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PDF versionBishop Olmsted's Reckless Decision
by Michael Sean Winters on Dec. 22, 2010
The holidays are always a difficult time for those whose loved ones are desperately ill. In addition to all the usual hustle and bustle of the holiday season, the need to finish up at work before the holiday, arranging travel plans, getting all the special foods for the feast and wrapping the presents and decorating the tree, the family of an ill person has as their central focus their ailing loved one.
It can be a time of great stress and also a time of great grace. When my mother was dying, it seemed like it was going to be the worst Christmas ever. She was unable to decorate the tree – all of the ornaments are blue and silver because those were her favorite colors. She was unable to cook her Christmas ham or serve peppermint ice cream with hot fudge for dessert, as she always had. In fact, she couldn’t eat them either because since the car accident at the end of August she had been on a feeding tube. Yet, it was one of the most blessed Christmases I can remember. The chapel was right down the hall from her room and we could go there to pray in front of the Blessed Sacrament at all hours of the day. We got her into her wheelchair on Christmas Day and brought her to the chapel for Mass. One of the Eucharistic ministers touched her lips with the Precious Blood of Christ, which never seemed so precious as it did that morning. Because of our circumstance or, better to say, because of our need, the palpable grace of the day was so very present, so focused, so real.
This year, the families of those whose loved ones are in St. Joseph’s Hospital in Phoenix will not be able to stop in to the chapel and pray before the Blessed Sacrament as I was able to do. In addition to all their other burdens, they will need to figure out when and where to go to Mass and, of course, they can not bring their loved one to Mass with them. In this sense, whatever motivations he may have had, and whatever the canons of the Church permit, Bishop Thomas Olmsted’s decision to strip St. Joseph’s Hospital of those parts of its Catholic identity over which he has control is simply cruel, unspeakably cruel.
To be clear: There are circumstances in which a bishop would be justified in insisting that an organization officially affiliated with the Catholic Church has so grievously violated the Church’s teachings that the affiliation must be sundered. If the administrators of St. Joseph said, “Yes, we know what we did was a direct abortion and we did it anyway,” that would justify such a severance. But, the administration believes that the procedure they approved and performed was not a direct abortion but an indirect one. I do not want to get graphic - this was explained to me in clinical terms yesterday and made me queasy – but the procedure in question really does sound more like an indirect abortion, like the procedures used when faced with an ectopic pregnancy or a cancerous uterus.
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The USCCB Committee on Doctrine issued a statement that reaffirmed the Church’s opposition to direct abortion in any circumstance but it did not, as some suggest, pronounce on whether the procedure in Phoenix was or was not a direct abortion.
Bishop Olmsted – and some among the conservative blogosphere – now bring an additional charge. Olmsted says he has “recently learned” that Catholic Healthcare West was participating with a third party to run a Medicaid program that distributes contraception and involves other objectionable acts, although the third party, not St. Joseph’s or other CHW hospitals, undertook the objectionable acts. What Olmsted does not acknowledge is that the reason he knows about this is because –on their own initiative – St. Joseph’s and Catholic Healthcare West have been trying to bring the program more clearly into accord with Catholic directives, negotiating with the state and federal government which is involved because of Medicaid, etc. To most fair-minded people, this would be evidence of good faith not bad, yet Olmsted represents it as news, damning evidence of St. Joseph’s lack of Catholicity. That’s just creepy on his part.
Is Olmsted over-reacting? His statement is especially telling when he discusses the 2009 abortion. Not once does he acknowledge that the hospital administrators, even if they were wrong, were acting in good faith, reflecting upon sound theological work and in no way trying to skirt around or deny the Church’s teaching on the evil of abortion. Not once does he acknowledge that what a theologian considers “direct” may not be what a clinician considers “direct” because the theologian and the doctor practice different skills and medical ethics must involve them both. Not once does Bishop Olmsted acknowledge any of the good works done at the hospital. A priest friend told me he thought Olmsted was acting like a teenager when they first get behind the wheel of a car. A teenager is acutely aware of his lack of power, but when placed behind the wheel, he gets a rush of power and drives like a mad man. Olmsted is one of those bishops who, like Canute, stands before his throne ordering the waves back. His voice gets louder as the waves get closer, and he is incapable of recognizing the ridiculousness of his position.
