Kristof Weighs In
Here’s Nicholas Kristof on the Olmsted affair.
Money quote:
Yet in this battle, it’s fascinating how much support St. Joseph’s Hospital has had and how firmly it has pushed back — in effect, pounding 95 theses on the bishop’s door. The hospital backed up Sister Margaret, and it rejected the bishop’s demand that it never again terminate a pregnancy to save the life of a mother.
Initially, this line set off my hyperbole alarm. But, as any Luther scholar can affirm, Luther’s 95 theses wasn’t a declaration of schism, but an outraged cry for reform, in his case largely over the indefensible abuses occasioned by the selling of indulgences. The split wasn’t final until mutual intransigence forced it. (Then, it was Luther’s insistence that he be proved wrong by use of scripture and reason alone, vs. the Church’s insistence that he recognize their authority to define tradition as they wished.)
The USCCB’s Committee on Doctrine has come down squarely on Olmsted’s side, interpreting the kind of action done in Phoenix as impermissible, a direct abortion. The report that Kristof links to includes a couple heart-rending vignettes of women’s health being endangered by hospital adherence to the Olmsted-strict interpretation of the ERD. That report concludes with this statement by National Women’s Law Center co-president Marcia D. Greenberger:
We call on the Department of Health and Human Services to investigate these serious lapses and order immediate corrective action where violations are found. We also call upon religious and nonsectarian hospitals alike to ensure that their practices comply with federal law and to serve the patients’ health needs.
So…the plot thickens…
HT: Alan Revering
Kristof’s critique would have been even more powerful had he cites some of the criticisms that Commonweal, the (English) Tablet and America had published in their magazines and web sites. I have left Rome for the Episcopal Church, but the criticisms in these three publications gave me the strong impressions that Olmsted’s monstrous decision was debatable or plainly wrong as a matter of Roman Catholic canon law and moral theology. Whether or not Olmsted’s conclusions were wrong as a matter of Roman Catholic theology and law, he seems to have been wrong in his insistence that his answer was the only right one.
The Committee on Doctrine just rehashes old teaching without dealing with any of the specifics of the Phoenix case or the arguments made regarding it. Were I an ethicist making a decision in a Catholic hospital, I would not consider the Committee’s statement to rule out another abortion similar to the one in Phoenix.
The disagreement between St. Joseph’s Hospital and Bishop Olmsted, at least on the abortion case, doesn’t seem to me a “clash of values.” It was a disagreement over moral theology. If M. Therese Lysaught didn’t mean what she said in her analysis, and instead was trying to come up with a rationale to justify her intuition of what Jesus would want, then her analysis was a fraud. She just should have said, “Look, we all know what the rules are, but let’s do the compassionate thing and break the rules this time.”
But then there’s the wider controversy — the participation of St. Joseph’s Hospital in the Mercy Care Plan (Medicaid services). In that, they seem to be doing things that no argument by Lysaught supported. So there does seem to be a clash between the “rules” of the Church and the kind of medical care many doctors and hospitals want to provide. I am all in favor of hospitals providing a full range of Medicaid services, but I have not heard a rationale yet for Catholic hospitals to justify sterilization, birth control, and abortions in all but the hardest cases.
Kristof almost seemed to be saying Catholic hospitals should follow their hearts, not their heads. On the one hand, I am a big believer in listening to your heart. On the other hand, it doesn’t seem to be all that easy to do within the Catholic Church.
Wow. If Nicholas Kristof, Tom Fox AND Ann Rice say it’s so, then I guess it’s so.
The Orgegon Bishop alluded to is now promoted to be coadjutor with the right of succession in Santa Rosa, CA.
He’s big on loyalty oaths for all ministers, denying communion to polticians who are thought by him to be pro-choice and vigorously oposed to Obamacare (sounds like Michelle Bachmann.)
Kristoff is spot on about this: we’re getting “leaders” who’ve climbed the Church bearacracy ladder.(A side note: I thought of another recent appointment – the Boston Communications guy made auxilalry in Indianoppolis who was scored by the head of Bishop acountability for his work in the sex abuse crisis there.)
Play by the beinga good chanvcery guy and be loyal and “prudent” and you move up. Know your “sacred” canons and be a good by the book rules and regsa guy.
You can be little king and lay down the law.
While the now ex head of the USCCB says that the Bishops will be pushing “punishment” in their governance roles.
The way we’re going, there’ll be predictably more clashes, as David puts it, and other g good things “visitations” etc.
The Olmsted matter is only one small prism in whole larger issue of problematic governance
Eugene Pagano has a good point. Kristof’s piece would have been stronger had he made it
clear that there have been many critiques of the Olmsted position from Catholic moral theologians such as those found in America, the Tablet, and of course , Commonweal. That said, it would seem to me that the allegations of mistreatment of women with ectopic pregnancies or certain types of miscarriages at Catholic hospitals referenced in the document to which Kristof links deserve to be addressed with the same care and thoroughness given to the Phoenix situation. Perhaps Prof. Kaveny might be persuaded to respond to it?
I do not understand the bishops’ end game. Stipulating that there is authority to compel adherence to Catholic doctrine (and thus constructively excommunicate the institution, whatever that really means for an institution), the only realistic outcome that I can contemplate is the closure of ob-gyn departments in many Catholic hospitals to avoid the apparently inevitable and intractable collision course they are constructing. And FWIW, I assume that’s why CHW stood its ground, because it made the same assessment and decided to short circuit the agony.
The problem isn’t the failure to listen to the bishop’s authority per se, the problem is that the application of that doctrine in specific cases is intolerable to most people and almost certainly to most practicing Ob-Gyns. Do bishops really think that insisting on the right to impose death on gravely ill pregnant women will change THAT?
“The Oregon Bishop alluded to is now promoted to be coadjutor with the right of succession in Santa Rosa, CA.”
Like all good corporate bureaucrats, these upwardly mobile guys know what to say, when to say it, what to do, when to do it, and to – above all – make sure that the folks up the ladder know EXACTLY what has happened. They also know to make sure that the french cuffs are always freshly starched, that their grandmothers’ lace table cloths are always ready to be donned at a moment’s notice, and that they look good in crimson.
