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Posted on 12/22/2010 12:55:14 PM PST by wagglebee
PHOENIX, Arizona, December 21, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A Catholic hospital that performed a direct abortion last year has lost its official endorsement as a Catholic institution by the local bishop.
Bishop Thomas Olmsted of Phoenix, Az. announced in a news conference Tuesday morning that St. Joseph’s Hospital was no longer Catholic after it refused to comply with the bishop’s terms, which included renouncing the direct killing of an unborn baby of a woman suffering from pulmonary hypertension, at 11 weeks gestation.
Olmsted said that, “Communication with leadership at St. Joseph’s Hospital and Catholic Healthcare West has only eroded my confidence about their commitment to the church’s ethical and religious directives for health care,” according to local news reports.
“They have not addressed in an adequate manner the scandal caused by the abortion,” said the bishop. “Moreover, I have recently learned that many other violations of the ethical and religious directives have been taking place at Catholic Healthcare West facilities in Arizona throughout my seven years as bishop of Phoenix and far longer.” Catholic Healthcare West (CHW) is the parent company of St. Joseph’s hospital, and is based in California.
In a statement published Wedesday, Olmsted explained that he had “hoped and prayed that this day would not come,” but that it had been a losing battle since he first began discussing with CHW how to resolve its violation of the U.S. bishops’ Ethical and Religious Directives (ERD) seven years ago.
The bishop said that he learned, in only the last several weeks, that both the facility and CHW had administered contraceptives, performed sterilizations, and conducted other direct abortions “due to the mental or physical health of the mother” or after rape or incest.
“In all my seven years as Bishop of Phoenix, I have continued to insist that this scandalous situation needed to change; sadly, over the course of these years, CHW has chosen not to comply,” said Olmsted.
Olmsted said that in the case of the abortion fueling the current scandal, it was “clear” that “the equal dignity of mother and her baby were not both upheld” and that the baby’s death was brought about directly, rather than as an unintended effect of therapy for the mother.
While outside commentators have lambasted the bishop’s actions as an overreach of power, a decree from the diocese explained that Olmsted’s decision followed upon his authority over the name of “Catholic” within his diocese according to the Catholic Church’s canon law. Canon 216 states: “no undertaking [by the Christian faithful] is to claim the name Catholic without the consent of competent ecclesiastical authority.”
While the bishop has limited power to remove the hospital’s public Catholic identity, he plans to remove its association with the Church as far as possible by disallowing priests to celebrate Mass there, and by maintaining a public notice of the hospital’s new status on the diocesan website.
Olmsted emphasized that his actions do not impede the hospital’s operation, but only affect its public standing with the Church.
“The Catholic faithful are free to seek care or to offer care at St. Joseph’s Hospital but I cannot guarantee that the care provided will be in full accord with the teachings of the Church,” he said.
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Just read a tweet regading this from Life News.
I wish the abortions would have been removed instead of the Catholic Name tag. That would then be fantastic.
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I understand, but it would be wrong for the hospital to incorrectly identify itself as "Catholic", when it is clear it is not.
Good for the bishop. He's a brave man.
It’s about time the Church takes a stand and calls out those who want to impose their own version of Catholic principles.
Article in our local central AZ paper:
“Surgery that ended the life of the fetus TO SAVE THE MOTHER’S LIFE”...
is that true? Or is it just another case of reporters covering for abortion and painting the church bady?
This has been on our local talk radio shows for several days. Supposedly, the abortion was done on a young woman several months ago because it was determined (by a panel of doctors) that her life was in danger. However, I never did hear HOW her life was in danger.
I APPLAUD the Bishop on taking this stance. Good man.
This is good news and the Bishop is a man of courage. Aside from the PR disaster, I wonder if there are any direct financial effects that this rogue hospital will suffer?
Well done, Bishop Olmsted.
What you mean is it's a terrible tragedy.
The entire event is a tragedy.
The "fantastic" part of the news is that a bishop is finally standing up and effectively says, "It's not acceptable to do this and call yourself Catholic." This element of following through on things has been missing for decades.
Apparently, St. Joe's was not complying with the Diocese's other pro-life directives, so as head of the Phoenix Diocese, Bishop Olmstead was perfectly within his rights to do this. The hospital is still in business, just not as a Catholic facility. This was obviously their decision as they refused to submit to the Church's authority.
BTW, Catholic Healthcare West is headed by an avowed Obama supporter, Lloyd Dean. He's also black, gave Obama about a 100 grand during the campaign, was an enthusiastic backer of Obamacare, and isn't even Catholic. That whole chain is Catholic in name only, IMO.
Mrs. Prince of Space
I see your point as well.
Stop calling Notre Dame and Georgetown Catholic Universities.
However: If the baby would die either way (either in his mother's womb, or outside of it), simply to move him (gently, without further harm) from inside his mother’s body to outside, would be neutral with respect to his survivability. So in a very small number of extreme cases, the intact, live delivery of the pre-viable child can be morally permitted if the intent is not to harm the child.
In other words, in the womb, he is doomed to die; delivered prematurely, he is still doomed to die (no real change in life expectancy, which is slight in either case) but, live and intact, the dying child could still benefit in real ways: the child could be held and loved by his mother and father, even if very briefly; the child could even be baptized; and the mother can survive.
This seems to be the position taken by Germain Grisez, an eminent and very pro-life Catholic moral theologian, here: http://tinyurl.com/not-to-shorten-babys-life.
Delivering a baby very prematurely but intact and alive is not, then, an intrinsic moral evil: because in the above case his life expectancy is unaffected (since death is imminent in either case), and he can derive benefit from being alive outside the womb.
This would not be the case if the baby was killed and removed by a D&C or a D&E. This is what the Diocese of Phoenix implied happened: see http://tinyurl.com/Diocese-of-Phoenix-Q-A.
Obviously if you dismember the baby, you are directly intending his death, and this is murder.
Dr. William Chavira, a pro-life physician and member of the Diocesan medical ethics board, apparently thinks it would have been morally permissible for them to induce labor in a way that didn't directly kill the child. See the highlighted section Here (Link).
Putting it all together, it looks like the Bishop and the Catholic ethics people would not have objected, in extremis, if further delays would be fatal, and after all other options proved futile, had they delivered the baby alive, even if it were to perish within minutes. What they objected to was the direct slaying of the child by dismemberment.
The intact delivery would have been treating the baby respectfully as a dying person, and would have saved the mother. Abortion-by-Dismemberment is treating him like butchered meat.
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