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Thursday, May 20, 2010

And More News of the Catholic Church and their Wisdom



Post this under news that makes me furious///

Last November, a 27-year-old woman was admitted to St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix. She was 11 weeks pregnant with her fifth child, and she was gravely ill. According to a hospital document, she had "right heart failure," and her doctors told her that if she continued with the pregnancy, her risk of mortality was "close to 100 percent."

The patient, who was too ill to be moved to the operating room much less another hospital, agreed to an abortion. But there was a complication: She was at a Catholic hospital.

"They were in quite a dilemma," says Lisa Sowle Cahill, who teaches Catholic theology at Boston College. "There was no good way out of it. The official church position would mandate that the correct solution would be to let both the mother and the child die. I think in the practical situation that would be a very hard choice to make."

But the hospital felt it could proceed because of an exception — called Directive 47 in the U.S. Catholic Church's ethical guidelines for health care providers — that allows, in some circumstance, procedures that could kill the fetus to save the mother. Sister Margaret McBride, who was an administrator at the hospital as well as its liaison to the diocese, gave her approval.


The woman survived. When Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted heard about the abortion, he declared that McBride was automatically excommunicated — the most serious penalty the church can levy. (apparently he didn't read The Directives)

"She consented in the murder of an unborn child," says the Rev. John Ehrich, the medical ethics director for the Diocese of Phoenix. "There are some situations where the mother may in fact die along with her child. But — and this is the Catholic perspective — you can't do evil to bring about good. The end does not justify the means." (Hey...what about that # 47 and all those priest/pedophiles who are still members in good standing after a happy lifetime of screwing little children?

Ehrich adds that under canon or church law, the nun should be expelled from her order, the Sisters of Mercy, unless the order can find an alternative penalty. Ehrich concedes that the circumstances of this case were "hard." (Oh, so hard, but the mother lived and it was in the first trimester!

"But there are certain things that we don't really have a choice" about, he says. "You know, if it's been done and there's public scandal, the bishop has to take care of that, because he has to say, 'Look, this can't happen.' "

A Double Standard? You betcha!

But according to the Rev. Thomas Doyle, a canon lawyer, the bishop "clearly had other alternatives than to declare her excommunicated." Doyle says Olmsted could have looked at the situation, realized that the nun faced an agonizing choice and shown her some mercy. He adds that this case highlights a "gross inequity" in how the church chooses to handle scandal.

Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted, declared that McBride was automatically excommunicated because she allowed a patient at a Catholic hospital to get an abortion. But some say her quick punishment stands in stark contrast to the protection many pedophile priests have received from their bishops.
"In the case of priests who are credibly accused and known to be guilty of sexually abusing children, they are in a sense let off the hook," Doyle says.

Doyle says no pedophile priests have been excommunicated. When priests have been caught, he says, their bishops have protected them, and it has taken years or decades to defrock them, if ever.

"Yet in this instance we have a sister who was trying to save the life of a woman, and what happens to her? The bishop swoops down [and] declares her excommunicated before he even looks at all the facts of the case," Doyle says.

Ehrich agrees that sexual abuse can't be tolerated. But he says neither can McBride's actions.

"She said, 'Yes, you can kill that unborn child.' That's a heinous act. And I'm not going to make a distinction between what's worse. They're both abhorrent," Ehrich says.

Ehrich says the nun can be admitted back into the Catholic community by going to confession and repenting. McBride still works at the hospital in another position. Whether she is allowed to remain in her religious order, Erich says that is up to the Sisters of Mercy.

Monday, May 17, 2010

The Church I Sometimes Attend


Well, I used to attend it occasionally, but after renewed news about cover-ups of abuse in the Catholic Church in Ireland, I stopped attending mass there and just kept attending the meetings of the Catholic Lesbian Group. I've had made some nice friends and I certainly have lots in common with them.

The Lesbian Group is a nice, smart, fun loving group of women, and the topics of the meetings are interesting. I shared with the members of the group my memories of marching out of Saint Francis Xavier in NYC-this particular church-with Dignity, after the late Cardinal O'Connor decreed that Dignity could not meet there. We had a candlelit march from the church to the LGBT community center. This was about 25 years ago at the height of the AIDS epidemic. My friends scoffed and said, this church welcomes it's gay and lesbian members. This couldn't happen now. So I was surprised to get the following e-mail:

Hello, friends.

The Catholic Lesbians Ministry needs to meet this Friday, May 21, 2010, 7:00 pm–8:00 pm, and then join the Gay Catholics Ministry from 8:00 pm–9:00 pm in the Mary Chapel .

Father Joe Costantino, SJ received a letter from Archbishop Timothy Dolan saying that the LGBT Ministries cannot participate in the Pride March under the Church of St. Francis Xavier's banner. We need to prayerfully discern what we will be doing together.

Tomorrow, I will confirm a room for our meeting and will pass that information on to you. Meanwhile, below is a reminder about why we march.

Thank you.

Actually, I'm not so surprised. I feel like this group has been flying under the radar for a number of years and there's a new sheriff in town-the Archbishop. And he has a few agendas, and we're one of them. So sad.