The Church and her bishops have a heightened moral responsibility
Mark Jones found the confirmation I was looking for, in the shape of the letter the bishop of Phoenix wrote to the president of Catholic Healthcare West. It is unbelievably disgusting.
He’s pissed off that the president of CHW told him that this is a complex matter on which the best minds disagree – not, as one might hope, because he thinks there should be no disagreement on whether or not a pregnant woman should be allowed to die along with her fetus rather than prevented from dying at the expense of her fetus, but because he is The Bishop.
In effect, you would have me believe that we will merely have to agree to disagree. But this resolution is unacceptable because it disregards my authority and responsibility to interpret the moral law and to teach the Catholic faith as a Successor of the Apostles.
His responsibility, that is, to order doctors to let a woman die. Because he is a Successor of the Apostles.
The decisions regarding life and death, morality and immorality as they relate to medical ethics are at the forefront of the Church’s mission today. As a result, the Church and her bishops have a heightened moral responsibility to remain actively engaged in these discussions and debates.
So that they can do their level best to compel hospitals to refuse to save the lives of pregnant women.
While the issues discussed in the moral analysis you provided are certainly technical and deeply philosophical, they are also foundationally “theological.” And the theology of the Catholic Faith, as concretized in the Code of Canon Law, dispels any doubt whose opinion on matters of faith and morals is decisive for institutions in the Diocese of Phoenix.
Me! Me me me me me me me! Do you understand? Me, the Bishop! My opinion is decisive! Not yours! Mine! I am the boss and you have to do what I say.
It goes on like that for four horrible pages. This from a church that protects priests who fuck children!
I feel dirty.
Surely respect for authority is of the utmost importance. That’s what God’s supremacy is based on, after all. If you take that away, what is left? Utter chaos, with cats and dogs sleeping together and Catholics indistinguishable from Protestants. The horror! The horror!
I guess the Catholic faith doesn’t include the bit about doing good to them that hurt you. In other words, Hamilton Jacobi is right. The Church exists to be a Church, and that’s it.
I’ll remember that bit about “heightened moral responsibility” the next time an apologist says that there is child rape in other institutions.
That sounds like logos to me. Does that sound like logos to you?
Perhaps you should claim to be a Successor of something-or-other, too.
Ken,
That Karen Armstrong stuff is really confusing: I still can’t tell the difference between mythos, logos, and crapos.
I need some help here.
Sorry. I can’t provide it. I have a sense that logos has something to do with how, without God, we would all be profoundly retarded. Or at least that there’s some association between the two.
Mythos I’m a little more clear on. Mythos is all of the stuff that’s ridiculous, except that you have no right nor reason to ridicule it because it’s mythos.
Anyway, it just seemed to me that oppression falls in the realm of logos. I could be wrong.
It is a nasty, bullying, self-important, self-obsessed and thoroughly evil bit of writing, but surely it is a wonderful thing that is out there on the internet, and can be read by anybody since it shows so clearly how the Roman Catholic church functions as an organisation. It needs to posted or linked to in as many places as possible.
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by mgiraldo, mgiraldo and Skeptic South Africa. Skeptic South Africa said: The Church and her bishops have a heightened moral responsibility http://ow.ly/1aCgCL […]
“It needs to posted or linked to in as many places as possible.”
I completely agree, it is wonderful to watch when the Catholic Church, one of the biggest religious mobs on earth, shows everyone how rotten their moral values are, and how totally unfit to answer any of the moral questions facing us in the 21st century. I have published yet another post on the issue on my blog, if anyone wants to have a look.
[…] H/T Ophelia Benson […]
Here are some relevant links I found
http://query.nytimes.com/search/sitesearch?query=catholic+hospital&more=past_7
http://www.catholicleague.org/release.php?id=2056
BTW, what does this “revocation of endorsement” mean in practice? How worried should a hospital be after receiving such “fatwa”?
I would have written a very rude letter back to the bishop. At the very least the bishop is an ignoramus and knows nothing of the current (current since at least ~1968) catholic stance that abortion is acceptable in such cases. I would also ask the bishop why I should believe god tells him so when other people who do not agree with him also say that god tells them so, and assert that the bishop is a goddamned liar as well as an ignoramus.