I’m sure that Vasa will be welcomed with open arms, KofC bayonet charges, gushing prelates and clerics and the usual parade of slack-jawed pew potatoes who know something Really Big is happening and aren’t they so lucky to actually to have gotten tickets to observe up fron and personal the side show.
Somebody who posts regularly here (but shall remain namesless) has indicated that Santa Rosa has received its very own Vasa-ectomy.
Vasa’s document and oath, which can be found at http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=6060, was protested by a few brave souls and was the occasion for several departures from the Catholic Church. Paragraphs 12-17 of his document make it clear that he considers any freedom of thought or opinion to be a greater danger than child abuse; this is especially interesting as that the Diocese of Baker is consistently listed by the USCCB as noncompliant with the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.
In Vasa’s oath, the signer assents to the statement, “I do not recognize the legitimacy of anyone’s claim to a moral right to form their own conscience in this matter.” The matter in question is abortion for him, but the matter for me was and is the idea that any bishop can require anyone to sign away the right to form their own conscience.
Years after leaving the Catholic Church, I can still be moved to anger and grief at the thought of his promotion.
In Vasa’s oath, the signer assents to the statement, “I do not recognize the legitimacy of anyone’s claim to a moral right to form their own conscience in this matter.” The matter in question is abortion for him, but the matter for me was and is the idea that any bishop can require anyone to sign away the right to form their own conscience.
(1) In the interests of truth, let’s take a look at the statement in greater context — “I affirm and believe the Church’s teaching about the inviolability of human life. In accord with that teaching I affirm that human life is sacred and must be protected and respected from the moment of conception until natural death. I affirm that I reject direct, intentional abortion and I do not recognize the legitimacy of anyone’s claim to a moral right to form their own conscience in this matter. I am not pro-choice. I further attest that I am not affiliated with, nor supportive of, any organization which supports, encourages, provides or otherwise endorses abortion or euthanasia.”
In that greater context, it is clear that all one is doing is merely affirming that they are in communion with the Church with regards to the inviolability of human life.
(2) Even aside from life issues, no one has a right to form “their own” conscience. Consciences do not exist in a vacuum. Morality does not exist in a vacuum. To be a “conscience,” by definition it is formed in a manner consistent with moral truth. For one to say that everyone has a right to form “their own” conscience is to say that Adolf Hitler was a perfectly moral person because it did not violate his “own” conscience.
Indeed, the argument that one should have a “right” to form their own conscience itself is premised on an idea of pre-existing moral truth, that is, that any of us have “rights” to begin with. So, to say that one has a “right” to form their own conscience is to violate that assertion from the outset.
And, if one did have a right to form “their own” conscience — a wholly arbitrary and subjective conscience — then all we would be left with is what has been rightly called a dictatorship of relativism. It would not be an increase of personal freedom, but an enslavement to errors of every kind.
Properly understood (and believe me, it is abundantly clear that modern society does not have the slightest clue on the matter), conscience is not something that one creates on one’s own. Rather, it is the discernment of moral truth, including the “law” to do good and avoid evil, and the use of reason to judge a given situation and apply that law and moral truth. None of us creates truth and none of us determines what is good and what is evil — that much was decided at the Fall in the Garden. Instead, truth is what it is and the good is what it is. We do not create them, as if we were gods. Hence, we cannot and do not “form” our “own” conscience, we instead try to conform our own subjective understandings to that objective truth and good.
And the objective truth is that abortion is a great evil. One cannot claim to have a “right” or “power” to corrupt a word or concept like “conscience” in order to assert that abortion is not a great evil. The primacy of conscience does not give one a right or power to say that what is evil is good or that what is good is evil.
“I affirm that I reject direct, intentional abortion and I do not recognize the legitimacy of anyone’s claim to a moral right to form their own conscience in this matter.”
Does this apply also to legislation regarding abortion? And if the bishops are serious, why are they not preaching total non-cooperation, civil disobedience, instant repeal of all laws decriminalizing abortion?
They say they are making a “prudential” judgment in “conscience”.
Oh, but is not that the very thing the above statement is designed to exclude?
Until we see bishops putting women and their husbands or lovers and all medical staff and all enabling politicians in jail, or clamoring for them to be put in jail, we can take the bishops’ hyperbole about the abolition of conscience with a grain of salt.
At least the Taliban take their own teachings seriously — they really do stone adulterous couples.
I agree with Fr O’Leary. If he is such an extremist in his convictions, let him act according to them and suffer the consequences. Let’s see him commit and advocate for acts of civil disobedience, and go to prison for his upholding his ideas. Let’s see him resign from responsibilities so that he has time to volunteer at pregnant teenagers’ shelters. Let’s see him suffer for his convictions.
He does not walk the talk. He is just words. He cannot be taken seriously.
And, if one did have a right to form “their own” conscience — a wholly arbitrary and subjective conscience — then all we would be left with is what has been rightly called a dictatorship of relativism.
Bender,
Nobody I have ever encountered has asserted the right to form his or her own “wholly arbitrary and subjective conscience.” Talk like that is so bogus. One might say, thought, that everyone has a right to discern for himself or herself what is true and what is not true. But that is not a sufficiently strong statement. I would say each individual has no choice but to determine as best he or she can what is true and what is not true. The primacy of conscience would have no meaning if there were a whole set of objective moral truths that were so obvious that everyone had no alternative but to agree with. Following your “conscience” would then be doing what everyone, by universal agreement, acknowledged to be right.
If by well formed conscience is meant accepting everything some external authority declares to be morally true, then it seems to me there is no such thing as conscience at all. Obeying ones conscience would be like obeying instructions in a cookbook. You would have to use your judgment when it came to something such as, “If batter is too thick, add more liquid,” but otherwise there would be a set of rules to follow that in no way depended on your own understanding.
