loss of traditional workplace communities and the corresponding isolation of workers.

My proposal was to enhance and tie together programs that the City already had in place, with the overarching goal of increasing a sense of belonging. If Vancouver could aim to be the greenest city on the planet, why couldn’t Coquitlam become the city where you best belonged? I even came up with a slogan: “Coquitlam: You belong here.” 

Alas, after two years of internal discussions, reports, and even the hiring of an outside “facilitator,” the idea ground to a halt, reasons for which were stunningly varied and don’t warrant elaboration in this space.

The coronavirus crisis can and will worsen all the problems I identified above. At the same time, though, the crisis also seems to have led to a recognition that isolation, lack of community, and loneliness are real problems. One hopes that such recognition endures once the crisis ends. 

I will be doing my part to keep the issue in the public eye in future issues of The B.C. Catholic as I examine these problems in greater depth and suggest ways to address them.

Meantime, it’s back to Zoom, Signal, and FaceTime for me as I embrace, not my friends and family, but pale imitations of human contact, all while humming the tune to Where Two or Three are Gathered.

HOME ALONE – Part 1:  pandemic is forcing us to address our isolation crisis

April 28, 2020

Click on a news website, watch a TV news broadcast, or open a newspaper, and you will invariably encounter a story about the adverse psychological effects related to the quasi-quarantine regulations society is enduring in an effort to thwart the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Headlines such as, “Lockdown tougher for singles,” “Residents of B.C. feeling stressed,” “Despair deaths rise during economic crisis,” “COVID-19 pandemic could Increase social isolation,” and “Half of Canadians say mental health has worsened during COVID-19 pandemic” are prevalent in the papers, as anxiety escalates over the damage being done to the mental health, not only of society’s most vulnerable, but also of a general population that is being forced to severely limit its social interactions.

What’s worse, the enforced isolation appears to compound an existing and growing problem of social isolation and loneliness. The fact is, well before the current coronavirus crisis descended upon us, experts were warning of the troubling growth in the number of people who feel disconnected, isolated, and alone.

The trend first gained widespread notice in 2000 with the publication of the book Bowling Alone. The title of author Robert D. Putnam’s book refers to the fact that as more Americans take up bowling than two decades earlier, fewer were joining leagues – which meant they experienced less social interaction. 

Yet, amid the almost-universal hand-wringing over how the COVID-19 quarantine is worsening this problem, rays of hope are brightening the gloom. At Star of the Sea Parish in Surrey, for example, Elaine Webb heads a team that’s been placing regular calls to isolated seniors, even buying groceries for them. “It’s incredible to hear the gratitude from the folks – [they say] ‘Oh, wow! This is wonderful,’” Webb says. All in all, the program has been “wonderful” for both the volunteers and the seniors.

Moreover, while there’s no doubt many are suffering during the current crisis, it may well be that people of faith are better equipped to ride out the emotional and psychological storm whipped up by COVID’s rupturing of our social connections. Rev. Dr. Nathan White, executive director of the Institute for Faith and Resilience, says, “At a personal level, faith can provide things like meaning and hope, and a kind of a larger meta-narrative with which we can understand our lives.” 

Even in the face of the ongoing and unprecedented loss of our physical faith community – most notably, the closing of churches and the cessation of shared celebration of the Eucharist – there’s evidence aplenty that a strong connection to God not only makes us more resilient to the sort of turmoil currently buffeting our lives, but also positions us to actually take advantage of quiet times through meaningful self-reflection.

Even so, we shouldn’t get too comfortable in our Catholic pews. There’s a very real pain being felt, worsening the loneliness and isolation that has been eating away at our culture for several decades. Concern over this is reflected in Archbishop Michael J. Miller’s joining with more than 100 other Christian leaders last month to issue a statement addressing address the situation.

“We recognize how worrying the global pandemic is,” they declared. “It is a crisis which provides uncertainty, panic, loss, discouragement, and loneliness.” The statement continued: “We pray that the Spirit of Christ will bring you peace and an abiding sense of calm. The promise of scripture offers us hope: ‘Do not be afraid, for I am with you. You are in the palm of my hand.’ (Isaiah 41:10).”