“And the theology of the Catholic Faith, as concretized in the Code of Canon Law …”
WOW! The bishop is extremely ignorant at best and, I would say, a liar to boot. Canon Law is the *law* of the catholic church (similar in many respects to various sections of civil law), *not* the doctrine or ‘theology’ (whatever the bishop means by theology). There’s one ignorant priest pulling the King James Bible out of his ass. So here is someone who represents god on earth and was approved and appointed by the church hierarchy, claims to know what god wants, and he demonstrates that he knows nothing of what the church teaches and what its laws are about. How’s that for chutzpah?
There’s one ignorant priest pulling the King James Bible out of his ass.
Isn’t that a bit heretical of the Bish? The KJB is a protestant tome isn’t it?
How’s that for chutzpah?
He’s right off the reservation if he thinks he can use Jewish theology.
[…] So in effect he was ordering the doctors to let a woman die because he is a Successor of the Apostles!!! What a truly obnoxious and totally clueless gobshite … that’s modern Catholicism for you today … Read more here […]
I second Tim Harris at #8. The more widely available that letter is, the better. Yet another reminder of why we must shun any expressions of respect for religion. I’m trying to imagine the thoughts that go through the mind of a pregnant woman admitted to a Catholic hospital, knowing that there are orders out there to let her die rather than inhibit her role as breeder.
What is so horrifying is that Christian orthodoxy has been claiming moral superiority for thousands of years, while obviously practising the opposite. The suffering and injustice of these institutions is intolerable.
Catholic Bishop places God’s law over secular and humanist considerations. Stop the presses.
Ha! Very good, Ken.
Yes, about the merit of having it on the internet, and linking to it everywhere everywhere. This ought to go VIRAL.
[…] to the case. The ones that I have been able to gather together (with the help of Ophelia Benson of Butterflies and Wheels, and the commenter — at B&W — Mark Jones) I have included in a pdf file […]
That’s Eric MacDonald’s blog, above – the one that readers have been urging him to start. He’s started it. I’m reading the above post now; it promises to be admirably thorough, and scorching.
I think we have the next billboard campaign!
The general form will be:
{Quote}
-The Bishop of Phoenix.
According to Olmsteads letter to CHW, the biggest stick that he can wield is “removal of the blessed sacrament from chapels and tabernacles at st. joseph’s medical center”.
From that I infer that the rcc provides no financial support the CHW otherwise in the spirit of xtian charity the good bishop would be bashing CHW over the head with that threat.
So what is the downside for CHW ?
None that I can see.
As well hey get to free up some previously wasted space to use for the practice of actual medicine.
The catlicks can presumably use the hospital parking lot to sacrifice goats and otherwise practice whatever arcane rituals formerly took place during “masses celebrated in chapels within st. joseph’s medical center”.
This should be an offer that CHW can’t refuse.
As well CHW should take this opportunity to get a restraining order preventing any sort of “priestly ministry … within st. joseph’s” with special attention being directed to the pediatrics ward given the rcc complete abdication of “responsibility to interpret the moral law” when it comes to the protection of children raped by their organization.
I am in the habit of making very long comments, and Ophelia is very indulgent. Thank you Ophelia. However, this time it is entirely too long (nearly 2000 words), so I have put it up on my webpage, choiceindying.com. (I also OCRed Olmstead’s letter and included it in a pdf called ‘Phoenix Madness’, which also includes the ACLU letter and an analysis by an Roman Catholic theologian countering the analysis that is being used by Catholic Healthcare West.) It is entitled Catholic Madness. Aside from details about Catholic morality which I consider in some detail, the issue of almost greater importance to me is the fact that Bishop Olmstead copies in the papal nuncio when he wrote the letter to Catholic Healthcare West. However this turns out in the end — and it is hard to see how the church can afford to be seen in conflict with Bishop Olmstead — it seems to me that there is an immediate conflict with the principle of the separation of church and state. The church, through its diplomatic representative in Washington (or Ottawa, London, etc.) has immediate access to government as a representative of a foreign power. This gives the Roman Catholic Church leverage with government which no other religious organisation has, and this is an issue that needs to be addressed. Geoffrey Robertson in his book The Case of the Pope illustrates the way in which the church interferes directly in international affairs to ensure that its view of things is represented in UN decisions and international law. The position of the church as having at the same time a local status as an association of citizens, and an international status as related by organisation and obedience to a state-like entity gives the Roman Catholic Church unusual lobbying power. This is something that needs to be more closely examined. No religious person in a democracy should be able to appeal to a state-like power outside the boundaries of the nation in order to give beliefs, values or practices a higher profile within the national conversation than they could have without that appeal.