I am a little baffled by the phrase “the dictatorship of relativism,” since if by relativism is meant everyone following “wholly arbitrary and subjective consciences,” what you would have is anarchy, not dictatorship. In reality, it seems to me in most major moral disputes there are two basic positions, not as many positions as there are people (which would be the case if each person’s conscience were “wholly arbitrary and subjective”). Accusations of moral relativism are actually objections not that the person who disagrees with you has arrived at a wholly arbitrary and subjective position, but rather that the person who disagrees has the temerity to agree with what you have pronounced “objective truth.”
From Kristof’s column: “Yet in this battle, it’s fascinating how much support St. Joseph’s Hospital has had and how firmly it has pushed back — in effect, pounding 95 theses on the bishop’s door. The hospital backed up Sister Margaret, and it rejected the bishop’s demand that it never again terminate a pregnancy to save the life of a mother.”
Lisa then commented: “Initially, this line set off my hyperbole alarm. But, as any Luther scholar can affirm, Luther’s 95 theses wasn’t a declaration of schism, but an outraged cry for reform, in his case largely over the indefensible abuses occasioned by the selling of indulgences. The split wasn’t final until mutual intransigence forced it. (Then, it was Luther’s insistence that he be proved wrong by use of scripture and reason alone, vs. the Church’s insistence that he recognize their authority to define tradition as they wished.)”
I guess this sort of talk alarms me. (Not that talking about such things is always bad; it’s the situation, which the talk calls to our attention, that alarms me).
I assume that almost none of us wants to see a fundamental, permanent rift in the church over this issue. What, then, is the way of healing and reconciliation here? The right answer probably is, ‘let’s start with a lot of good-faith communication between the two sides’. It appears that few are in the mood for that right now, though.
Jim, with all due respect I think the fundamental conflict isn’t really over any particular case, but over who has the last word to determine whether a given procedure will go forward given moral and theological conflict. Others have raised the issue of hospitals maintained by Jehovah’s Witnesses — in the case of JW, the denomination has a clearly stated view but it really is up to individual adherents to determine whether to follow it through — and certainly, it is almost unimaginable that JW hospitals would apply the theological construct about blood transfusion even to non-JW members in need of emergency care.
In short, apparently there were Ob-Gyns or other surgeons at St. Joseph’s Hospital who were and are willing to provide a d&c under the instant grave circumstances. So, (1), does the “right” to determine the “conscience” of the institution belong to to the bishop, and (2) does the “right” of institutional “conscience” overwhelm the contrary moral reasoning of (a) the patient and (b) her health care providers, even in the context of emergently needed life saving services?
I assume that almost none of us wants to see a fundamental, permanent rift in the church over this issue. What, then, is the way of healing and reconciliation here?
Jim,
I think the problem is not so much in the Church as among Catholics in the medical profession. It seems to me that the solution is that Catholics either have to stay out of certain areas of medicine, or they have to practice it in such a way that they make very clear to all patients and potential patients that there are things they will not do. The issue of Catholic hospitals is problematic, because they often serve the entire community. It may be fine for a bishop to say what a doctor may or may not do with a Catholic patient who also recognizes the authority of a bishop to set such standards. But if you are not a Catholic patient, and you get taken to a Catholic hospital by an ambulance, or if the only hospital you have access to is a Catholic hospital, it is simply unacceptable for your medical care to be dictated by a bishop (or a pope, for that matter).
“I think the problem is not so much in the Church as among Catholics in the medical profession.”
Perhaps we can refer to a relatively recent analogous situation in regard to the conscience rights of healthcare workers. When the Nazi party ordered German hospitals to begin wholesale euthanasia of physically and mentally disabled patients, what was the morally proper response?
That’s no different, morally, than healthcare workers being ordered today to perform abortions.
“Until we see bishops putting women and their husbands or lovers and all medical staff and all enabling politicians in jail, or clamoring for them to be put in jail, we can take the bishops’ hyperbole about the abolition of conscience with a grain of salt.”
“Let’s see him commit and advocate for acts of civil disobedience, and go to prison for his upholding his ideas. Let’s see him resign from responsibilities so that he has time to volunteer at pregnant teenagers’ shelters. Let’s see him suffer for his convictions. He does not walk the talk. He is just words. He cannot be taken seriously.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque
Tu quoque: or the appeal to hypocrisy, is a kind of logical fallacy. It is a Latin term for “you, too” or “you, also”. A tu quoque argument attempts to discredit the opponent’s position by asserting his failure to act consistently in accordance with that position; it attempts to show that a criticism or objection applies equally to the person making it. This dismisses someone’s viewpoint on an issue on the argument that the person is inconsistent in that very thing. It is considered an ad hominem argument, since it focuses on the party itself, rather than its positions.
P Flanagan: where is the evidence that ob-gyns were ORDERED to provide an emergency d&c at St. Joseph’s? It sounds like they were the ones who sought permission in the first instance. In this instance, the bishop would order health care providers NOT to provide a service that they find medically necessary and morally acceptable, or even morally required.
“Over the pope as the expression of the binding claim of ecclesiastical authority there still stands one’s own conscience, which must be obeyed before all else, if necessary even against the requirement of ecclesiastical authority. This emphasis on the individual, whose conscience confronts him with a supreme and ultimate tribunal [God], and one which in the last resort is beyond the claim of external social groups, even of the official Church, also establishes a principle in opposition to increasing totalitarianism. Genuine ecclesiastical obedience is distinguished from any totalitarian claim which cannot accept any ultimate obligation of this kind beyond te reach of its dominating will.”
Joseph Ratzinger, Part I, Chapter 1, Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Vol. V of COMMENTARY ON THE DOCUMENTS OF VATICAN II, ed. Herbert Vorgrimler (New York: Herder and Herder, 1969, p. 134)
“The issue of Catholic hospitals is problematic, because they often serve the entire community. It may be fine for a bishop to say what a doctor may or may not do with a Catholic patient who also recognizes the authority of a bishop to set such standards. But if you are not a Catholic patient, and you get taken to a Catholic hospital by an ambulance, or if the only hospital you have access to is a Catholic hospital, it is simply unacceptable for your medical care to be dictated by a bishop (or a pope, for that matter).”
