Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm v. Prince

A legacy of compassionate care rooted in faith

For millennia, Catholics around the world have operated healthcare ministries to serve the sick and dying. Rooted in Christ’s command to care for the “least of these,” these ministries put their faith into practice by offering excellent medical care, spiritual support, sacramental care, and end-of-life accompaniment to the most vulnerable. Even when a patient is facing a terminal illness and cannot be cured, Catholic providers give their all to surround them with the greatest love imaginable, to alleviate their suffering, and to ignite in them a hope for the world to come. 

Illinois has long benefited from this compassionate service. For nearly 175 years, Catholic healthcare ministries have been a refuge for the sick, elderly, and dying across Illinois.  Today, that work includes Catholic hospitals treating millions of patients each year. It also includes the work of religious Sisters caring for the elderly, and faithful Catholic laypeople serving as healthcare professionals in every part of the state. 

Since 1964, the Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm have cared for elderly Illinoisans at St. Patrick’s Residence in Naperville, providing long-term, rehabilitative, and palliative care alongside daily prayer and loving presence—ensuring that no resident dies alone. The Little Sisters of the Poor first came to Illinois in 1876 to minister to those devastated by the Great Chicago Fire. Today, they continue caring for the elderly in Chicago and Palatine, where they accompany those they serve in a spirit of hospitality, companionship, and trust in God’s providence.

That same commitment to healing has guided Luke Vander Bleek throughout his career as a pharmacist. For the past forty years, he has sought to use his pharmaceutical skills to serve and heal his community, all motivated by his Catholic faith. He currently runs a community pharmacy in Morrison, Illinois, a town of 4,000 two hours west of Chicago.

Illinois tries to strong-arm nuns into its regime of death 

In 2026, Illinois passed its End-of-Life Options for Terminally Ill Patients Act (EOLOA), allowing terminally ill adults to obtain lethal drugs to end their lives. Yet the law does not merely permit assisted suicide: it forces objecting healthcare providers into its machinery. Religious providers who object to participating in assisted suicide must still inform patients about their “right” to kill themselves, help them qualify for lethal drugs, and pass them along to someone willing to help them obtain those drugs. Meanwhile, pharmacists like Vander Bleek must fill lethal prescriptions or refer patients to another pharmacy that will. In other words, Illinois makes religious healthcare providers punch the patient’s ticket to death even when doing so violates their faith. 

Illinois also imposes a gag order on religious caregivers who want to speak a life-affirming message against suicide. EOLOA’s definition of coercion and undue influence is so broad that it risks punishing the Sisters and healthcare providers in the Archdiocese simply for telling a suffering patient, “Don’t kill yourself. Jesus loves you. Your life is precious.”

Catholic teaching forbids the Archdiocese’s healthcare ministries, the Sisters, and Vander Bleek from prescribing life-ending drugs, directing patients to obtain them, or helping facilitate a patient’s suicide in any way.  The Church teaches that when a person is suffering deeply, the proper response is loving accompaniment—not abandonment to death.Rather, they accept death as the natural end to a life well-lived: to accept it as it comes, neither artificially hastening it through any means, nor artificially prolonging it through burdensome technological and medical advancements that provide no reasonable benefit. 

Catholic ministries fight for their freedom to care

With Becket’s help, Cardinal Cupich, the Carmelite Sisters, the Little Sisters, and Vander Bleek filed a federal lawsuit seeking to block Illinois’ assisted-suicide law before it takes effect on September 12, 2026. The lawsuit asks the court to protect their freedom to continue caring for the sick, elderly, and dying in accordance with their Catholic faith. The lawsuit also seeks to protect the rights of patients who want the freedom to choose care providers who will not offer them suicide.

Illinois’ actions violate core constitutional protections for religious freedom and freedom of speech. The government cannot force Catholic ministries and healthcare professionals to violate their faith by helping patients obtain suicide pills. Nor can it gag Catholic doctors, nurses, caregivers, and pharmacists from offering life-affirming counsel and force them instead to deliver the state’s preferred message about suicide. Federal law further protects these providers by banning the use of federal health care funds for assisted suicide and by forbidding Illinois from discriminating against those who, like Becket’s clients, refuse to participate in assisted suicide.

For generations, Catholic healthcare ministries have offered the sick and dying across Illinois a place of peace, prayer, and love at the end of life. Illinois should stop trampling religious freedom and forcing its message of death on vulnerable patients.

Importance to Religious Liberty:

• Individual freedom: Religious individuals and organizations are free to follow their faith in all aspects of their lives, including in the workplace and not just in houses of worship.

• Religious communities: Religious communities have the right to organize and operate according to their beliefs without the government discriminating among sincere religious beliefs.