Very very good point about the nuncio, Eric.
I’ve just read a bit of Conte’s analysis. I find it almost impossible to keep reading – the disgust gets in the way.
Excellent blog, Eric; added to my list. And thanks for putting the documents into one for easier reference (if not easier consumption).
It was thus my duty to declare to the person responsible for this tragic decision that allowed an
abortion at St. Joseph’s, Sister Margaret McBride, R.S.M., that she had incurred an excommunication by
her formal consent to the direct taking of the life of this baby. I did this in a confidential manner, hoping
to spare her public embarrassment.
So the world now knows via that he told her privately that she was excommunicated. I wonder, too, will the embarrassment that he so gratefully & gloatingly spared her, be now visited upon her with the release of this letter?
I just read the Conte analysis. Two thoughts:
(1) How is this not a culture of death?
(2) Ophelia has sharply observed that Olmsted held that the mother should die to make a point. The point seems to be that certain trends in moral theology will not be tolerated.
I actually think that this is more about control than about morals. The Roman Catholic Church has hit upon a formula for keeping people under authority, for the issues of abortion and euthanasia are simply tailor made for zealots, and it is zealotry that keeps religious people submissive. I think they know this, and that is why they won’t let go. The reasoning of Olmstead and Conte is deeply flawed obviously. The Rust Belt Philosopher points this out in detail. In catholic reasoning the intention is always focused on so-called ‘innocent life’. This is a given, so the doctor’s intentions in saving the woman’s life is irrelevant, since the termination of innocent life is the dominant moral object in the situation. The act of aborting the ‘prenatal’ — ain’t language wunnerful! — is primary here, because allowing both the fetus and the woman to die would be an act of God, and therefore something for which no one is responsible. But, by intending to terminate the living fetus, which for them, as a ‘prenatal’ — I feel like throwing up! — the fetus is a human person, and therefore an innocent life, for the purposes of catholic morality.
I agree with you Ophelia. It’s hard to read this stuff, quite sick-making really, but when you’ve read as much of it as I have over the years, trying to find some way to moderate the conclusions that this kind of reasoning comes to, it’s simply something one does. What concerns me so much is that in fact the catholic church has considerable political leverage because of its national/international character, and it is a leverage that no religious organisation should have. The RCC is similar in its way to the OIC, and has the same kind of international weight, which should be a matter of great concern.
Regarding the blog. It was not my intention to start a blog. (Thank you Mark.) I was managing the Dying with Dignity (Canada) blog, but DWD took the position that challenging religion outright was a course they did not wish to follow. Since I could not agree, I had to find a place to express myself at some length, and so, choiceindying.com. From my point of view the opposition to assisted dying is almost entirely religious, and secular opposition is effectively religion is secular dress. So, I have been typing away for the last three weeks or so, and would be glad to have it a bit better known. Thank you Ophelia for taking note. Eventually, want to gather my scattered thoughts into a book, but this will have to do for now.
Ken, I did mean to mention your point. I think the Roman Catholic Church does glorify suffering and death. So does most Christianity. Anyone who has been to a Good Friday liturgy with its adoration of the cross will recognise this, of course. But the theology regarding things like suffering and dying is definitely a privileging of suffering and death over the possibilty of human intervention. It’s not the first time that the church has been accused of restricting progress in medicine and society, and it won’t be the last. But it is, for my money, the last frontier, because guarding the gates of death as it does the church tries desperately to misdirect attention from kinds of suffering that is completely pointless, and yet which, in the church’s view, is God’s direct responsibility. Normally, the church take suffering as in some sense spiritually meaningful, as well as practically useful, since it brings sickness and injury to our attention, but suffering at the end of life is completely pointless, and can only be understood to be pointful from a religious point of view which also holds that there is life after death. This is really the point of defeat for religion over the problem of evil, but by insisting as it does on the importance of this stage of life, the church manages to hide this fact from itself and from others. My humble opinion, of course.