If a social-connections crisis now exists, it surely exacerbates an existing one. Bowling Alone revealed a drastic decline in “social capital” – organizations from clubs to labour unions, in which people with shared interests come together. The reasons? Author Putnam cites the modern economy’s pressures on personal time, urban sprawl, too much television, and generational divides.

Putnam’s research centred on the U.S., but there are complementary findings in Canada. In June of last year, the Vancouver-based Angus Reid Institute conducted a survey in partnership with Cardus (a non-partisan, faith-based think tank) exploring the quality and quantity of human connection in the lives of Canadians. They found “significant segments of society in need of the emotional, social and material benefits” that connectedness can bring.

Sixty per cent of Canadians responded that they would like their friends and family to spend more time with them, and just 14 per cent described the current state of their social lives as “very good.” In addition, one-third were unable to identify friends or family members they could count on to provide financial assistance in an emergency, and nearly two-fifths were not certain they could count on someone for emotional support during times of personal crisis.

“Social isolation and loneliness are one of the biggest challenges of our time,” Cardus executive vice president Ray Pennings said regarding the survey. “They’re a symptom of our culture’s obsession with personal autonomy, leaving us living life as ‘I’ instead of ‘we.’ In doing so, we reap the poorer financial, mental, and physical health associated with isolation and loneliness, possibly making us more vulnerable to things like drug abuse, suicide, and the debt spiral caused by payday loan use.”

Similarly, the Vancouver Foundation’s Connect &Engage report, released in 2017, found that “across almost every measure in our survey, people in Metro Vancouver are taking part less in community-related activities.” As well, “fewer than half are willing to respond to a question from a stranger (48 per cent), and only 23 per cent will ask a question or initiate a conversation.”

Even so, Lidia Kemeny, who headed the foundation’s study, some good arising from the current crisis.

“I think people are challenging the status quo that led us to the space of people feeling lonely and isolated,” says Kemeny, the foundation’s director of partnerships, grants and community initiatives.

“And what I’m seeing is people recognizing the importance of reaching out to each other, and a lot of very hopeful signs of people really feeling how important it is to connect with each other.”

Moreover, there’s something good in the current state of affairs even for those who are struggling, says Kemeny. “By virtue of this being a universal experience right now, I think we’re also pulling [loneliness] out from behind the shadows in a way.”

She says, “I see people talking about this a lot more. I think there’s an ease and comfort, in acknowledging that we are lonely, that isn’t as stigmatized as it was before.”

Of course many challenges remain and the future is uncertain. How we Catholics cope with, respond to, and overcome those challenges will be the focus of this series in the next few weeks.

We’ll examine the ways Catholics are responding to the current trying times – how parishioners and priests alike are finding new ways to connect with each other and maintain their faith communities.

We will also further explore the powerful connection between faith and resilience – a connection that makes us stronger in the face of adversity.

Finally, we’ll look at the opportunities for spiritual growth that enforced isolation presents to us. As American Bishop Robert Barron recently suggested during one of his popular video addresses, “Perhaps we could all think of this time of semi-quarantine as an invitation to some monastic introspection, some serious confrontation with the questions that matter – some purposeful sitting alone in a room.”

A good thought. Moreover, if what 17th-century French theologian Blaise Pascal wrote is true – that “all of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone” – then it must also be true that those who follow Bishop Barron’s advice to, in effect, “sit quietly in a room alone,” surely have the potential to solve more than just their own problems. We shall see.

HOME ALONE – Part 2: Catholics find ways to stay connected in pandemic

May 7, 2020

When asked what she misses most about not being able to attend 9 a.m. Sunday Mass at St. Joseph’s Parish in Port Moody, 88-year-old Leona Ransom doesn’t miss a beat when she answers, “the choir.”

 A three-decades-long member of one of the parish’s choral groups, Ransom says nothing can replace the positive feeling she experiences when she joins with her fellow choristers to sing a hymn in four-part harmony.