There may be situations when the drastic measures Bishop Olmsted is taking would be warranted but nothing seems to indicate this is such a situation. The good people at St. Joseph’s are not Albigensians. Olmsted may fashion himself a latter day Dominic, but he is really more like the teenager behind the wheel of car my priest friend described, reckless and dangerous. Olmsted is dangerous because he does not recognize that he is the one giving scandal, not the doctors, nurses and administrators at St. Joseph’s Hospital.
The bishop also cited St.
The bishop also cited St. Joseph's affiliations with a non-Catholic hospital that performed services forbidden to a Roman Catholic hospital, such at sterilization, and participation in a Medicaid network that also provided services forbidden to a Roman Catholic hospital, such as contraception counseling. Was the bishop using this tragic dispute as a toll to force non-Catholic institutions to conform to the bishop's view of medical ethics? (Disclosure: I have left the RCC and this episode reinforces me in that decision)
Dear Eugene Pagano: You might
Dear Eugene Pagano:
You might well leave the monarchical, hierachical, imperial,dzj feudal, patriarchal RCC. But please, I beg you not to leave the Sacramental Chruch of Jesus who waits for you to come to meet him at all your conveniences in the Sacrament of HIS BODY and BLOOD.
Thank you for your concern,
Thank you for your concern, but the Episcopal Church also has the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist.
See Apostolicae Curae,
See Apostolicae Curae, Anglican Orders are "absolutely null and utterly void" and without valid orders there is not a valid Eucharist.
Dear Eugene Pagano When
Dear Eugene Pagano
When Christ established his Church his words were interpreted unfortunately as follows....."Peter I build my Church upon this rock, to be a Sovereign State with Diplomatic Immunity, a Secret Bank, run by Male Aristocrats with strict laws governing the lives and bodies of Females who populate half the earth and shall be in servitude only. You cannot marry but their young can be suitable companions in your time of need for tension release" I for one completely ignore the "Aristocracy". I will support my Parish Church only - but no second collections. I love my Mass and give to Charity but not to the Bishop's Appeal.
($50,000 went to Maine - remember?) St.Vincent De Paul is my charity of choice.
I am only one of a great many who feel this way.
Unspeakably cruel???? I must
Unspeakably cruel????
I must be in the twilight zone.
Choosing to snuff out an innocent 11-week-old child's life is NOT unspeakably cruel, but when the bishop rightly seeks to protect the innocent, THAT's unspeakably cruel???
Go ahead, GET graphic--let us know exactly what procedure was used. In an earlier piece, NCR referred to a decision to abort by removing the *placenta*, right?
DUH. DUH-rect abortion, people....
The hospital killed a kid. THAT's unspeakably cruel, and unspeakably anti-Catholic...
Should that mother have died
Should that mother have died along with her child? Would that be an outcome you would have preferred? Do the Bishops ask women to be willing to die along with their unborn child rather than do anything that might be understood as a direct abortion? It sounds as if they do. Is that REALLY the Catholic response to situations like this? Not according to many of the Catholic ethics scholars who weighed in on this case. The hospital did the right thing, and I am glad they stood by their decision rather than acceed to a Bishop who wishes to disregard the medical facts of this case and stand by a rigid ethical law at the expense of a mother's life.
There is no evidence to
There is no evidence to suggest that the abortion saved the mother, though there is much propaganda. Several Pro-Life doctors have said that they have NEVER seen a case where a direct abortion saves any life.
If a direct abortion has
If a direct abortion has never saved a life and the procedure at
St Joes did then one ought to ask: Could the procedure used at
St Joes been a non-direct abortion?
