Amplify’d from www.calcatholic.com
Two self-described ‘Catholic’ organizations challenge Church authority days before Christmas
The first statement came on Dec. 21 by Jon O’Brien, president of “Catholics for Choice,” formerly named “Catholics for a Free Choice,” a group previously denounced by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops.O’Brien’s statement came after the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a lengthy clarification regarding Pope Benedict’s widely misinterpreted statement regarding the use of condoms, which, said the CDF, had been “manipulated for ends and interests which are entirely foreign to the meaning of his words.” The pope had not, said the CDF, changed any aspect of the Church’s moral teaching or its pastoral practice regarding the use of condoms.
But O’Brien challenged the statement by the Vatican’s highest doctrinal authority. The CDF statement about “what the pope did or did not say changes nothing about the significance of Pope Benedict's initial game-changing remarks,” said O’Brien.
"Catholics for Choice is clear that the pope's continued worldview regarding sex and sexuality remains seriously out of touch with the practices and beliefs of the majority of Catholics around the world,” said O’Brien. “Whether Pope Benedict likes it or not, Catholics already believe that condoms help prevent the spread of HIV.”
"What is clear is that over the short few weeks since his remarks conservatives have been scrambling to try to shore up the ultraconservative mantra that condoms do not help prevent the spread of HIV -- a myth that was debunked by none other than the pope,” O’Brien continued. “The statement today is a desperate attempt by those in the Vatican to hold back the tide. However, while change occurs in the Vatican at a glacial rate, change is what Catholics heard when the pope spoke about condoms. Rearguard actions by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith are unlikely to put the genie back in the bottle or the condoms back in the packet."
While Catholics for Choice may garner notice among those in the secular media unfamiliar with the Catholic Church, practicing Catholics should know the group O’Brien leads has been roundly denounced by U.S. bishops. In 2000, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a statement saying Catholics for Choice (then called Catholics for a Free Choice) “is not a Catholic organization, does not speak for the Catholic Church, and in fact promotes positions contrary to the teaching of the Church.” The organization, said the bishops, is “an arm of the abortion lobby in the United States and throughout the world.”The second statement was issued on Dec. 22 by Sr. Carol Keehan in her capacity as president and CEO of the Catholic Health Association of the US. Keehan’s statement openly challenged a decision by Phoenix Bishop Thomas Olmsted to strip a Catholic Healthcare West hospital operating in his diocese of its “Catholic” designation for violating the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services.
“Catholic Healthcare West and its system hospitals are valued members of the Catholic Health Association,” said Sr. Keehan’s statement. “Their long and stellar history in the protection of life at all stages is well known.”
Sr. Keehan – like Catholic Healthcare West – substituted her own judgment for that of the bishop. “St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix has many programs that reach out to protect life,” she said. “They had been confronted with a heartbreaking situation. They carefully evaluated the patient's situation and correctly applied the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services to it, saving the only life that was possible to save.”
According to a Christian Newswire item published Dec. 23, Sr. Keehan’s statement – and the position taken by the Catholic Health Care Association -- set "a dangerous precedent, and could presage a further secularization of Catholic health care."
Leonard J. Nelson, III, a professor at the Cumberland School of Law of Samford University, and affiliated scholar with the Lister Hill Center for Health Policy at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Public Health, reported Christian Newswire, said that for Catholics it falls on the bishop, as successor of the Apostles, to be the ultimate authority on interpreting moral law in his diocese.
“He made his remarks after the CHA, an association of some 600 Catholic hospitals nationwide, said it sided with St. Joseph Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix, Ariz., in judging the morality of the controversial termination of a pregnancy,” said the Christian Newswire report. “After months of failed talks, the bishop removed the hospital's right to call itself Catholic.”
“The litmus test for determining whether a hospital is Catholic is whether it adheres to the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services as interpreted by the local diocesan bishop,” said Nelson, according to Christian Newswire. “It is not the prerogative of the hospital; the facility's owner, Catholic Healthcare West (CWH); members of its ethics committee; or officials at the Catholic Health Association to provide authoritative interpretations of the moral law: that is the role of the bishop as successor of the Apostles. This defiance of Bishop Olmsted's authority is setting a dangerous precedent, and could presage a further secularization of Catholic health care.”
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