David, I have to say, I don’t buy that reasoning. Istm the responsibility of of a Catholic hospital is to provide Catholic healthcare to the community. Surely the community ultimately is responsible for providing for adequate healthcare for its members. If the community can’t afford another option, or lacks the size to sustain another option, or for whatever reason doesn’t create another option, then – that is its situation. But I see no reason that being a de facto monopoly is a compelling reason for Catholic hospitals to approach their health care delivery in a non-Catholic way.
Bender –
When you look at the facts (objective reality) as honestly and as accurately as is possible and then conclude that choosing to be a Catholic is the best thing to do, then you are founding your religious belief on your own subjective act of conscience. This is self-evidently true because what acts of conscience are, are subjective acts — private, totally interior acts of individual rational animals looking at the world as best they can then depending on their own individual powers of judgment.
The notion that choice of a religion is somehow exempt from subjective factors is nonsense. So when the bishops claim that they are not in any sense “relativistic” in their morals they are talking nonsense. They are just as subject to the influence of their own desires and weaknesses as the rest of us are.
Yes, the HOly Spirit has been promised to help them in their deliberations. But there is nothing in Church teaching which says that they will automatically accept the promptings of the Spirit, and given that our own generation has seen the emergence of one of the worst scandals in the 2000 year history of the Church, we should be acutely aware of the weakness of this particular crop of “leaders”. What we have seen of most of them is that they are at best weak, and many are truly awful human beings.
To rely as heavily you do on the judgments of such people shows that your own judgment can be unduly clouded by the fact of authority, even when that authority has proven corrupt.
“I think the problem is not so much in the Church as among Catholics in the medical profession.”
Eugene Pagano and Susan Gannon above make the point that large sectors of Catholic intelligentsia seem to also have a problem with Bishop Olmsted and the USCCB. It seems it’s far wider than Catholics in the medical profession.
Bishop Dan Walsh turned around Santa Rosa Ca diocese from a demoralized, broken mess after bishop Ziemann, to a functioning place again. Santa Rosa Catholics will not take to Vasa’s extreme positions. The good news is that Santa Rosa has no Catholic Healthcare West medical facility so Vasa can remain silent about Olmstedt’s actions. just as the other 13 bishops that have CHW hospitals remain silent. If 13-19 bishops with CHW hospitals remain silent does this mean the noisy one gets to make the rules?. .is this a new Catholic doctrine? Sounds to me this is how Fox News operates …St John XXIII pray for us.
[
From the CCC:
1782: “Man has the right to act in conscience and in freedom so as personally to make moral decisions. ‘He must not be forced to act contrary to his conscience. Nor must he be prevented from acting according to his conscience, especially in religious matters.’”
1784: “The education of the conscience is a lifelong task…”
1785: “In the formation of conscience the word of God is the light of our path…We are assisted by the gifts of the Holy Spirit, aided by the witness or advice of others and guided by the authoritative [official] teaching of the Church.”
1795: “Conscience is man’s most secret core, and his sanctuary. There he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths.”
1801: “Conscience can remain in ignorance or make erroneous judgments. Such ignorance and errors are not always free of guilt [which suggests they can be free of guilt].”
I must conclude that any Catholic bishop who tries to compel someone to ignore his or her conscience, “well-formed” or not, is committing an act of mortal sin. Based on what I’ve read about the bishops Vasa and Olmsted, I think these two hierarchs have committed mortal sin.
“where is the evidence that ob-gyns were ORDERED to provide an emergency d&c at St. Joseph’s? It sounds like they were the ones who sought permission in the first instance.”
If so, then they were too ignorant in their Catholic faith to be working in a “Catholic” hospital. Thus, the logic of Bishop Vara’s oath: to address such ignorance.
“In this instance, the bishop would order health care providers NOT to provide a service that they find medically necessary and morally acceptable, or even morally required.”
Their medical necessity is overruled by the moral imperative. If the health care providers found abortion morally acceptable (much less required), they were wrong.
If there were Muslim hospitals (hmmm), would you be so defensive of the right of health care workers to directly contradict Islamic teachings in a matter of life and death…more: a matter of eternal life and eternal death?
” Based on what I’ve read about the bishops Vasa and Olmsted, I think these two hierarchs have committed mortal sin.”
Guffaw! I’ve saved that one for the next “pflanagan is being judgmental and self-righteous” response. In the file right next to a “contributor’s” recent comment “If that’s what you think the legal mo of the prolife movement ought to be, then God help you.”
If an abortion (such as that performed at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Phoenix) is necessary to save a woman’s life, then I think such abortion is morally justifiable as an act of legitimate self-defense — in this kind of situation, self-defense enabled by trained surgical personnel. The words ‘innocent’ and ‘unjust’ (as in “unjust aggressor”) contribute nothing to moral resolution of the matter. In addition, the current distinction between “direct” and “indirect” contributes nothing to moral resolution. Self-defense is self-defense. Period.
What? Vasa and Olmsted get some kind of “ontological pass” for their illegitimate attempts to compel fellow adults to ignore their conscience???
“Guffaw” my rear end!
The medical issue is only a symptom of a larger syndrome. Bishop Vasa also severed the relationship between the Church and St. Charles Hospital in Bend because the hospital offers tubal ligations. I believe that requiring the oath and cutting the hospital loose are both examples of the creeping infallibility that typifies Vasa’s stance; they stand in direct contradiction to Aquinas’ respect to conscience and to Gaudium et Spes 16, to mention only a few examples of the Catholic tradition of respect for conscience.
The oath indicates how far bishops like Vasa are willing to go in order to have control. When the external forum, in this case the authority of a bishop, is extended so far into the internal forum that no right to form one’s conscience is allowed, it doesn’t matter what the issue is; the person taking the oath is no longer a free soul, but the subject of a spiritual dictatorship.
