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A religious sister who was on a Catholic hospital panel that approved a direct abortion has excommunicated herself, the Diocese of Phoenix said on Tuesday. According to the diocese, Sr. Margaret McBride told Bishop Olmsted that she believed performing an abortion in a specific case from 2009 "was a morally good and allowable act according to Church teaching." The abortion took place late last year at St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix. The mother was 11 weeks pregnant and was seriously ill with pulmonary hypertension, a condition worsened and possibly made fatal by pregnancy, according to the Washington...

In late 2009, an abortion took place at St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix after a hospital ethics committee deemed the abortion necessary to save the life of the mother. Sister Margaret Mary McBride, the hospital’s vice president of mission integration, was a member of the committee that made the decision and has since been assigned new duties. The hospital has defended its decision, while Bishop Thomas Olmsted warned that Catholics who formally cooperated in the abortion were automatically excommunicated. The Diocese of Phoenix said in a May 14 statement: The Most Rev. Thomas J. Olmsted, Bishop of...

Jensen and Blackmore, the daughters of Harold Blackmore and two of his wives, sisters Florence and Gwen, grew up in Lister, B.C. That's where Harold established a polygamist sect, Canadian Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, also known today as the community of Bountiful, B.C. They were asked to speak to a gathering of social workers and other child advocates at a conference sponsored by the Canadian Society for the Investigation of Child Abuse. As they talk about their experiences, they provide a rare glimpse into the world of polygamy, and the effects it has on the...

Snips: ....The Vanguard of St. Catherine of Siena,called for the ex-communication of Nancy Pelosi in a demonstration just outside the Vatican. They are also asking Archbishop Wuerl of the Archdiocese of Washington, DC to enforce the Pope´s position on the distribution of Communion to pro-abortion politicians which was communicated in a 2004 letter, "Worthiness to Receive Holy Communion," which he wrote when he was Cardinal Ratzinger. Terry stated, "Nancy Pelosi has betrayed the Catholic faith, fought to shed innocent blood, and repeatedly voted to take money from Americans to pay for the murder of innocent babies......"Meanwhile, Washington DC Archbishop Donald Wuerl,...

After Bishop Tobin ex-communicated Congressman Patrick Kennedy, the Congressman decided NOT to seek re-election. Perhaps Congressman Kennedy wanted to focus on matters of faith in his personal life, and leave public office. It is unclear if there was direct correlation between the ex-communication of Congressman Patrick Kennedy and his decision NOT to seek re-election. Maybe a new term should be coined to honor Bishop Tobin and the courage he showed in dealing with Congressman Kennedy. Maybe when a Catholic politican is ex-communicated, that politican could be considered to be Tobin-ed in honor of the good Bishop of Providence, Rhode Island....

PROVO, Utah -- Mormons need to lose their fear of talking about excommunication, says a student at the 12th Annual Religious Education Student Symposium. Presenting his paper "Excommunication and 'He Who Must Not Be Named,'" Feb. 19 at Brigham Young University, Benjamin Tengelsen said excommunication is comparable to talking openly about Voldemort in the popular Harry Potter series. "Noboby talks about him except Harry, who isn't afraid to say his name out loud," Tengelsen said. "We need to be like that. We need to lose our fear and be unafraid to talk about it." As long as the subject of...

Fox News analyst Bob Beckel today criticized Vice President Joe Biden for wearing ashes on TV; today is Ash Wednesday and Biden is Catholic. In the middle of a discussion on President Obama’s stimulus plan, Beckel gratuitously said, “Sorry about laughing, but I looked at Joe Biden’s forehead, and I know it is Ash Wednesday, but I’m not sure I would wear that ash on the air. Anyway….” Catholic League president Bill Donohue wasn’t amused: Bob Beckel’s admonishing remark, “I’m not sure I would wear that ash on the air,” makes us wonder whether it is the public display of...

HINSDALE, Illinois, November 3, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A congregation of US Dominican nuns has publicly apologized for the scandal caused by one of its members acting as a volunteer escort at a Chicago area abortion facility, who now faces severe canonical penalties including excommunication and the possibility of dismissal.    LifeSiteNews.com (LSN) first broke the story about Sr. Donna Quinn, O.P., a Dominican nun who is outspokenly in favor of legalized abortion, who had been identified by pro-life witnesses as an escort for the ACU Health Clinic.Sr. Quinn's religious community, the Wisconsin-based Sinsinawa Dominican Congregation, admitted in a press release posted...

ROME, August 3, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - When the Italian drug agency approved the sale of the deadly abortion drug RU 486 late Thursday night, senior Vatican officials responded strongly saying that doctors who prescribe it and the women who take it risk excommunication. The Italian Pharmaceuticals Agency (AIFA) said the drug, to be sold under the brand name Mifegyne, would not be sold in pharmacies and only be administered by physicians in hospitals. Bishop Elio Sgreccia, a bioethics professor, author and former vice-president of the Pontifical Academy for Life (PAV) told Corriere della Sera newspaper, "This is a compound which...

Lusaka — The Vatican has excommunicated Father Luciano Mbewe from the Catholic Church for openly congregating with excommunicated former archbishop of Lusaka, Emmanuel Milingo and members of his 'Married Priests Now' movement and another church.The president of the Zambia Episcopal Conference (ZEC), Bishop George Lungu said in a statement that Fr Mbewe is no longer a member of the Catholic Church and whatever religious functions he holds are outside the Catholic Church. He added that the Catholic Apostolic National Church of Zambia which the priest heads is not part of the Roman Catholic Church."Even if signs and symbols, as well...