Anonymous-whomever-you-are,
Anonymous-whomever-you-are, how old are you?
That hospital save a mother
That hospital save a mother of 4 kids. Was the Catholic Church going to raise her 4 children when she died? I don't think so.
There will never be enough
There will never be enough aborted babies for the NCR and their ilk....long live violence against the Left
The kid had no hope of living
The kid had no hope of living to 11 weeks, one day. He could already be considered dead.
Anonymous, clearly you are
Anonymous, clearly you are entitled to your feelings about the situation. But, from your post it seems that you are seeing only one aspect of a very complex situation (a grave one, I admit). You are also, seemingly, allowing the dignity of life to only one of those whose life was at risk. I think forming a judgment based on such a limited view of this tragic situation is a disservice to all of those involved.
I am left to assume that you think that allowing two deaths is a morally superior decision than acting in a way to save one of the two lives, even if saving that life would mean the death of a life that would have died anyway. Yes, Anonymous, "that would have died anyway". This is a major consideration for many of us considering the morality of this abortion. It just doesn't seem to be a consideration of so many who feel otherwise. I have not read anything about their views of losing the life that was saved in addition to losing the life of the baby. I believe that this reduction of complex issues is what happens when one is locked into an ideology that sees all situations as the same. A review of the circumstances, as this situation illustrates, shows that there are, often, many layers to the issue of abortion. I know that it is easier to ignore the nuances and lump all actions, at all times as, equally, grave. But I believe it too often ends with a legalized spirituality that lacks the heart and love of God.
Well Anonymous, as I said, you certainly are entitled to your opinion and, as you can see, I respectfully disagree (yes, respectfully). Yet, I would be open to listening to what your feelings are about the lost of the life that your post does not address.
I hope you can join me in prayers to all who are involved in this tragic situation.
John David
Please read directive 47
Please read directive 47 (ERD). The action was not a direct abortion, but analogous to removing a cancerous uterus with fetus in utero or excising an ectopic pregnancy (a procedure condemned in 1905 by the Holy Office, a condemnation that happily became a dead letter). The point is not the protection of the innnocent. The bishop hamfistedly came down on one side, in the view of all the Catholic ethicists with whom I have spoken, the wrong side, in a very difficult situation.
When both lives cannot be
When both lives cannot be saved is it not a Catholic moral position to save the life that can be saved? Yes, it is tragic that the baby was lost but he could not have been save because he could not survive if the mother died and she would die if the baby was not removed. This case is so sad! Fortunately the only one who could survive was allowed to live rather than both lives being lost. An idol can be made out of anything and I think that maybe an idol has been made out of our moral teaching on abortion. Life isn't that simple.
Even if I grant you that the
Even if I grant you that the abortion was direct, and a violation...which I do not...
Please explain how depriving PATIENTS of the Blessed Sacrament and an on-premise liturgy (the latter of which they may be able to get at many a non-Catholic hospital) disciplines the hospital ADMINISTRATION?
"The hospital killed a kid.
"The hospital killed a kid. THAT's unspeakably cruel, and unspeakably anti-Catholic"
Well what about the life of the mother? THey had no choice...either the 11 wk old baby or the mother....Does that mean that a mother is simply an incubator to you?
Woman as incubator is exactly
Woman as incubator is exactly what she must be in these circumstances by Olmsted's & and anoymous' standards. I remain grateful everyday for the pedophile rapist who left me incapable of conceiving.
And let's be clear: it was
And let's be clear: it was NOT "the mother or the baby." It was very definitely "the mother, or mother AND baby." An 11 week fetus is not viable; the baby could not have survived. The presence of the placenta is what was worsening her condition. There was no time to move her to a non-Catholic facility. The decision had to be made. It was not made lightly.
You people talk as though you
You people talk as though you know what you're talking about, but you clearly don't. Killing this baby was not the only way to allow the Mother to live.