“Singing is such a marvellous way of expressing everything,” says Ransom, a soprano. “Being surrounded by music is such a tonic. Surrounded by music, and contributing to it, you come away feeling ‘I’ve accomplished something or given something’ or ‘I’ve been alive and well for the five minutes.’”

 A widow who lives with one of her adult children, Ransom confides that she also misses the camaraderie of the choir, and she certainly hopes for an early end to the social isolation mandated by health authorities to counter the COVID-19 pandemic.

A retired counsellor, Ransom is well aware of the social and health benefits of being part of a faith community, but says she is content with the weekly homiletic email she receives from her pastor Father Thomas Arackal, and with using the phone to stay in touch with loved ones. “Everybody seems to be OK,” she shares. “I think we’re all kind of lonesome, but we’ll get through it.”

Helping the isolated and lonely withstand the stresses and strains of the COVID crisis has been a concern of priests and parish groups alike. 

Resilient and optimistic, and with friends and family to support her, Ransom is in a good position to withstand the stresses and strains of the COVID crisis. Others may not be so fortunate, and that’s been a concern of priests and parish groups alike since the beginning of the pandemic crisis.

Questions on how best to keep faith communities alive as well as serve needy individuals have been answered with solutions ranging from the adoption of new communication technologies to the restructuring of existing programs. 

At Church of the Assumption Parish in Powell River, for example, Father Patrick Tepoorten responded quickly to the closing of churches and cessation of public services by staging daily outdoor adoration of the Holy Eucharist and by livestreaming daily Mass on Facebook – one of 47 parishes in the Archdiocese of Vancouver currently doing so.

Adopting the unfamiliar technology didn’t come without its problems, though. “I learned that if you push the ‘magic wand’ on Facebook, it adds beards and faces,” Father Tepoorten confides, noting that at least one priest in Italy became an Internet sensation after mistakenly engaging the feature. “For me, it was Good Friday when I ended up sporting a [virtual] blue beard. Some of our parishioners thought it was hilarious.”

Overall reaction to televised Masses, whether on social media or television, has been positive. “Our parishioners are very appreciative that they have the Mass on Facebook,” he says. “They say, ‘I’m so grateful you’re doing this. I’m just so grateful – it’s contact with the Mass.’” 

Father Tepoorten has concerns, however, about the long-term impact on his parishioners, the majority of whom are seniors. He and his assistant have not been able to provide the pastoral care – visiting homes and hospitals – that they usually perform, and phone calls seem to him to be more intrusive than helpful. “I don’t want to disturb them in their cocoon of self-isolation.”

Nevertheless, he is optimistic that parish life will return to normal when the crisis ends because he senses that his parishioners’ faith is making them hungry to get things back up to speed. “I think we really feel the need in our community,” he says. “I think, in a strange way, it’s a great lesson in the need we have for each other – it’s a real affirmation – and how much we miss each other.”

At Star of the Sea Parish in White Rock the COVID-19 crisis led an existing parish group to pivot in how it delivers spiritual and social support to isolated and lonely seniors. Elaine Webb, a retired nurse, says the parish formed a Pastoral Care Visitation ministry a year ago, training 50 men and women in how “to provide a little bit of company and companionship with lonely and frail seniors” in homes or residential-care facilities, and to better connect them to parish life. 

“The issues are common,” Webb says, “One of them is loneliness, another is fear.” Reaction was overwhelmingly positive. “They are just so grateful. You can see the little spark of joy that we bring,” Webb says.

But it seemed that no sooner did the ministry start rolling than it was forced to suspend operations because of the coronavirus crisis. Working with a 250-name list of seniors provided by the parish office, the visitation team joined with members of the Catholic Women’s League and Knights of Columbus to keep connections alive through regular phone calls. It seems to be working.