I became a Catholic and went to graduate school to study Catholic theology in the belief that the Catholic church had room (and jobs), for people who respected and loved the multiplicity of the Catholic tradition, which has never been monolithic; a spiritual monoculture would never have produced an Aquinas. What I found in the Diocese of Baker was a church that had no room for me as a minister or teacher because I would not put the Bishop’s oath between God and my own soul.
The people who protested (in a larger city; no one else in my small town said anything but, “Well, that’s what the Bishop says, so it must be OK”) had no recourse except to Rome, and Rome approved Vasa’s document after their appeal. No other bishop spoke out in the “fraternal correction” that is invoked as a safeguard when laity are being refused the chance to participate in Church governance. Theologically astute people to whom I showed the oath were shocked. One said, “He can’t do that!” My answer was, “Who’s going to stop him?” No one did. He will now have a chance to impose his oath and his attitude toward medicine on a larger diocese.
The question is no longer whether there will be a split in the Catholic Church. There is already a split because people who love the diversity of Catholic tradition and want to be part of a wider conversation find themselves condemned, marginalized, and silenced.
Many leave. Is open schism any more of a tragedy than the quiet disappearance, a few at a time, of a great many people who love the church and find that “smaller and purer” is happening and they are not included?
P Flanagan, I say with utter confidence that I would feel the same way about a Muslim or a Buddhist or any other hospital. Part and parcel of my reasoning is that St. Joseph’s holds itself out to the community as offering a complete array of services for high risk pregnancy and there is no warning anywhere that it doesn’t include certain services if or when they offend Catholic teaching. Were that warning to be made, no doubt, the entire department would effectively close and health care providers move elsewhere. It’s the asymmetry between Catholic reasoning and the rest of the world that creates the problem here, not vice versa. Tubal ligation, for instance, is the single most commonly used form of contraception in the nation. It’s not considered immoral by most people. Ultimately what I see is Catholic departicipation in reproductive health care. The conflict is simply overwhelming and insoluable.
desertdweller, all I can say is, Wow, you are spot on about the deplorable situation in the Church of Rome today!
And your typical pew potato will, as you’ve noted, say “Well, that’s what the Bishop says, so it must be OK.” And, of course, the typical pew potato will also toss a shekel or two into the collection plate because, well, because “it’s the right thing to do”, then get his/her weekend ticket punched and walk out the door, oblivious to (and not giving a damn about) all the papal and episcopal crap coming out of Rome and our local chanceries. As one friend reminded me years ago, the opposite of love is indifference.
And we’ve seen where Rome’s clerical culture took us — onto the altars of presbyteral sexual assault on our children, parents “soaping” their children’s mouths for “talking bad about Father”, and our hierarchs covering up said abuse, threatening whistleblowers, ad nauseum!!!
And the crap continues — with, for example, Pope Bennie’s determination to get his predecessor canonized. God forbid!!!
Rome is sick.
And too many Catholics either don’t care to be bothered about it, or they clamor for more of it!
“If an abortion (such as that performed at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Phoenix) is necessary to save a woman’s life, then I think such abortion is morally justifiable as an act of legitimate self-defense”
Hey, you have primacy of conscience, you can think that if you want. You just cannot think that and work at a Catholic hospital.
“the hospital offers tubal ligations”
Unclear if you are in favor of that immoral action. Is there some scenario in which a tubal ligation has medical necessity that someone might argue would override Church teaching against sterilization?
“Gaudium et spes 16″
…which also teaches ” Conscience frequently errs from invincible ignorance without losing its dignity.”
The spiritual pride associated with dissidence from Church teachings is a deeply invidious shortcoming. To imagine oneself infinitely smarter and more insightful than 2,000 years of the greatest minds, guided by the Holy Spirit! CS Lewis in the Screwtape Letters described such a soul as the most preferred and delicious item on the menu of Satan’s feasts.
“there is no warning anywhere that it doesn’t include certain services if or when they offend Catholic teaching”
“Oppose” would be a less tendentious word than “offend”, I think.
No problem, let’s issue such a warning when people are admitted to any Catholic hospital. Have them sign it, just one paper among the stack. As you point out, our society is so morally bankrupt that people apparently have to be warned that this particular (Catholic) hospital will not kill their children for them. Perhaps we can add some more disclaimers to the effect we will not euthanize their elderly parents like at the dog pound, and we will not _____ (fill in the blank with counter-cultural Catholic moral teaching.)
What of the spiritual pride that claims that only one narrow direction can be assumed from two thousand years of spirited debate that began in the New Testament, that that direction can be accurately determined by a few people at one point in Church history?
I do not assume I am any smarter or more insightful than two thousand years of great minds; I simply notice that a considerable diversity exists between them, that those who were in conflict in life are frequently together in the calendar of saints, and that God seems, on that evidence, to be big enough to handle some diversity of opinion.
And what on earth is a Protestant doing in your post about the triumph of “Catholic teaching”? I will say for Lewis that when he dropped the authoritative tone of the early-twentieth-century Oxbridge don, he went to prayer and confessed (you’ll find it in his poetry, which is touchingly and lovably mediocre) his own smugness as a sin.
Typo: should read “and that that direction”
“And what on earth is a Protestant doing in your post about the triumph of “Catholic teaching”?
Witty. However, his insight was certainly to the point, and my inclusion of Lewis itself refutes your charge of “Catholic triumphalism”.
“claims that only one narrow direction can be assumed from two thousand years of spirited debate that began in the New Testament, [and] that that direction can be accurately determined by a few people at one point in Church history?”
We might clarify the debate if you cite a specific church teaching with which you disagree.
As for “a few people” (the bishops), since citing Vatican II is all the rage here, let’s listen again to Lumen gentium, 20:
“Therefore, the Sacred Council teaches that bishops by divine institution have succeeded to the place of the apostles, as shepherds of the Church, and he who hears them, hears Christ, and he who rejects them, rejects Christ and Him who sent Christ.”
where is the evidence that ob-gyns were ORDERED to provide an emergency d&c at St. Joseph’s?