Anonymous on Dec. 22, 2010.
Anonymous on Dec. 22, 2010.
You stated:
"Unspeakably cruel????
I must be in the twilight zone.
Choosing to snuff out an innocent 11-week-old child's life is NOT unspeakably cruel, but when the bishop rightly seeks to protect the innocent, THAT's unspeakably cruel???
Go ahead, GET graphic--let us know exactly what procedure was used. In an earlier piece, NCR referred to a decision to abort by removing the *placenta*, right?
DUH. DUH-rect abortion, people....
The hospital killed a kid. THAT's unspeakably cruel, and unspeakably anti-Catholic..."
---------------------------------------------------------
Duh----How about reading up on the woman's real condition when she came into the hospital. How about realizing that the fetus wasn't in the womb---that it was causing hypertension in the woman---and that when she was rushed into the hospital by her husband---she was close to dying. By the way---the fetus was either already dead or almost dead---before any procedure was performed.
How about realizing that every pregnancy doesn't proceed according to a pre-fabricated plan. And how about realizing that this hospital saved one life---and that it couldn't save the other life. They did a heroic deed---and they don't need some armchair theologian, whose concept of medical situations is greatly oversimplified.
and furthermore this woman
and furthermore this woman deserves to be given vindication of her situation. She choose a catholic hospital so that if the baby could possibly have survived it would have. She chose to uphold the sanctity of life. She as well had to make a choice to have the surgery... not an abortion... a surgery to save her life. She made a difficult choice people and she deserves to be given a sense that she matters. We have to choose life folks and that means we have to show that we would have wanted this woman to live and uphold life.
She matters!!!! She has 4 children and wanted another. She lost a future child. She is likely grieving a great deal. How dare anyone make it sound as if it's an administrative decision that only affected the church and the hospital.
so, what your saying is...
so, what your saying is... its ok for the mother to die? for 4 children to be motherless? for a husband to bury his wife and child? the doctors were VERY explicit, she should not have gotten pregnant to begin with. when she ended up pregnant and that pregnancy put her life in mortal peril, the doctors did what they could to save a life, without the abortion BOTH were 100 percent dead! but your way is better! NO religious institution or religious figure has any right or belongs making medical decisions. your narrow and limited view is wrong. not my opinion just fact you are wrong.
If the ultimate authority
If the ultimate authority given to a Bishop is for the purpose of saving souls, I have to say that excommunication and denying a Catholic Hospital its Catholic identity because of a single difficult decision is not about saving souls at all, and n fact is the exact opposite and not in the Spriit of Christ, in the Spirit of the Catholic Church, and not in the Spirit of the Bishops job.
Thank you for addressing the
Thank you for addressing the 'throwing in the kitchen sink' aspect of Bishop Thomas' decision. i.e, all the non-catholic things that were going on which did not concern his stated issue with St. Joseph. Only by retracing through the articles and other posted documents was it clear that he was in effect saying: 'And by the way, there is this other problem and I am going to fix it also.' Cheesy, and harmful, way to resolve problems! As one reads the bishop's decision one concludes that the only way catholics and their institutions can operate is if we return to the ghetto and do business with people who are like us in all things -- all others need not apply until they are exactly like us!
The article above aptly paints how dishonest Bishop Thomas' actions appear to all men and women of good will.
Thankfully so much of this is now in the bright light of day and perhaps we now see in the back story that the how and why St. Joseph decided the way it did was as difficult as could possibly be. That any bishop would think that a decision of such moment as the one he has now inflicted on the catholics in phoenix should be private and confidential calls into question his faithfulness to the local church.
So, once again, the Eucharist
So, once again, the Eucharist is held hostage to a bishop's whim. How long will the Church allow this this to go on? We are allowing our parishes to be closed and denying ourselves the Eucharist soley because we allow a small group of men to dictate the rules to the rest of us.