“All those who were called expressed gratitude, surprise, and were generally pleased that the Church had reached out and taken the time to connect,” Webb says. As well, almost all said they were fine and had support from adult children, friends, and neighbours. Surprisingly, “no one asked for assistance with groceries or medication runs. But some wanted the parish bulletin [because they didn’t have internet access] and a few wanted holy water. Generally folks were positive and accepting of the current circumstances.”

In fact, the response has been so positive that “it could inform a new way to go forward with support of our senior parishioners,” Webb says.

The pandemic’s impacts on social and spiritual life are not limited to isolated seniors, of course. Patrick Calderon, who serves on the core team of the Holy Rosary Cathedral Young Adults group, says that, pre-COVID, the group could have up to three events a week, as well as a monthly social gathering.

The pandemic’s no-group-gathering order struck at the very heart of the group’s mandate “to cultivate faith and create friendships through fellowship,” as well as providing educational and service opportunities, says Calderon, a 26-year-old consultant who is a graduate of both Notre Dame Regional Secondary in Vancouver and Notre Dame University in Indiana. 

“We were very conflicted as to how to proceed when the quarantine first started,” he says. “We thought that we can’t just disappear. We need to show to the people that we were serving  that Church doesn’t stop for you, that there’s still an opportunity for you to engage as Catholic young adults.”

Now the group meets every Monday via the Zoom app, focusing on faith issues related to the Holy Spirit. Attendance is limited to 15, which is about five fewer than normal meetings, but the virtual gatherings help fill a void. “I think there’s a great longing for in-person interaction and for real community,” Calderon says.

“But, you know, I think it’s a time for us, as young adults, to put into practice skills we grew up with all our entire lives – skills of connecting via technology, and to show that there are ways of getting together even without being physically present.”

Calderon admits that some aspects of the meetings are lost because a vital part of gathering together has always been socialization, but “it’s important for us – because there’s a real longing for community – to do whatever we can do to provide something in the interim.”

As for Calderon personally, he describes himself as “rolling with the punches and appreciating the grace that is present in this particular moment.” In fact, he believes there’s an opportunity to pursue a more contemplative path than the one he was living. 

“But I know that absence makes the heart grow fonder, as well,” he says, “And I think our return will be even better than what we had in the past. I think we have really gotten to see the value of this community. And we’ll come back when this is over with a newfound appreciation for all that we have around us, and just be grateful for it.”

The crisis is affecting parishes and parishioners in countless ways, and no one knows what the “new normal” will look like when it finally ends and parishes can resume in-person operations. Meanwhile many Catholics seem to be finding a silver lining in the COVID cloud, embracing new technologies to stay in touch, finding new ways to serve fellow parishioners, using quiet times to better themselves, or simply being determined to make the best of a sad situation.

During a time when isolation and loneliness can be corrosive, the hopefulness that animates these actions is surely showing itself to be a crucial element of the Catholic character.

HOME ALONE – Part 3: the psychology of hope and resilience amid isolation 

May 12, 2020

In his 2017 book The Catholic Guide to Loneliness, author Kevin Vost cautioned readers not to let virtual conversations take the place of real, face-to-face meetings with friends and loved ones.

Today, as society is in its third month of enforced social isolation precipitated by the COVID-19 pandemic, Vost notes the irony of social-media platforms such as Facetime and Zoom actually becoming invaluable tools to help people stay connected and feel less lonely.

“So, now those have become valuable things that we do need to cultivate, perhaps even with people we didn’t cultivate before,” Vost said in a telephone interview from his home in Springfield, Illinois. “Show those people that we do care about them. If you’ve just texted them in the past, pick up the phone now and talk to them. This crisis can prompt us to interact in more significant ways.”

Moreover, the crisis may also lead people to realize that they had been taking their friendships for granted. “I hope it will really help us to realize what we are missing – that absence makes the heart grow fonder,” says Vost, who holds a doctorate in psychology.

Vost is one of several faith-based experts contacted by The B.C. Catholic in recent weeks to offer insight into pandemic-related psychological issues that society in general and Catholics in particular might be experiencing. The latter focus arises from the fact that, as members of a faith whose essential features include a regular “mass” gathering at which a physical “communion” with God is celebrated, Catholics might be especially hard hit by the loss of social interaction resulting from the quasi-quarantine that officials imposed to slow the spread of the COVID-19 virus.

