Saint Spaink

20 December 1957 — 8 May 2026

Her Excellence Cardinal Spaink is no longer with us and will be sorely missed. Karin Spaink joined the Church of Euthanasia in 1997 after seeing us on TV, and claimed the honor of being our first Dutch member. She was a renowned journalist, author and free speech advocate, who wrote for major newspapers. At the peak of the Dutch hysteria over the “I Like to Watch” video in 2002, she wrote an article for Het Parool defending both the Church of Euthanasia and the video, and for this service she was duly canonized, becoming Cardinal Spaink.

Her Excellence never had children, upholding our One Commandment as she had vowed to do. She advocated for sexual freedom, practiced what she preached, and married a woman—her best friend Christiane Hardy—in 2012. She crusaded relentlessly against Scientology at great personal cost, winning a ten-year legal battle against them. She attacked the New Age fiction that illness is purely in the mind, and for good reason: she suffered from multiple sclerosis since 1986. She carried on courageously despite her illness, and overcame other setbacks including a stroke and breast cancer, but when her symptoms became intolerable in 2023, she applied for voluntary assisted dying, which is legal in the Netherlands.

Cardinal Spaink not only led an exemplary life, she also had an exemplary death. Her final act was the culmination of her lifelong activism. She proved her unwavering loyalty to the Church of Euthanasia by embodying our principle that every person is entitled to a painless and dignified death. Therefore it is with great sadness, but also incalculable respect and admiration, that I announce her beatification. She shall henceforth be known as Saint Spaink.