How a UK bill led to a Communion showdown
The bishop offered to meet with Coghlan, who says his pastor barred him publicly from receiving Holy Communion.
An English bishop has offered to meet with a politician who says his pastor barred him publicly from receiving Holy Communion after he voted for an assisted suicide bill.
Bishop Richard Moth offered to meet in person with Chris Coghlan, who represents the constituency of Dorking and Horley in the lower house of the U.K. Parliament, according to a June 27 statement from the Diocese of Arundel and Brighton.
The diocese said that Moth suggested a meeting “to discuss the issues and concerns raised” during a phone call in the week of June 23 with Coghlan, a member of the Liberal Democrat Party.
In a June 29 op-ed for the U.K.’s Observer newspaper, Coghlan wrote that his pastor, Fr. Ian Vane, had “publicly announced at Mass” that he would not give the politician Communion “as I had breached canon law.”
Coghlan was likely referring to Canon 915 of the Code of Canon Law, which says that “those who have been excommunicated or interdicted after the imposition or declaration of the penalty and others obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to Holy Communion.”
How did the Communion dispute flare up in the usually placid southern English diocese? And are there any recent precedents in England?
The Pillar takes a look.
What happened when?
Between 2003 and 2021, there were seven unsuccessful attempts to push a bill legalizing assisted suicide through the U.K. Parliament. The eighth attempt came in 2024, following a landslide general election victory by Britain’s Labour Party, led by Keir Starmer.
Starmer, an atheist, made a promise before the election to the British television personality Esther Rantzen that, if his party won, he would give parliamentary time to a new effort to legalize assisted suicide, which advocates call “assisted dying.”
In each parliamentary session, members of parliament (MPs) can enter a ballot for the right to present draft legislation to lawmakers, via a mechanism known as a private members’ bill.
Private members’ bills rarely pass because they do not receive explicit government backing. But the Abortion Act 1967, which legalized the practice in England, Wales, and Scotland, began as a private members’ bill.
Labour Party politician Kim Leadbeater came first in the private members’ bill ballot on Sept. 4, 2024. On Oct. 3, she announced her intention to introduce the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, which she formally unveiled Oct. 16.
In an Oct. 13-14 pastoral letter, Cardinal Vincent Nichols urged Catholics to ask their elected representatives to oppose the bill.
Nichols, the Archbishop of Westminster and president of the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, wrote that assisted suicide would undermine “the foundations of trust and shared dignity on which a stable society rests.”
In a Nov. 17 pastoral letter, Bishop Richard Moth also invited Catholics in the Arundel and Brighton diocese “to write to your MP, urging them most strongly to vote against this proposed legislation.”
He wrote: “Pray for our MPs, that they may recognize that their first priority must be the protection and care for the most vulnerable in our society and that supporting this legislation would result in a dangerous abrogation of this responsibility.”
Eighteen days after the assisted suicide bill was published, the U.K. Parliament’s lower house endorsed it by 330 votes to 275 after only five hours of debate.
Chris Coghlan backed the bill, along with a large majority of his fellow Liberal Democrats. Coghlan, who has a business and military background, became an MP in 2024, when he stood for election in the new constituency of Dorking and Horley in the county of Surrey, defeating a Conservative Party candidate by 5,391 votes.
The next critical stage for the assisted suicide bill came on June 20, 2025, when it faced its third reading — the last before it would be sent to the House of Lords, the U.K. Parliament’s upper house, which rarely rejects bills approved by the lower house.
The bill passed its third and possibly decisive reading by 314 votes to 291, a margin of just 23. Coghlan was again among the bill’s supporters.
Speaking shortly after the vote, Bishop Moth said the result would likely leave many people feeling “frightened and anxious, particularly those who are sick and vulnerable, those involved in end-of-life care, and those who support and care for others in nursing homes and hospices.”
He asked Catholics to redouble their efforts “to protect the vulnerable and promote the dignity of human life at this critical time, and continue to pray for Peers in the House of Lords as this legislation proceeds to its next stage, that they may seek to protect and uphold the sanctity of life.”
In his Observer article, Coghlan said that Fr. Vane, the pastor of St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Dorking, had sent him an email four days before the vote, which was June 16.
According to the politician, the priest said that if he voted for the bill, he would be “an obstinate public sinner” and complicit in a “murderous act, which must always be forbidden and excluded.”
Vane reportedly added that a vote in favor would be “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.”