We had many brave men and women, priests and laity, who gave their lives to bring us the Eucharist in the face of secualr tyrants. Where are those who will satnd agaisnt the tyrants within?
BISHOPS ACROSS this country,
BISHOPS ACROSS this country, Phoenix, Dallas, Detroit to name recent cases are all out condemnning something or someone. None of it reflects any behavior of Jesus.
Do you know who Jesus actually condemned according to the New Testament?
It was the hyprocrites! Those were the priests and the self-righteous Jews.
Oh God, we have so many hyprocrites in the episcopal ranks of the Catholic Church today.
Nuns and "theologians" are
Nuns and "theologians" are never hypocrites. Only bishops. Because they're men. Boo men!
Who said that here? Besides
Who said that here? Besides you? Do you have anything to add besides dishonest attacks?
Please, the course of this
Please, the course of this whole thread and all of MSW's coverage has been conservative bishops=dishonest hypocrites, CHW, Sr. McBride, their theological enablers=good-faith actors. Bp. Olmsted's critics (here) haven't bothered to consider for one second that the hypocrisy and self-serving was on his opponents' side (at least as well, if not exclusively!). Hence the assertion that he's obviously wrong because he's a bishop and bishops are part of the bad patriarchy. As for anonymity, this is a blog: it's almost always functionally anonymous, Jim Owens, if that is your real name!.
Silliness always requires
Silliness always requires anonymity.
Anon. I do not understand how
Anon. I do not understand how the taking of the fetal life was unspeakably cruel. All the medical personnel involved said the life was beyond saving, and in point of fact, the fetus might already have been dead thanks to the failure of its environment to nurture it. I think people fail to understand just how far along this situation was. The efforts to save the fetus had gone on for months prior to the final resolution of the case. by the time the surgery was done, the fetus was doomed, and the mother was on death's doorstep.
The sad fact is that people
The sad fact is that people like anonymous and Bishop Olmsted really do crave for both fetus and mother to die in these circumstances. It is, for them, the only acceptable, legitimate outcome. Then they can wring their hands & shed a tear about the tragic orphans and widower left behind, 'God's will be done.' The facts mean nothing. The life of the mother meant nothing. The work of the doctors and hospital ethicists meant nothing. It is so typical. It will remain this way until some how, the church evolves to include a married clergy and/or female clergy.
Maybe the example of driving
Maybe the example of driving like a mad man is not the most sensitive thing to bring up in connection with a bishop of Phoenix.
Now, this Olmsted is acting like some medieval pope who, because of a spat with a monarch somewhere, puts a whole country or territory under interdict, i.e. deprives all the faithful of the sacraments.
Catholic moral theology has
Catholic moral theology has always recognized that there is a principle of double effect, but that the direct taking of any human life from the moment of conception to natural death is always evil. While any medical procedure which indirectly causes the death of the fetus may be allowed, the direct termination of a fetus is never to be permitted. The hospital was wrong by every standard of moral theology currently approved. While I disagree with Bishop Olmsted on the steps he has chosen to take, I do believe he is correct in his interpretation of church teaching.
We now have a situation where all sorts of people are crawling out of the woodwork trying to defend decisions which should have never been made public and which make everyone look like they are living in the 13th century. This is bad from both a pastoral and pragmatic perspective because it makes thinking Catholics question the legitimacy of many church teachings. Rome and the bishops that have been appointed in the last 20 years can rarely be accused of being pastoral, but in this particular case, all of this should have remained in the internal forum.
Other than preserving patient
Other than preserving patient privacy, there is no reason that these decisions should not have been brought to light. At one time, Catholics were not allowed to read the Bible themselves, as it was thought that laypeople were incapable of understanding what was written and needed priests to interpret it for them. I doubt most Catholics wish to go back to those times. If the decisions being made LOOK like they came from the 13th century......well, if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck.....