It was the made-for-TV ending to a weeks-long saga of fame and faith: Alberto Cutié, the telegenic priest embroiled in a magazine-photo scandal, would leave the Roman Catholic church to become an Episcopalian -- and would marry his girlfriend of two years.But when Cutié's new bishop, the Rt. Rev. Leo Frade, stood inside Miami's Trinity Cathedral to announce the news to dozens of international reporters, he created his own waves.The ''Inquisition is over,'' Frade said in widely broadcast remarks after Catholic Archbishop John C. Favalora admonished him for a disrespectful ``public display.''The style is typical of Frade's nine-year tenure,...

[Your PP includes this item not only because it's "stand-alone" probative value, but also because it's so clear an illustration of the disease that infects us as a Church. I won't rehash the events of the situation concerned here, since Father Euteneurer does an excellent job of that himself; but compare this with the situation your PP commented on in the article I wrote below: "We have been placed on the Index of Forbidden Blogs." Neither Archbishop Wuerl nor Archbishop Fisichella believe abortion is justified—or are even "soft" on the issue; it's simply that they have the disease: when...

LETTER OF HIS HOLINESS POPE BENEDICT XVI TO THE BISHOPS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH concerning the remission of the excommunication of the four Bishops consecrated by Archbishop Lefebvre ( Rome , March 10, 2009) Dear Brothers in the Episcopal Ministry! The remission of the excommunication of the four Bishops consecrated in 1988 by Archbishop Lefebvre without a mandate of the Holy See has for many reasons caused, both within and beyond the Catholic Church, a discussion more heated than any we have seen for a long time. Many Bishops felt perplexed by an event which came about unexpectedly and...

In our days, when in vast areas of the world the faith is in danger of dying out like a flame which no longer has fuel, the overriding priority is to make God present in this world and to show men and women the way to God. Not just any god, but the God who spoke on Sinai; to that God whose face we recognize in a love which presses "to the end" (cf. Jn 13:1) – in Jesus Christ, crucified and risen... The remission of the excommunication of the four Bishops consecrated in 1988 by Archbishop Lefebvre without a...

A Catholic pro-life group has sent a letter to the Vatican calling on Pope Benedict XVI to excommunicate House Speaker Nancy Pelosi from the Catholic Church due to her position on abortion. Front Royal, Va.-based Human Life International (HLI) had the letter delivered from its Rome office in February, according to Cybercast News Service’s CNSNews Web site. The letter was sent “because so many people have called on the bishops in the jurisdictions she lives in, who could possibly do it — and they won’t,” HLI President Rev. Thomas Euteneur told CNSNews. “Pelosi has a home in the archdiocese of...

Pope to Pelosi: Catholics cannot back abortion U.S. House speaker — a pro-choice Catholic — met with pope in Italy VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict, underscoring the Vatican's ruling on an issue that divides Americans, told U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday that Catholic politicians and legislators cannot back abortion rights. Pelosi, a powerful U.S. politician who is Catholic and pro-choice, has been accused by U.S. bishops in the past of misrepresenting Church teachings on abortion. "His Holiness took the opportunity to speak of the requirements of the natural and moral law and the Church's consistent teaching on the...

Last year, in a post entitled, "Reform: can you deal with it?", your PP spoke about an imaginary priest, formed after Vatican II, whose entire belief system is based on the common misinterpretations of the Council, and what would happen to him should the Latin Church actually engage in a real reform of the Liturgy. I summarized his new Post-Vatican II faith as follows: And he is the priest referred to above: the one who, if faced with a general and comprehensive reform of the Western Liturgy—to use Cardinal Ratzinger's words—"standing wholly in the legacy of the traditional Rite," would...

The commotion over the lifting of the excommunications of the four SSPX bishops goes on and on. It seems that no one is able to make distinctions anymore or make any investigation more than reading a headline or the top lines of a story. Once again any stick will do when it comes to beating the Catholic Church and of course some within the Church are also willing to also pick up that stick and join in. The lifting of the excommunications does not regularize the SSPX and there are quite a few hurdles to overcome before they can be...

... is the topic of a new post by Dr. Ed Peters at "In the Light of the Law":While we await the L'Osservatore Romano article that is to offer an account of how Pope Benedict XVI arrived at the decision to lift the excommunication imposed on the four priests who received episcopal orders illicitly (c. 1382) from Abp. Marcel Lefebvre in 1988, the materials now coming from the Society of St. Pius X continue, in my opinion, to add to the burden such an article must carry if the remission is to make sense to otherwise well-disposed outside observers. In...

Fr. Dale Fushek, best known for being one of the founders of "Life Teen", has finally been excommunicated. From the Diocese of Phoenix website: December 15, 2008-The Most Rev. Thomas J. Olmsted, Bishop of Phoenix, has issued a Decree of Excommunication to Reverend Monsignor Dale Fushek and Reverend Mark Dippre. Fushek and Dippre have incurred the censure of excommunication because they have chosen to be in schism with the Catholic Church by establishing and leading an opposing ecclesial community known to the public as the Praise and Worship Center. Both priests have consistently refused to comply with explicit directions...