I know, I know, we've discussed this already. I just can't get this case out of my mind, though. And apparently neither can the NY Times' Nicholas Kristof, whose May 26 editorial ends with this zingy turn of phrase:

When a hierarchy of mostly aging men pounce on and excommunicate a revered nun who was merely trying to save a mothers life, the church seems to me almost as out of touch as it was in the cruel and debauched days of the Borgias in the Renaissance.

Kristof is no Church-basher--I've raised questions before about his ecclesiology, since he tends to imply the existence of two churches, the church of saintly people, clerics and lay, living the Christlike life and doing real good in the world, and a Roman hierarchy that he described above. Catholics, of course, can't pick one or the other, as tempting as it may be. We in the rank and file of the laity are connected to, part of, and responsible for, the hierarchy, just as they are for us. The notion of reciprocity of consciences cuts deep here, too, when those of us who find Phoenix Bishop Olmsted's public remarks thoughtless and cruel, (and, if the canonists whispering among themselves are onto anything, defamatory under the code of canon law,) wonder how we should address the whole mess. Theologians (including thoughtful bloggers here like Prof. Kaveney and others,) have been raising questions about the absoluteness of Church teaching in cases like these. However, recent magisterial teaching and the behavior of hierarchs like Olmsted seem obdurate to questions about whether the life of the woman counts for anything in situations in which mother and fetus will both die.When I teach my students about scandal, I have them repeat after me: "Scandal always has two sides." When Olmsted avoids the scandal that people might think (rightly or wrongly) that the Church has suddenly gone soft on abortion by publicly announcing the excommunication of Sr. McBride, he unwittingly creates the flip-side of the scandal--people will believe (rightly or wrongly) that the Church cares more for the life of any fetus than for the life of the woman carrying the fetus. When we make exceptions like excising Fallopian tubes in some cases of ectopic pregnancy instead of allowing less damaging chemical means to the same end, we avoid the scandal that people might think some elective abortion is justifiable, and create the opposite scandal--that it's okay to unnecessarily mutilate women in order to maintain a moral distinction between direct and indirect in situations in which the result for the embryo is identical. Similarly, when the magisterium refuses to strongly support the use of condoms by HIV sero-discordant married couples, they avoid the scandal that people might think that the Church no longer opposes birth control. (In fact, this is a clear case of classic double-effect.) Then they create the opposite scandal--that the Church cares more about the particularities of its sexual teaching than about the life and well-being of uninfected partners, and, by extension, their children. When USCCB (then) vice president Francis Cardinal George was voted into the presidency as per usual practice despite having publicly admitted to violating the Dallas Charter in the very recent past, they avoided the scandal of, what? Seeming to be influenced by bad press? Instead they created the opposite scandal--that the USCCB cares more for the smooth accession to power of its leadership than for the observance of the Dallas Charter. And on, and on.If an appeal to moral imagination (Might a bishop consider what it might be like to be a woman in danger of death from pregnancy, with other kids at home? Or at least consider being her husband, and loving her deeply?) doesn't help here, and if deft parsing of the Catholic moral tradition falls on deaf ears, and if the canonists don't step up to defend mere laypeople against mighty bishops who defame them, well, perhaps the Church's leaders might consider the fact that scandal always has two sides.

Lisa Fullam is professor of moral theology at the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley. She is the author of The Virtue of Humility: A Thomistic Apologetic (Edwin Mellen Press).

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