Bishop Warns College May Lose Catholic Name for Not Cancelling Pro-Abortion Groups in Conference

As I've said before elsewhere on FR, it is very gratifying to see this statement - especially the line about "no modification and no compromise" - because there are those of us out here who remember when FATHER McManus, in another capacity, gave some advice to the family of a comatose woman that was ALL ABOUT MODIFICATION AND COMPROMISE.

In other words: Easy on the kudos until you see him actually DO something! Because the previous track record was anything but evidence of a SPINE!

Back then, the Jesuits at BC were DEFENDING him!

Here is what FATHER McManus was teaching way back before the mitre was bestowed:

Article in the NYTimes:

January 12, 1988

Bishop Sees No Moral Issue If Feeding Ends in Coma Case By PETER STEINFELS

The Roman Catholic Bishop of Providence, R.I., Louis E. Gelineau, said yesterday that a diocesan official's opinion approving the removal of a feeding tube from a comatose patient ''does not contradict Catholic moral theology.''

The opinion was written at Bishop Gelineau's request by the Rev. Robert J. McManus, vicar of education, who is a member of the diocesan medical ethics commission.

It has been criticized as ''utterly and unquestionably wrong'' by another Catholic theologian, the Rev. Robert Barry, who teaches religious studies at the University of Illinois. A diocesan press officer said abortion foes in the Providence area had expressed concern that Father McManus's view weakened the church's teaching on the protection of life.

A Kind of Precedent

Although Father McManus's opinion in the case of Marcia Gray, a 48-year-old Catholic who has been in a coma since January 1986, is not unprecedented among moral theologians, it is apparently the first time such a viewpoint has been expressed by someone acting in a diocesan capacity.

A growing number of state courts have ruled that such chemical feeding is a means of artificial life support like mechanical respirators, which can be removed.

Bishop Gelineau, in Providence, had asked Father McManus to study the case after Mrs. Gray's husband, H. Glenn Gray, who is seeking to remove a tube supplying food and water to his wife, sought church advice, The Bishop emphasized yesterday that Father McManus's opinion ''in no way supports or condones the practice of euthanasia.''

Mr. Gray, who is a University of Rhode Island professor, has sued the Rhode Island Department of Mental Health, Retardation and Hospitals, which administers the hospital where Mrs. Gray is a patient, to have the feeding tube removed. The case is scheduled to be heard this month by the Federal District Court in Providence.

According to Bishop Gelineau, the church has made no ''definitive statement regarding the need to provide nutrition and hydration to the permanently unconscious person.''

At a news conference, Bishop Gelineau acknowledged that his position supporting Father McManus might differ from the standpoint of other bishops. But Dr. James J. Walter, associate professor of theology at Loyola University, in Chicago, said that Father McManus's opinion appeared to be one held by a ''growing majority'' of Catholic moral theologians. 'Ordinary' vs. 'Extraordinary'

According to Dr. Walter as well as Dr. Lisa Sowle Cahill, professor of theology at Boston College, the terms Father McManus used to examine the issue were traditional ones. Most Catholic theologians ask whether artifically provided nutrition and hydration constitute ''extraordinary'' medical treatment. Such treatment may be suspended if seen as burdensome. On the other hand, ''ordinary'' medical treatment cannot be morally withdrawn.

Dr. Cahill noted that theological foes of removing feeding tubes for the permanently unconscious stress the ''ordinary'' and basic character of food and drink. ''But food and drink is no more basic than air,'' said Dr. Cahill, noting that Catholic theologians have agreed that artificial respirators qualify as ''extraordinary'' treatment and can sometimes be disconnected.

The differences among theologians, Dr. Walter said, depend on whether they look at the medical treatment alone or in relation to the benefit it may give a particular patient. In the case of Mrs. Gray, Father McManus had concluded that the measures ''supplying nutrition and hydration artificially offer no reasonable hope of benefit'' and were therefore ''disproportionate and unduly burdensome.''

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