LIFE’S beginning and end are, to most religions, sacred moments. Therefore politicians are accustomed to religious leaders weighing in on matters such as contraception and abortion—and on whether and how doctors should be allowed to intervene to speed a patient’s passing. So as Maltese parliamentarians debate doctor-assisted dying, in response to a plea by a sufferer from motor neurone disease who wants to be able to get a doctor’s help to end his life when he chooses, it is unsurprising that two of the country’s most senior religious figures chose to interject themselves in the discussion.

In response to deliberation in the parliamentary committee on family affairs which is expected to continue after the summer recess, on July 23rd Charles Scicluna, the Archbishop of Malta, and Mario Grech, the Bishop of Gozo (the western of Malta’s two islands), published an open letter to parliamentarians. Their message? “Medical assistance given to the patients for the abrupt termination of life could never be in his or her best interest.”

It is just the latest intervention by Christian figures in political debates on the matter. Jozef De Kesel, the Archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels in Belgium, which has the world’s most liberal assisted-dying laws, suggested in January that the country’s church-run hospitals should be allowed to opt out of helping patients end their lives. And in June Pope Francis said to a group of Spanish and Latin American doctors that “true compassion does not marginalise anyone, nor does it humiliate and exclude, much less considers the disappearance of a person as a good thing.” He cautioned against a “throwaway culture that rejects and dismisses those who do not comply with certain canons of health, beauty and utility.” Life is sacred, he added, and should shine “with greater splendour precisely in suffering and helplessness”.

Research shows that religious people are more likely than the non-religious to oppose assisted dying. But there is wide variation between faiths. A survey of Britons, carried out by YouGov in 2013, found that only three in ten Muslims felt the law should be changed to allow close friends and relatives to help people with incurable diseases take their own lives, should they wish to do so. Around half of Hindus and Sikhs surveyed agreed, and six in ten Catholics, Methodists, Baptists and Buddhists. Seven in ten Jews, and 77% of Anglicans, supported such a change in the law. For comparison, 85% of people who claimed no faith were in favour of legalising assisted dying.

Some Anglican leaders are starting to shift their positions. The general synod of the Anglican church in Canada, where doctor-assisted dying was recently legalised, has written guidance on the issue for its congregation. Though it does not go as far as to support doctor-assisted dying, it does not oppose its legalisation, either. “The societal and legal context within which the pastoral and prophetic ministry of the church takes place has shifted,” it notes.

Religious leaders should not slavishly follow public opinion, says Lord Carey, who was Archbishop of Canterbury, the highest position in the Anglican hierarchy, from 1991 to 2002. But religious leaders should at least listen to it, he says—and on this issue, public opinion is broadly in favour. “I’m not sure the church is hearing that,” he says. “The more I’ve gone into this, the more I’ve realised Christian leaders can be very remote.”

Lord Carey was once of the same opinion as the pontiff, believing that the Christian concept of compassion ran counter to assisting the death of another. But he changed his mind, won over by the many letters he received detailing the suffering of family members, and the release people longed for but that their religion forbade. He consulted scripture, he says, and realised two things: first, there was no direct command to oppose assisted dying; and second, that he was being led by dogma, rather than people’s lived experience—and the presence of pain for those suffering most terminal illnesses. “We must listen to the pleas of people who want to die with dignity, and provide that help they need at that moment in their lives,” he says. “And of course, as a Christian, I don’t fear death.”