The senior archbishop in charge of life issues in England and Wales says better social and palliative care would go a long way toward helping people recover a sense of life as gift and defend against the fearful loss of control that end-of-life challenges inevitably bring.
The Lead Bishop for Life Issues at the bishops’ conference of England and Wales, Archbishop John Sherrington of Liverpool, makes his remarks in a broad-ranging two-part interview with Crux Now (Part 1 is here).
“Everybody is fearful of dying, everybody is fearful of pain and it is very hard to come to terms with living in a severely disabled state and for that reason I think people are arguing for assisted suicide,” he says.
“What we need to do,” Sherrington says, “is reshape conversation to help people understand how living with a disability or in a disabled state is also an important part of life – and probably if we could offer better social and palliative care then many people would choose that.”
“There’s the fear of loss of control, there’s the fear of loss of autonomy,” Sherrington says.
“That word – autonomy – is fueling many people’s arguments,” he says, “because we live in a context where to be one’s self-law, to be in charge of one’s life, is really important.”
“That self-law, that autonomy, is extended to being able to end one’s life. So that’s the other narrative that’s shaping many people’s decision making: I’m in charge of my life and therefore I can choose what to do with it,” he also says.
Crux Now spoke with Sherrington as a new legislative effort to make assisted suicide legal in the UK approaches a crucial vote.
The second reading of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) will take place on September 11 in the House of Commons after Lauren Edwards, a Member of Parliament for the Labour Party, reintroduced the bill in June.
A nearly identical bill introduced by Labour MP Kim Leadbeater passed the final stage in the House of Commons in June 2025 but timed out in April this year after there were over 1200 amendments introduced in the House of Lords.
Although Sherrington has made his opposition to the bill on principled and practical grounds very clear, he tells Crux Now a saving grace of the debate is that it has shone a light on fundamental questions about what it is to be human.
“What’s been good about the debate is that it has highlighted one of the most fundamental questions about our human living and about death and how we are to die. The fact that we are discussing it now is better than the fact that we weren’t before and maybe didn’t want to talk about it,” he says.
The second part of Crux Now‘s interview with Archbishop John Sherrington of Liverpool, edited for clarity and length, is below …
Crux Now: A recent poll showed a majority of the respondents believe assisted suicide shouldn’t be revisited without the full scrutiny of both chambers. However, there’s also been polling suggesting broad support for assisted suicide in the UK. Firstly, which do you think is more accurate? And secondly, has the way this debate’s been carried out made people more skeptical of assisted suicide?
Archbishop John Sherrington: Everybody is fearful of dying, everybody is fearful of pain and it is very hard to come to terms with living in a severely disabled state and for that reason I think people are arguing for assisted suicide.
What we need to do is reshape conversation to help people understand how living with a disability or in a disabled state is also an important part of life. And probably if we could offer better social and palliative care then many people would choose that.
What’s been good about the debate is that it has highlighted one of the most fundamental questions about our human living and about death and how we are to die.
The fact that we are discussing it now is better than the fact that we weren’t before and maybe didn’t want to talk about it.
Overall, we need to continue to look at the problems of this bill and also hear the voices of those who are vulnerable, whether because of possible coercion, or those who are living with disability who are violently opposed to this.
There’s a much wider debate that’s surfacing rather than purely this bill and that’s important.
There was the Leadbeater bill which Edwards reintroduced. France recently approved assisted suicide after a protracted process. Where do you think this enthusiasm comes from to get bills like this in law?
There’s the fear of loss of control, there’s the fear of loss of autonomy.
That word autonomy is fueling many people’s arguments because we live in a context where to be one’s self-law, to be in charge of one’s life, is really important.
And that self-law, that autonomy, is extended to being able to end one’s life.
So that’s the other narrative that’s shaping many people’s decision making: I’m in charge of my life and therefore I can choose what to do with it.
In contrast, a Christian narrative – and a narrative from people of many faiths – is that we receive life as a gift.
We recognize that we are to respect that life, to treasure that life and to treat that life well and certainly recognize when there are limits to medical intervention, but there’s always the need to care for life.
The narrative of gift and care is a different narrative and obviously very different from the one that’s focused on personal autonomy.
The narrative of the gift of life also has much more recognition of the interdependence of people upon one another. It’s not just me alone.
We’re interdependent and therefore the need to be cared for is part of what it is to be human, even though it’s hard. We don’t find that easy to accept.
So do you think assisted suicide is a symptom of a deeper cause?
It is an aspect of a much deeper debate about what it is to be human, about control, about recognizing interdependency, and ultimately about what it is to surrender control.
If you look at St. Mark’s Gospel, Jesus is active, he’s preaching, he’s teaching, he’s healing.
Then there comes a point when he is arrested and he becomes passive, he is scourged, he is taken, he is given the cross, he is crucified. On the cross, Jesus surrenders his life to God: “Into your hands Father I commit my spirit.”
From the perspective of revelation Jesus is teaching us something very fundamental about what it is to be human.
At times we have to surrender to God and to the father and that’s very different from taking charge to end one’s life.
Saint John Paul II talked a lot about the culture of death and Pope Francis talked about the throwaway culture. Do you think assisted suicide fits into those kind of paradigms?
Sometimes I think we oversimplify if we try to fit everything into paradigms. Using the words of Pope Francis, what we are recognizing is this lack of understanding of the gift of life.
Therefore, we need to re-appreciate the gift of life that’s given to us and build a culture of life with a civilization of love.
This affects how we live, how we relate to one another, how we care for one another, how we build solidarity between people.
The danger of the individualized society is that those who are not considered as good as others because they lack certain abilities or maybe are living with a certain state of being disabled are not valued as much as others.
In that sense we can quickly move towards a throwaway society.
The culture of death is a very, very strong image. I think that there may be those elements of that culture within people, but there’s also elements of a culture of life.
So we need to keep appealing to what is good; that innate goodness in human persons that’s present in all in order to develop our protection of life and our civilization of love.
So it’s easy with that terminology of cultures to blame others and not recognise that those two cultures can exist within everybody.
How can the church work towards building that civilization of love that you just talked about?
I see wonderful examples of generous love and sacrifice in families, the way that many families, whether they’re in the church or not, will look after their elderly, their sick members.
That’s all signs of a civilization of love. I also see this in wonderful, generous service in care homes, in the health service, in the NHS, in hospices.
That wonderful witness to life needs to be recognized and proclaimed.
I also recognize that chaplains in hospitals, whether clergy or lay people, do wonderful work in the care of the sick, in the clergy, the celebration of the sacraments, accompanying people in sickness towards death – they’re all signs of the kingdom we want.
I just returned from Lourdes, where those living with sickness are at the center of life.
I often think that Lourdes is a wonderful symbol of the care of the sick, of the sort of kingdom that Jesus is wanting.
Those with vulnerability, sickness and disability are at the heart of everybody’s actions, everybody’s care. They’re treated as equals, if not better than others, and live life to the full.
So there’s a wonderful image and symbol in Lourdes when pilgrims gather about what it is to recognise the gift of life and celebrate a civilisation of love.
Is there anything else that you’d like to add or anything you particularly want to say that we haven’t touched on?
It’s important that everybody reading this article who is living in a constituency in the United Kingdom contacts their MP.
It’s important if your MP has voted against the Leadbeater Bill, to thank them and encourage them to do so again and why it’s even more important.
If your MP has voted for the bill then it’s important to ask them to vote against it, particularly as we need that wider debate on social care and palliative care and also for all the other reasons that I’ve given.
So it’s important that everybody exercises their political right in contacting their MP on these matters.
And of course, please do pray.