The world has a right to know these things. It can be argued that priests and bishops are called by God, but they're still men, fallible human beings, and their interpretation of God's law is just that: a human interpretation. As such, decisions such as these should be made right out in the daylight, if for no other reason, to ensure that corruption isn't hidden and that the correct decisions are made.
What's funny about this is
What's funny about this is that even the hospital itself recognizes—albeit implicitly—how far from the mark Michael and the critics are. There is cachet in the name "Catholic Hospital"; it means something. If it didn't, the hospital wouldn't use it. But that cachet depends on the name "Catholic" meaning something, and it can only mean something when it has a real effect on how the hospital conducts itself. When that cases to be so, the hospital must lose the right to call itself by the name that flows from it.
May God bless Bishop Olmsted for his courageous move, as He has blessed us with Bishop Olmsted!
Please stop characterizing
Please stop characterizing Bishop Olmsted as the aggressor.
In his 7 years in Phoenix, Olmsted has tried repeatedly to have the CHW change their ways. By officially revoking the Catholic status of the hospital, he has formalized the decision made by CHW to continue dissenting from clear Church teaching. This is emphasized over and over if you read the official statements released from the diocese. I guarantee you this is a great burden for the Bishop to carry around and something he did as a last resort.
The Bishop of a diocese has the responsibility to lead and guide the souls of his flock. Olmsted, like every other local ordinary, will stand before the judgment seat of God at the end of his life and be called to account for his actions. The faithful of Phoenix should be thankful that they have a Bishop with the episcopal kahunas to stand up for Church teaching and the intrinsic dignity of every human life.
Bishop Olmsted is the
Bishop Olmsted is the aggressor.
Bishop Thomas seems, based on
Bishop Thomas seems, based on his documents posted in NCR's website, to have had a complaint with regards to CHW and another of its hospitals in Phoenix.
Then he had a complaint about the way St. Joseph's, a different CHW hospital in Phoenix, and its decision regarding the saving of a pregnant mother's life.
That Bishop Thomas acted without reason against St. Joseph is one thing and perhaps had he focused just on that one event one hopes that he would not have behaved so inappropriately in his role as chief pastor.
Instead, Bishop Thomas dragged into the discussions regarding St. Joseph his complaint about CHW and the other Phoenix hospital, Chandler Regional Health. On top of that he went after the health care plan called Mercy Care Plan. It seems to me that the problem here was that through a contract with an Arizona state sponsored health care plan, Mercy Care Plan found it self contractually related to an health insurance plan that provided services which were not allowed in a Catholic hospital.Nevertheless, CHW and St. Joseph's were in the process of rectifying this situation, and one hopes, in favour of the church in Arizona. It also is clear that the objectionable acts which the Arizona state sponsored plan allowed did not occur at St. Joseph's in Phoenix.
Now, thanks to confounding error of Bishop Thomas, one wonders if now there is any impetus for the hospitals in the Phoenix diocese to even bother to work to exempt catholic hospitals from the state health plan services that may not be performed in catholic hospitals.
In as much as CHW is headquartered in another bishop's diocese, San Francisco, one has to ask if Bishop Thomas was doing some chest thumping at the expense of the diocese of Phoenix. That is to say, was the trigger for all of this simply that Archbishop George of San Francisco would not intervene on Bishop Thomas' behalf with regards to his complaints about CHW and Chandler in Phoenix?
What the bishop wants and
What the bishop wants and what happens in reaction to his decree may be two different things. There is a term for the bishop's attempts to assert his authority - it is "grasping at straws." I suspect he will soon join Bishop Merlino of Scranton in retirement.
It seems that the good bishop
It seems that the good bishop has nt shame when it comes to demanding that the hospital and the staff pay homage to his authority as the bishop. Mr. winters is correct when he states that bishop Olmsted is the one giving scandal. The bishop is acting like the twelve Apostles did when Jesus tried to tell them what was about to happen to him. And when he was hanging on the cross the apostles ran away afraid for their lives. It was not until the Holy Spirit entered into their lives that they began to spread the message of love that Jesus taught them. Unfortunately, this bishop is more like the Phariess who acted by the letter of the law and showed no compassion. From the information presented in this article it becomes obvious that the bishop is acting not like Jesus but like a power hungry leader.
