Catholic Nuns Sue Illinois Over Law Forcing Them To Help Terminally Ill Patients Kill Themselves

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Catholic Nuns Sue Illinois Over Law Forcing Them To Help Terminally Ill Patients Kill Themselves

The Catholic Church in Illinois is challenging the Democrat-led state’s recently passed assisted suicide law in court.

Chicago’s archbishop, Cardinal Blase Cupich, joined two orders of Catholic nuns and an Illinois pharmacist in a lawsuit Thursday in an effort to block the End-of-Life Options for Terminally Ill Patients Act (EOLOA), the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty stated in a press release. The law, which they say would force the Church to help terminally ill patients kill themselves in violation of its teachings on the dignity of life, was signed by Democratic Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker in December 2025 and is scheduled to go into effect Sept. 12. (RELATED: Nuns Fight Back Against Blue States’ Attempts To Force Them To Cover Contraceptives)

The healthcare providers’ lead attorney is Becket’s president, Mark Rienzi. The lawsuit named the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs, the Illinois Department of Public Health, and the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation as defendants.

Neither Becket nor the state’s agencies immediately responded to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s requests for comment.

“The state should stop trying to make Catholic nuns help patients kill themselves,” Rienzi states in the press release. “It is awful for Illinois to be forcing every sick and dying person within its borders to hear its message of suicide at their lowest moment—regardless of whether they want it or not. Patients deserve the freedom to seek healing, hope, and accompaniment without the government forcing suicide into the conversation. The Constitution protects that freedom.”

The lawsuit alleges that the EOLOA threatens the religious freedom of Catholics within the Illinois healthcare system by imposing fines on those who refuse to dispense lethal drugs.

“The Gospel calls us to uphold the inviolable dignity and worth of the human person, from life’s first moment to its natural end,” Cardinal Cupich states in the press release. “As Catholics, we oppose efforts to undermine human dignity by pushing our brothers and sisters toward suicide. We pray that the courts will protect our freedom to continue advocating and caring for the sick and dying as our faith demands.”

The two orders of Catholic nuns suing the state are the Carmelite Sisters for the Age and Infirm and the Chicago Province of the Little Sisters of the Poor. The orders are committed to the physical, emotional, and spiritual care of their elderly and infirm residents in a dignified homelike environment.

“Our residents come to us at one of the most vulnerable moments of their lives,” Mother Mary Rose Heery, prioress general of the Carmelite Sisters for the Age and Infirm, states in the press release. “Our vocation is to give witness to them, through everything we do, that their lives remain precious and that they will never be abandoned. Illinois cannot ask us to replace that promise with help ending their lives.”

Catholic healthcare ministries have served the sick, elderly, and dying of Chicago for nearly 175 years, according to Becket’s statement.

“The elderly people who come to our homes are looking for a place where they will be cherished and cared for until natural death,” Mother Julie Marie, mother provincial of the Chicago Province of the Little Sisters of the Poor also states. “They should be free to choose that kind of care without having assisted suicide inserted into it by the state. We simply want to continue giving them the loving home they came to us for.”

Luke Vander Bleek, who owns Fitzgerald Pharmacy in Illinois, also joined the lawsuit.

“I became a pharmacist because I wanted to help people heal, never to hasten their deaths. But now Illinois wants my pharmacy to dispense prescriptions for suicide in violation of my Catholic beliefs,” Bleek states in the press release. “The state shouldn’t force me to choose between serving my neighbors and following my conscience.”

A physician, two disabled patients, and multiple healthcare advocacy groups Illinois over EOLOA in June, arguing that the assisted suicide law lacks the necessary guardrails to protect disabled patients from being discriminated against by physicians.