We are beyond that particular incident. Now we have organizations like the National Women’s Law Center, NOW, NARAL, and the other usual suspects seeking the repeal of statutory “conscience clause” provisions, as well as seeking the revocation of licenses at hospitals that refuse to provide “reproductive health services” (one of their many euphemisms for “choice,” which of course is itself a euphemism for abortion on demand), and efforts to make nursing and medical schools require that aspiring nurses and doctors perform such “reproductive health services” in order to graduate.
Meanwhile, in many other areas, e.g. adoption, schools, etc., there are efforts to coerce Catholic institutions and individual Catholics to engage in conduct that is violative of Catholic teaching, not to mention their own consciences, properly formed in conformance with the truths of Catholic teaching.
For me, the point is not what teachings we agree or disagree with and why and will only lead to endless argument. The point is that in the Catholic Church I want to see you and I could share a pew, pass the peace, and go to receive the Eucharist together, no matter what our disagreements on specific points of Church teaching, or how we interpret that teaching, or on what is and isn’t authoritative teaching, or on how far that authority goes. We would both be included and we would both be free to speak and teach what we believe, in the faith that the Holy Spirit is leading the Church into all truth despite its current messiness. That has not been true in my experience, and I believe the Church is the poorer for it.
I also believe the Nicene Creed.
How about it? Is there room in your pew for someone who believes that contraception is licit and gay people should have the right to marriage, just to name two points upon which I’d bet we disagree? In your church, am I in or out?
The spiritual pride associated with dissidence from Church teachings is a deeply invidious shortcoming. :
Indeed it is, Flanagan. So watch it!!
Bender, Flanagan, Pauwels:
It takes my breath away that you could believe that Jesus would declare it spiritual or moral to watch someone die when one had in hand the means to save the life.
“It takes my breath away that you could believe that Jesus would declare it spiritual or moral to watch someone die when one had in hand the means to save the life.”
Your “means to save a life” involves the deliberate ending of another life.
As someone wisely posted the last time this dead horse was whipped: better two deaths than one murder.
Please take a supernatural view of this matter, as Jesus most assuredly would: “And do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.”
“The spiritual pride associated with dissidence from Church teachings is a deeply invidious shortcoming. : Indeed it is, Flanagan. So watch it!!”
Eeek, I am being judged! So, what Church teachings am I dissenting from, my NOLA friend?
Matt Goodwin – the circumstances in this case have already been argued here, up one side and down the other, for too long. I’m not revisiting it yet again. If you care to know my views, the archives are available.
“I also believe the Nicene Creed.”
Whew. Because recently there was someone here bashing the Church who denied the miracles (and thereby denied the divinity) of Jesus Christ (and thereby denied the Creed), yet considered himself a “Good Catholic”. The Creed is a great starting point for ecumenical dialog within the Church (heh).
“How about it? Is there room in your pew for someone who believes that contraception is licit and gay people should have the right to marriage, just to name two points upon which I’d bet we disagree? In your church, am I in or out?”
You would be in by default, because I would not be aware of your dissent from church teachings on the two points you cite. Just as I have little idea if my pew neighbor is divorced and remarried without annulment, but taking Communion. If you were to publicly proclaim your denial of church teaching and remain obstinate in response to fraternal correction, I would not shun you, but I would continue to try to explain why you should listen to the church teaching on the point you reject. I suppose if I were an Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion, I would consult with the pastor and ask for his guidance as far as reception of Communion in light of the public situation.
You are personalizing this, which is why the answer above is so anodyne. The point is that the Church is intended to foster our deeper relationship with God through Jesus Christ, and the revelation of God regarding how best to do so constitutes the teachings of the Church. If we find ourselves in disagreement with those teachings, our default position should be that it is far more likely that we ourselves fail to fully comprehend that teaching than that the Church is “wrong”…and it is our duty first of all – before condemning that church teaching as “wrong” – to fully investigate the reasoning behind that Church teaching, with our full mind and soul. Have you critiqued “Humanae vitae” which condemned artificial contraception? Have you deeply considered the teaching of the Theology of the Body in relation to why same-sex marriage is not simply “forbidden”, but theologically impossible?
On this blog, I seem to see very little evidence that most dissenters have accomplished that sort of in depth, soul searching examination of conscience. Some, but not many. Or perhaps they did so long ago, and now see no need to recount it for my benefit. But I invite people to do so, to describe the good faith process they went through before rejecting the Church teaching on a given issue.
I don’t know how we got from lousy Church governance to the long rambling,judgemental and maximal magisterial pronouncements of Mr. Flanigan.
Before you cast out the speck….
Please go back to church governance. The heresy hunt is over, and for future reference: nobody owes “P. Flanagan,” or anybody else, an account of their good Catholic bona fides. “P. Flanagan,” stop inviting yourself to pronounce on other people’s Christian standing and sincerity. You’re relieved of your inquisitorial office.
Since you asked, P Flanagan, and then I have work to do the rest of the weekend and will be leaving this thread:
I have prayerfully studied those documents and the varied Catholic responses to them, including reading documents from multiple perspectives by theologians whose knowledge goes far beyond mine. I have considered them in prayer, discussed them with people I respected, and considered how Jesus responded to people in the Gospels. You assume a lot about dissenters. I have generally found them to be very thoughtful and conscientious. People who just don’t care don’t stick around long enough to dissent—either that or they stay and don’t bother to argue.
I do not automatically assume that any teaching is right or wrong just because it comes from a hierarchy that is made up of human beings like myself, with biases and blind spots. I do not place myself above them, or them above myself, or anything between God and the conscience I am working constantly to form, with God’s help. Humility is a virtue, and it neither negates nor replaces critical thinking. Humility is not the antidote to dissent; it is the necessary accompaniment to both dissent and assent. We could any of us be wrong, and we may not know in this lifetime whether we are; we might even be arguing about things that don’t matter that much to God and forgetting the call to love one another.