The good news, however, is that the same faith uniting Catholics in communion also tends to position Catholics to better take advantage of the imposed isolation, as well as to make us more resilient in the face of adversity. It’s one of the fruits of the virtue of hope.

Michael Hryniuk, a Toronto-based theologian, author and educator, says it’s certainly true that Catholics may be grieving the loss of their physical faith communities – and that such sorrow may be especially acute when compared with a general, non-religious population that has not suffered such a profound disconnection.

However, Hryniuk believes that loss is more than offset by the strength that Catholic believers can draw on because of their faith. It starts with a deep connection to the Church’s 2,000-year history. “It’s not something we think about consciously, but we feel it – we feel it in the depths of our psyche,” he says. Combined with our embrace of “that sense of the sacred,” it’s a powerful defence to loneliness.

As well, “really fresh research in the last five years shows that, in terms of resilience, how children who have experienced a sense of connection to a higher power – not just belief and values – but a real experiential grounding in faith, their outcomes are just vastly better,” he says.

Hryniuk explains this through an analysis of “attachment theory,” which is usually cited to show the importance of the connection between parents and children. “What the infant needs most, to fund their human development, is the foundation of primal trust in their caregiver,” he says. “And what that amounts to is, ultimately, a sense that the universe in friendly.” Similarly, a strong relationship between God and his children produces the same beneficial effects.

Rev. Dr. Nathan White, the executive director of the Institute for Faith and Resilience, based in Lafayette, Louisiana, says a number of factors explain why people of faith are better able to endure and prosper in difficult times. “At the personal level, faith can provide things like meaning and hope, and kind of a larger meta-narrative in which we can understand our lives,” says White, a former U.S. Army chaplain.

“There’s also the community side, where being in a faith community – being surrounded by others who help support us and who have similar views of life, and with whom we can process our own emotions and thoughts – produces a powerful [effect].”

White has also said that his most recent book, Biblical and Theological Visions of Resilience, is designed to encourage readers by explaining that the Judeo-Christian tradition “has a wealth of resources to help individuals understand and resiliently navigate experiences of adversity.”

Author Vost says his book, on Catholics and loneliness, has multiple goals. The first is a message to those who are feeling lonely. “There is one thing you can be sure of,” he says, “and that’s that you are not alone, because one of the great ironies of loneliness now is that it is extremely rampant around the world. So this book is for people who are lonely, to help them find ways to bear it, to endure it, or possibly to reach out and overcome it.”

The book is also aimed at people who want to reach out and help those who are lonely. “Another of the big ironies of the book is that the things that people should do to help other people who are lonely, some of those are exactly the things that the people who are lonely should be doing to reach out to other lonely people,” he says.

In one of the book’s chapters, called “The Loneliness of Christ,” Vost describes how “the Gospel itself shows us how Christ himself experienced loneliness on earth … where Christ endured loneliness, not only on the cross but also during the night of his prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane.”

He also provides practical advice for overcoming loneliness, including a list of “Thirty Ways to Love Your Brother.” These include such activities as praying, playing, smiling, greeting, reconciling, sharing meals, submitting to God, slowing the pace of one’s life, and listening.

An important chapter in the book deals with something Vost calls “The Solace of Solitude.” It draws on the examples of saints “to show us, in times when we must be isolate, what positives can come from that – in what ways we can use that time to grow closer to God, to grow more careful in our thinking about how we can relate to others, once we are finally set from our restrictions,” he says, noting that the advice is especially relevant during the current COVID crisis.

Hryniuk agrees. “I think the greatest gift of this whole [pandemic] is not just about expanding our tools and platforms for connecting. It’s about solitude, and I think what’s going on here is that people are learning how to connect in a more deeply, prayerful way, with God and with themselves, and with their families and friends.”

