Essays in Theology

The dispute between Phoenix Bishop Thomas Olmstead and St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center in his city has been brewing for some time. (For a quick recap of the situation, see Jerry Filteau’s story: Phoenix hospital still belongs to Catholic Health Association.)

The bishop and the hospital differed in their moral evaluation of a November 2009 procedure, by which doctors removed a diseased placenta to save the woman’s life and in the process brought about the death of her 11-week-old unborn child.

The doctors claimed that it was an indirect and unintended abortion -- allowed by the Catholic Church -- while the bishop insisted that the procedure was a direct and intended abortion, and therefore immoral.

In the eyes of the bishop the blame for the procedure fell upon Mercy Sr. Mary Margaret McBride, who had been a member of the hospital’s ethics committee that had approved of the decision. Olmstead said that by her action McBride had excommunicated herself and he also stripped St. Joseph’s Hospital of its Catholic identity Dec. 21 because of its supposed violation of “authentic Catholic moral teaching.”t

Pope John Paul II, who died in April, 2005, will be beatified in St. Peter’s Square on Sunday, May 1. Pope Benedict XVI himself is expected to preside at the Mass of beatification.

We are coming once again upon the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (Jan. 18-25). For more than a decade this column has offered consecutive annual reflections on the state of ecumenism, prompted by this century’s-long observance.

Advent is a month-long liturgical season, ending with Christmas, that focusses the Church's attention on the threefold coming of Christ: in the past, as the Christ-child of Bethlehem; in the present, as spiritual food and drink in the Eucharist; and in the future, as the One who brings history to a gloriously redemptive end.

[Editor's Note: Fr. Richard McBrien is recuperating from back surgery. Until he fully recovers, which we expect by the end of this school semester, we will be running "encore presentations" from Fr. McBrien's column archives. This column dates from June 2004.]

The May 27th issue of Origins (a collection of documents and speeches published weekly by Catholic News Service and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops) contains two talks on the priesthood by Father Timothy Radcliffe, former Master General of the Dominican order, given in April at the annual convention of the National Federation of Priests Councils.