Coghlan said he disagreed with Vane’s characterization of the bill, and suggested that “his reference to excommunication was clearly intended as a warning of the risk I was taking to my own salvation.”
“When it came to the vote, I supported assisted dying in accordance with my conscience and the overwhelming wishes of my constituents,” Coghlan wrote.
“As a result, last Sunday [June 22] the priest publicly announced at Mass that he was indeed denying me Holy Communion as I had breached canon law.”
Writing on social media June 29, Coghlan said that Vane had “publicly announced at every [weekend] Mass he was denying me Holy Communion following the assisted dying vote.”
“This was utterly disrespectful to my family, my constituents including the congregation, and the democratic process,” he said. “My private religion will continue to have zero direct relevance to my work as an MP representing all my constituents without fear or favor.”
In a radio interview, Coghlan described his “public naming and shaming” at Masses as “pretty horrific.”
He said it raised “fundamental questions around the interference of religious authorities in politics, because I am a Liberal Democrat member of parliament. I am here to represent my constituents. I am not here to represent the Catholic Church.”
“So for Catholic authorities to expect me as a Catholic to put the Catholic Church before my constituents is utterly illegitimate,” he said, describing himself as having been “born into the Church, more on the liberal end,” with “serious doubts about certain parts of the Church’s teachings.”
Coghlan confirmed he had spoken with Bishop Moth and planned to meet with him. He said the bishop had told him “it is not the Church’s position to deny Holy Communion over this.”
“So to a certain extent, the priest was acting on, I guess, his own initiative,” Coghlan said.
He added that he did not know whether he would remain a Catholic, but would “see how I am feeling in a year’s time or so.”
Fr. Vane did not respond to The Pillar’s requests for an interview. But in its June 27 statement, the Arundel and Brighton diocese said: “The recent vote on the assisted dying bill was a complex one for all involved and while many in our society are deeply saddened by the result, we recognize the difficult task faced by MPs in seeking to represent their constituents.”
“The Catholic Church believes in the sanctity of life and the dignity of every person. Prior to the vote, Bishop Richard Moth encouraged members of clergy and lay faithful to write to their MPs in a private capacity to express their concerns about the bill, and to ask them to vote against the proposed legislation.”
“Bishop Richard spoke to Mr. Coghlan earlier this week and has offered to meet him in person to discuss the issues and concerns raised. Our prayers remain with all those impacted by the passing of this bill, and the Peers [members] in the House of Lords who are engaged in the next stage of this debate.”
Are there any precedents?
The closest precedent in England to Coghlan’s situation came in 2014.
In March that year, Bishop Philip Egan of Portsmouth gave an interview to LifeSiteNews in which he discussed the reception of Communion by politicians whose voting record was at odds with Church teaching.
“When people are not in communion with the Catholic Church … in terms of the teachings of the Church on marriage and family life—they are voting in favor of same-sex marriage — then they shouldn’t be receiving Holy Communion,” he said.
“When people are not in communion with the Catholic Church on such a central thing as the value of life of the unborn child and also in terms of the teachings of the Church on marriage and family life they are voting in favor of same-sex marriage — then they shouldn’t be receiving Holy Communion.”
In response to the interview, Conor Burns, then a Conservative MP representing Bournemouth West, described Egan’s remarks as a “tragedy.”
Burns, who voted in favor of the U.K.’s 2013 same-sex marriage act and co-chaired a parliamentary committee on Vatican relations, said: “I feel a little less welcome in my home diocese than I did a couple of weeks ago.”
Amid extensive media coverage, the English and Welsh bishops’ conference emailed parliamentarians.
“There are no plans by any Bishops in England and Wales to deny communion to Catholic MPs or peers who voted in favor of same-sex marriage legislation last year,” the email said.
The email was written by Greg Pope, a former Labour MP who was then serving as the bishops’ conference’s head of parliamentary relations. He became acting general secretary of the bishops’ conference in November 2024.
“So for Catholic authorities to expect me as a Catholic to put the Catholic Church before my constituents is utterly illegitimate.”
~ Henry VIII
"If you vote for doctors to kill your constituents we will be deeply saddened and may even send you a strongly-worded letter" is hardly the response a statement like "The Catholic Church believes in the sanctity of life and the dignity of every person" calls for. If the bishops don't take the faith seriously, people in the UK have obviously concluded, why should anyone else?