I just lost a few paragraphs before posting that I’m not going to reconstruct, but the two main gists were a) yes to billboards (Buford #23), as the opposition always gives us more publicity than we pay for and this case is one where details like this letter need to become more widely known and b) it’s Olmsted’s personal arrogance that beats even the Catholic Church’s expected draconian inflexibility this time round. Reading the letter makes it clear this has bugger-all to do with morals, theology, doctrine, saving or not saving anyone’s life or anything like that. There’s only one thing bothering Olmsted: insubordination. A policy that was already truly reprehensible has found an enforcer of even greater reprehensibility.
Yes, but the Catholic church provides him with the ideal forum to exercise his personal arrogance. That’s how this crap works. The men who get off on stoning women to death don’t necessarily represent all of Islam, but Islam enables them. Ditto with the Catholic church and authoritarian bastards like Olmsted.
I posted about your blog on Facebook, too, Eric.
What concerns me so much is that in fact the catholic church has considerable political leverage because of its national/international character, and it is a leverage that no religious organisation should have.
Aye, you can say that again, Eric, about the fact that the Church has much political leverage, etc. it certainly knows how to wield its way into the political powerhouse, because it knows that it can wave its zealots’ votes before the politicians eyes. Irish politicians in general are so afraid of the abortion debacle rearing its ugly head, as it has done in the past, and yet again, just recently. It could cost them necessary votes, so they shy away from dealing with the matter. I read this Abortion and Excommunication on Conte’s site. it states clearly how prospective politicians are supposed to deal with abortion stuff in order not to be excommunicated.
It’s difficult to find a good quotation from Olmsted. He seems to have been able to avoid saying what he means. Ronald Conte’s analysis, on the other hand, is a gold mine. Conte doesn’t seem to have any problem whatsoever defending the reprehensible.
That’s a pretty clear message. Bishop Olmsted disowned St. Joseph’s Hospital because they saved the mother’s life. Which was evil.
Yup. They seriously, literally think saving that woman’s life was evil.
The people who support this sort of hideous immorality are the people (unsurprisingly) who will argue with you quite seriously that morals can’t be based on consequences. When asked why not, it’s the usual answer, “Because they can’t.” Why not? “Because they can’t.” Very well thought out.
Bishop Olmsted is unruffled by the storms of secular criticism in Phoenix, because his mind is grounded firmly in its commitment to a higher truth. He will soon be Cardinal Olmsted of Rome.
The more they tighten their grip, the more systems will slip through their fingers.
Prior to the papal encyclical Castī Connūbiī, promulgated by Pope Pius XI on December 31, 1930, which stressed the sanctity of marriage; prohibited Roman Catholics from using any form of artificial birth control, and reaffirmed the prohibition on abortion, the RCC teaching was a mixed and jumbled bag. Apparently the pope decided to tidy up the tradition and change it by saying that contraception and sterilisation were sins against nature and abortion was a sin against life. As Christine Gudorf, an internationally known scholar says “both contraception and abortion were generally forbidden” in previous teaching, but both were often thought to be associated with sorcery and witchcraft. Pope Gregory IX in the Decretals of 1230 treated both contraception and abortion as “homicide.” So this is where the ‘murder’ tag originates.
Castī Connūbiī also explained the authority of Church doctrine on moral matters, and advocated that civil governments follow the lead of the Church in this area.
Because he is a Successor of the Apostles and most likely too a cardinal in waiting, Olmsted will see to it that the Decretals doctrinal morals matter are adhered to forcefully.
[…] to the case. The ones that I have been able to gather together (with the help of Ophelia Benson of Butterflies and Wheels, and the commenter — at B&W — Mark Jones) I have included in a pdf file called Phoenix […]
[…] of Ophelia Benson‘s commenters found a link to the complete letter that Bishop Olmsted of Phoenix wrote to the […]
[…] is also of course their treasured “freedom” to try to compel all Catholic hospitals to refuse to provide life-saving abortions. There is their treasured “freedom” to conceal child rape from law enforcement, and to […]