Church history shows that the hierarchy can be wrong (think Galileo) and that voices from outside the power structure can have a lot to say to a hierarchy that has gotten too involved with itself (think Francis, think Catherine of Siena). One pope contradicts another. Want an example? Pope Innocent IV’s bull Etsi animarium (November 21, 1254) required “a partial dissolution of the apostolic groups of the mendicant orders.” He died two weeks later and his successor, Alexander IV, reversed Etsi animarium by issuing Nec insolitum on December 22, 1254. That was big news for that wild theological radical and user of pagan and Muslim philosophy Aquinas, who would have lost his place at the University of Paris had the first bull taken effect. Knowing history like that tells me that the pronunciations of John Paul II could be just as right as one bull or just as wrong as another. Those who assent and those who dissent must both know why.
“’The spiritual pride associated with dissidence from Church teachings is a deeply invidious shortcoming. : Indeed it is, Flanagan. So watch it!!’”
“Eeek, I am being judged! So, what Church teachings am I dissenting from, my NOLA friend?”
P. –
We’re all being judged — by the only One who can judge.
The obvious Church teaching which you seem to be dissenting from is this: Jesus said “judge not that you be not judged”. You don’t seem to agree, because you constantly seem to be judging “dissidents” (those who disagree with you about Church teachings) as prideful. But only the Lord can know what our real motives are. But you act as though you think you do know. The Church teaches you can’t know this.
Honey chile, you just ain’t God.
A question. Is there room in Catholic moral thought for tragedy. A rough definition of tragedy is a situation in which there are no purely good options. If there are, then one might say that the nun at the Phoenix hospital had to act when there were no good options. One might also say that Bp. Olmsted had to do the same. If there is room for the category of tragedy, then would not be proper to acknowledge that no one has the “right answer” in this specific case and we all should pray that God look mercifully on us all.
For my part, I think that to deny that genuinely tragic cases occur flies in the face of lots of evidence.
Different reactions to tragedy need not and should not lead to denunciations.
” If he is such an extremist in his convictions, let him act according to them and suffer the consequences” — he does not mind paying for his conviction by having a woman die for them, a women entrusted to the care of a Catholic hospital. All very talibanesque.
P Flanagan, on contraception you ask us to reconstruct the prayerful reflective conscientious struggels that underlie our disbelief in Humanae Vitea. You seem unaware of the veritable tsunami that overwhelmed priests who tried to defend the Encyclical back in the late 1960s. Most concluded that it was an impossible battle. By the same token, should we ask Catholics who rejected slavery in 1880 how they reconciled their opposition to Church teaching (a document of Pius IX and the Holy Office in 1866) with prayerful, reflective conscience? Some things just become a dead letter.
The Archbishop of Baltimore recently gave a brief history of the tsunami that met Humanae Vitae in 1968, including mention of the preparatory work by papally appointed commissions which concluded the Church teaching was in error and needed to be changed.
http://www.catholicreview.org/subpages/storyworldnew-new.aspx?action=4477
As Joseph O’Leary implies, studying a snapshot of Church teachings at the moment without attention to the history leaves one with a highly distorted view of what is meant by “As the Church has always taught”. Flip-flops through the ages on the sanctity and dignity of human life, the seriousness of clerical sexual abuse of minors, salvation outside the Church, limbo, and numerous other previously firm teachings are well known. The importance of this history is that it gives some reason to hope that the current incoherent turmoil over multiple sexual issues and authority will be resolved somehow before too much damage is done to the strengths and virtues of the Church.
“As someone wisely posted the last time this dead horse was whipped: better two deaths than one murder.”
Problem for you, P Flanagan, is there was no “murder”. Just as in the case where the deranged guy coming toward you with axe in hand is no “murderer” anymore than you would be a “murderer” if you had no choice but to kill him in self-defense. Two soldiers facing each other in battle are not “murderers”. Self-defense. In all these scenarios, it’s useless to identify one party as “innocent” and the other one as “guilty”, or one person as “just” and the other fella as “unjust”. No, sirreee, life is just not fair. To quote a former trainer, when his kids would complain about something (as in “Daddy, that’s not fair!), he would reply, “Of course, kiddo, life is not fair. A fair is a fancy country picnic!”
We try to be consistently right — but not legalistically rigid — in dealing with difficult cases. I suspect one’s image of God comes into play here: If we believe God is a lawman, judge, jury, and executioner, then we tend to see everything in black-and-white. If, on the other hand, we see a loving God as, for example, the image of God portrayed by Jesus in Luke 15, etc., then we see a God whose love is unconditional, no strings attached, who can read the human heart and appreciates life’s difficulties that confront us, and is not going to condemn us for failings on our part.
I don’t gravitate toward the first kind of god. The legalistic god is not the One whose Son said, “Come to me, all of you who are heavily burdened…”
“Therefore, the Sacred Council teaches that bishops by divine institution have succeeded to the place of the apostles, as shepherds of the Church, and he who hears them, hears Christ, and he who rejects them, rejects Christ and Him who sent Christ.”
I don’t see any comments on this thread that would even remotely suggest that your fellow bloggers would reject the quoted statement.
We all would agree that the bishops have succeeded “to the place” of the apostles. I would hope, however, that nobody sees the bishops as having “succeeded” the apostles since the original apostolic ministry was unique and unrepeatable.
We all would agree that, speaking generally (as did the Council), the bishops are our official teachers. I don’t think anyone on this thread rejects the bishops. We may condemn their behaviors.
When the bishops lied, directly or indirectly, about the clerical sexual abuse of our children, P Flanagan, did we hear Christ in their statements?
P Flanagan – a Q, honest, I hope, re your last 01-28 post: if a conscious is formed which is not “in conformance with the [non-infallible] truths of Catholic teaching”, can it be “properly formed”, if all the requirements of properly forming one’s conscious are otherwise met?
Oops! my Q should have been directed to “Bender”. Sorry, P Flanagan, albeit I would certainly welcome your thoughts, as well.
This thread needs to be resurrected in a wider context:
John Allen (probably telling you what the USCCB wants you to hear) says there;’s ben fruitful discssions between Sister Keehan and the Conference and broad agreement on basics.
Rapprochment? Smoothover?
Meanwhile the USCCB drive to push “Catholic identity” at Catholic coleges has begun (see Mr. Allen at NCR again on Bishop Kicanas).