Bp Olmstead: call Dr.
Bp Olmstead: call Dr. Phil.
http://www.drphil.com/shows/show/1529
Jim Howard, this sort of
Jim Howard, this sort of bullying should not be swept under the rug.
The bishop cites canon law as the all-purpose justification. How is his (and Burke's) recourse to canon law different from a fundamentalist's use of the Old Testament, or a radical Muslim's use of the Quran?
If canon law means it's better that two should die, not one, then, to paraphrase Dickens, canon law is an ass.
I believe Bishop Olmsted has
I believe Bishop Olmsted has real mental problems. He can't admit that he's made a terrible mistake and he needs to believe that he's correct. He actually stated that the 11 week old fetus was a healthy baby----and it was just aborted anyway.
How did he come to that conclusion when all the medical evidence pointed to a dire outcome for both fetus and mother? This is both sad and disgusting.
He needs to be replaced---now before he becomes completely unhinged.
Bishop Olmsted does not know
Bishop Olmsted does not know how to be a 'servant leader.' He doesn't like to be out among the people (maybe afraid that he will contract some disease). He is really taken with his own authority---which was won by the blood of Jesus Christ. He actually visited a prison wearing his miter. Even Pope JP II went to the prison to visit the man who tried to assassinate him. He did not wear the miter of a bishop.
And Bishop Olmsted demonstrated in front of an abortion clinic in Phoenix. He hides behind the chancery walls---he certainly does not operate like Jesus Christ, who as he told the disciples of John the Baptist, cured the blind, the lame, the deaf, raised the dead to life, and preached the Gospel to the poor. Bishop Olmsted is nothing like that.
Denying eucharist to an
Denying eucharist to an entire hospital is giving it less pastoral care than secular hospitals provide. Ironic and disgusting abuse of power and control by this 'bishop' olmstead. olmstead should be put under interdict, he should be excommunicated for CAUSING ex-community.
olmstead attacks the most vulnerable of our Catholics, the sick, the dying, in the hospital. olmstead violently attacks, and tries to deny their spiritual healing. How terrible of olmstead. How inexplicable is his deranged, cruel mind and how much he refuses to be the image of Christ, how much he deviates from Jesus Christ!
Why is our RCC so afflicted for the last twenty years especially with so many vicious, toxic, criminally inclined clergy? Including the continued 'adoration' of the cult and writings of Maciel,
Legion of '?????christ?????' It should be disbanded!
These are the 'fruits" of JPII and B16's papacy and policies. What a grim Christmas for that community ..... please ignore olmstead and where 2 or 3 gtather Jesus Christ is among you, where one of you prays, God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit are there. olmstead causes scandal, grave scandal and vile abuse of Roman Catholics in his diocese (or whatever the term is, laity I am.)
So . . Non-Catholic = St.
So . . Non-Catholic = St. Joe's / Catholic = Legion of Christ . . . Does anybody see a problem?
I trust that all the people
I trust that all the people who call themselves pro life are in support of universal health care. The US has the highest infant mortality rate in the industrialized world. If everyone had access to health care, that rate would improve considerably. Now we're talkin' pro life!
sryan - the name Catholic has
sryan - the name Catholic has cachet???? I don't think so
The Catholic insititutions
The Catholic insititutions and leadership and membership sound more and more protestant every day.
Bravo!
You say that, even if the
You say that, even if the hospital was wrong in performing an abortion, at least it acted in good faith.
Then why did the hospital not consult with the bishop before performing an abortion? Why did he not even learn of the abortion until six months later?
It's hard not to conclude that Bishop Olmstead was deliberately kept in the dark and that is not acting in good faith.
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