MP claims local priest refused to give him holy communion after backing assisted dying

A Liberal Democrat MP has claimed he is now being refused Holy Communion by his local priest after voting for Kim Leadbeater’s Assisted Dying Bill. Chris Coghlan, the MP for Dorking and Horley, made the claim in a column for the Observer newspaper as he argues in favour of the legislation despite his own Christian faith.

Mr Coghlan claimed he had received a “disturbing” email from his local priest four days before the vote warning him he would be considered “an obstinate public sinner” should he support the legislation. The furious clergyman added he would be complicit in a “murderous act, which must always be forbidden and excluded” and which is a "clear contravention of the Church’s teaching, which would leave me in the position of not being able to give you holy communion, as to do so would cause scandal in the Church.” Mr Coghlan is himself a Roman Catholic, but insists he was elected as a Liberal Democrat MP, not a religious MP.

The Dorking MP also says the priest’s furious email was especially worrying as he is responsible for signing off his children’s education forms for the local Catholic school they both attend.

He pressed ahead and voted for Kim Leadbeater’s bill last Friday, leading to the priest “publicly announced at mass that he was indeed denying me holy communion as I had breached canon law.”

However he received messages of support from constituents, including a religious couple who wrote to tell him: “Our faith and our belief in our Church community is based on Jesus Christ and the truth within scripture showing love and compassion.”

While the backbench bill passed on Friday and will now make its way to the House of Lords, Mr Coghlan notes that the majority was slashed from the first vote’s 55 to the third reading of just 23.

He says he hopes this was “not as a result of MPs succumbing to the completely inappropriate interference in democracy by religious authorities that I experienced.”

According to the Campaign for Dignity in Dying, 69% of people who follow a religion in England and Wales say they would support assisted dying becoming a legal option for the terminally ill.

Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, said: “It is no surprise to me that large numbers of Christians would support a compassionate assisted dying law in this country. One of the key themes of the Gospels is love for our fellow human beings.”

“Doing whatever we can to relieve needless suffering and bring peace is a profoundly Christian act.

“It is my greatest hope that, after many years of delay, lawmakers will now finally grasp this issue and craft a new settlement for dying people that provides the compassion and kindness that so many in this country would like to see.”