Given the quality of some discusion in this thread and the actions of the Olmsteds and Vasa et al. ,I’m less than clear on where we are headed.
I would like to jump in on the formation of Conscience and the Church. During Vatican II, the issue of human conscience and religious liberty came up together. Although the discussion of religious liberty was often centered on civil governments violating individuals’ religious liberty—the larger topical area also involved the Church and its violations of religious liberty.
In the older Church traditions (and I’ve seen streaks of this older law displayed, in a number of the comments above), the Church taught that the Catholic Church is the one true church of Jesus Christ, and all people have an obligation to embrace it. In response to the objection in the name of conscience, the older approach responded that error has no rights.
However in ‘Dignitatis humanae’ it states: “this Vatican synod declares that the human person has a right to religious freedom. Such freedom consists in this, that all should have such immunity from coercion by individuals, or by groups, or by any human power, that no one should be forced to act against her/his conscience in religious matters, nor be prevented from acting according to conscience, whether in private or in public, whether alone or in association with others, within due limits {civil good}. The synod further declares that the right to this freedom is firmly based on the dignity of the human person as this is known from the revealed word of God and from reason itself. (DH #2)
Note: This does not say that one’s conscience is formed by adhearance to Catholic Church law. It is God who writes the law upon the human heart—not the Roman Catholic Church.
This is not to say that an individual conscience cannot be in error. But the dignity of the conscience must still be upheld.
(information from Gaudium et Spes N#16—also from David J. O’Brien and Thomas J. Shannon, eds., ‘Catholic Social Thought: The Documentary Heritage–Maryknoll, N.Y. Orbis, 1992 also Michael Walsh and Brian Davies, eds, “Proclaiming Justice and Peace: Papal Documents from Rerum Novarum through Centesimus Annus” —Mystic, CN, Twenty-Third, 1991)
Just one allusion to the medical staff at St. Joseph Hospital re. the ‘supposed abortion’ incident—in deciding what course of action they need to take with the woman who was brought into the emergency, acted as a result of their group decision. It must be presumed that each of these doctors, nurses, and Sister Margaret—had well-formed consciences and they decided upon their course of action. This too, is defended by Dignitatis humanae when it states: “the liberty or freedom from coercion in religion which is proper to all persons must also be allowed them when they act together (in communi agentibus). (DH #4).
I believe that far too many of our bishops are treading into dangerous waters by forcing their ‘subjects’ to adheare to their (bishops’) interpretation of what is and what is not correct moral action. Too many violations against conscience and religious freedom are being perpetrated by these hierarchs. Real flesh and blood individuals are affected by their decisions. And not all ‘subjects’ are going to bow meekly to the bishops’ demands.
Thank you, Lisa Fullam, for starting this thread.
I made a file of comments here as a resource in sorting out the issues. This and the contributions at NCR and America provide a vital public service. I learn so much from the many knowledgeable persons who contributed. (Let me not even start with the names.)
Listening in as a laywoman is a meaningful education in matters theological, having no credentials myself. It is the mindset of each side that is most revealing to me. I recognize the church I grew up in the 40′s and 50′s, and the most welcome advances beyond that narrow world, imprisoned in the literal, and such bloodless authoritarian certitude.
What vastly different images of God present themselves.
More on USCCB and CHA.
Abp. Dolan released correspondenc e between the groups and inferred that they now agree on the Bishops’ role.
Sr. Keehan says shet hought the correspondence had limited distribution and while CHA recognizes the Bishops’ right to speak, it doesn’ talways mean they’ll agree.
So much for that smoothing over and probably more to come.
Meanwhile, back to the sad events of today in Egypt and the frigid snowy days many of us are expeiencing.
Bender said:
“no one has a right to form “their own” conscience.”
Perhaps Bender would like to unilaterally do away with Paragraphs 1776, 1778, 1782, and 1790 of the Catechism. There are times with “absolute moral truth” conflicts with a well-formed conscience, precisely because Church teaching cannot cover every conceivable moral situation or dilemma, but most especially when there are conflicting goods, conflicting equals, and (as in medicine) predictive decisions are upon us.
Whoops. I meant conflicting “evils,” not “equals.”
Re what informs thinking like Olmsted/Vasa and IMO extremists:
The House GOP wants tio put in a tougher anti-abortion law (spearheaded bt Rep. Smith) which would allow it in cases of “forcible rape.”
Howls of protest rise up -does that mean other kinds of rape, statutory or cooerced (by getting someone drunk, is Ok?
Smith and Co. back down.
al lrape is covered in the new propose dlegislation.
But, what were they thinking????
Many of these posts here contain little more than pure sophistry especially when the writer is seeking to defend the indefensible actions of autocratic clerical politicians and hierarchs.
I find it condescending and pretentious when it is assumed that physicians, other health professionals and hospital administrators operate carelessly in some kind of moral and ethical vacuum, as if we were like bishops and priests.
Our training and institutions are laced with multiple safeguards to ensure our practices respect patient rights and privacy because our professions are built upon the primacy of the individual dignity of each human person.
Do we fail in some instances. Sure we do. But, Phoenix is not an example of failure. It is just one triumphant, a small triumphant except for one woman and her family, over the sometimes tragic human condition in which we live.
Would that power-drunk hierarchs and priests have acted with similar humility and compassion when children were raped and sodomized by their brother priests. Instead, we witnessed hierarchs becoming agents of corruption, complicity and criminality.
Thank you, Nicholas Kristof, for stating plainly the growing awareness among more and more Catholics: The hierarchs are out-of-touch, irrelevant, inconsequential to and alienated from the lives of ordinary Catholics, and show no inclination to change.
As Kristof points out that if we are “Eucharist” when we feed the hungry, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, care for the sick, visit the imprisoned, bury the dead, announce the “good news” to those in darkness, then bishops today really don’t add nor subtract from our lives in any meaningful way.
If the hierarchs don’t wise up, we Catholics, indeed all Christians, just may get used to living our lives without them.