He continues: “It’s remarkable. When I talk to people now, I am interacting with people who are not tired, who are not wiped out by the pace of their life, who are not too busy, who are taking walks in nature, playing with their kids. It’s a different world, and I think it has helped people to kind of go deeper into their faith.”

Ultimately, Hryniuk believes we will emerge stronger from the current crisis. “I think we are going to adapt and maybe even ultimately expand our repertoire, so to speak, of how we express our life in the body of Christ in the world,” he says.

“We are a global church, and we’re connecting with people from all over the world in ways we probably never would have. But this [pandemic] has kind of rocked our world. So I’m hopeful that we’re going to adapt, and then, when we meet again, there’s going to be some new awareness of how we can connect in other ways.”

This adversity, then, should end up bringing us together and, in so doing, make us stronger – just as the Church’s “National Prayer for Canada in the Wake of the COVID-19 Crisis” envisions “the more together we are, the better and stronger we will emerge.” If so, it will surely be a strength built on a foundation of a faith, animated by the virtue of hope, and sustained by an ever-loving God who promised never to leave nor forsake us.

Exercise is good, but sharing is better

May 12, 2020

Psychologist and counsellor Denis Boyd, a member of All Saints Parish in Coquitlam, offers some useful advice to people who are suffering increased stress, sadness, or anxiety during the ongoing COVID-19 crisis. In fact, he says there are two simple but important ways to release stress and grief from your system.

“One is to talk about it,” Boyd says. “And the second is to write about it. So, I would be encouraging people to talk out loud with somebody they consider a reasonably good listener – and hopefully they also listen well to them – about that they’re feeling overwhelmed, or bad, or frustrated, or whatever it might be.”

He continues, “Or, if the people they’re with are already stressed or are not available, they can become short-term journal writers, where they write down what they’re thinking, how they’re feeling, and they’ll get a nice release from doing that.”

Boyd notes that another outlet which is often talked about is exercise, but he believes exercise doesn’t really release a lot of stress. “Walking is very good, but it can’t compete with writing and or talking,” he says. “So I would get people thinking out loud about what they’re going through, even if it gets repetitive. It helps them unwind.”

He also believes that people can help themselves overcome the negativity in their lives through a shift in their attitude. He points to the example of Viktor Frankl, an Austrian psychiatrist who survived concentration camps in the Second World War, “because he came to the conclusion that we have no control over what happens to us. Our only control is how we deal with what happens to us.”

This attitude is connected to being grateful for the things that you have. For example, those who are finding it difficult to endure the current quarantine-like conditions could focus on the beautiful spring weather and scenery. “There are many things we could show gratitude for – just the beauty around us, the fact that we have good food to eat, and more people aren’t sick.”

He continues, “That attitude – and if you’ve written a bit about how sad you feel, or that you’re feeling frustrated or overwhelmed – puts you in a better place to then look at the things you are happy about. So there’s a one, two sequence there.  Because if the stress level is very high, it may be hard to see the good, and yet if you release some of that upset, you’re going to notice the good a little more. And actually, if you focus on what you have gratitude for, you’re less likely to get stuck thinking about the negativity as well.”

Boyd also recognizes that, even after the crisis ends, some people will be bothered by negative memories. “Historically, you and I and many of the readers were raised with, ‘you put your feelings away and push on.’   You know, ‘survive, tough it out.’” That’s not healthy, though, because “you accumulate a lot of leftover emotion from old events, traumatic or otherwise.” 

What happens, then, is that “the memories tend to be stronger and more upsetting, because, when you went through them, you just stuffed the pain away, didn’t dance with it, didn’t deal with it.” The solution is to act now – to “take time to write and talk about what we’re living now.”   What that does in the long term is diffuse the memory, “so in the future the memory will be less intense if they’re negative, or more vibrant if they’re positive.”

Denis Boyd is a registered psychologist, practising in Coquitlam. His name and contact information appear on a list, compiled by the Archdiocese, of professionals who say “they are Catholic or a practicing Christian from another tradition and will support clients that want to adhere to the Church’s teachings in the area of life, marriage and family.”