The Church’s sexual abuse scandal is the “blame Bush” of Catholicism. Anything that goes wrong anywhere that has even the remotest connection to Catholicism can be explained by or blamed on the sex abuse scandal.
It’s reflexive now. Liberal Catholics can’t say anything about the Church without bringing up the sex abuse scandal. Whether it’s a conversation about altar rails, mass times, abortion, vestments, or gay marriage liberal Catholics will instinctively raise the specter of the abuse scandal as if the very existence of sin in the Church is evidence that they’re right.
A priest who’s made quite a name for himself by attacking the Church every chance he gets is now attacking the Church for the excommunication of Sister Margaret McBride who approved of an abortion being performed on a woman whose life was in danger. The media is, of course, making this the most famous excommunication since Theodosius’. The Rev. Thomas Doyle is joining in the bashfest on National Public Radio by calling out Bishop Thomas Olmsted.
He said Sister McBride shouldn’t be excommunicated because of…(wait for it) the sex abuse scandal.
NPR reports:
Doyle, a canon lawyer, said the bishop “clearly had other alternatives than to declare her excommunicated.” Doyle says Olmsted could have looked at the situation, realized that the nun faced an agonizing choice and shown her some mercy. He adds that this case highlights a “gross inequity” in how the church chooses to handle scandal.
“In the case of priests who are credibly accused and known to be guilty of sexually abusing children, they are in a sense let off the hook,” Doyle says.
Doyle says no pedophile priests have been excommunicated. When priests have been caught, he says, their bishops have protected them, and it has taken years or decades to defrock them, if ever.
“Yet in this instance we have a sister who was trying to save the life of a woman, and what happens to her? The bishop swoops down [and] declares her excommunicated before he even looks at all the facts of the case,” Doyle says.
Now, how does he know Bishop Olmsted didn’t know the facts of the case? Well, that’s because he doesn’t agree with Fr. Doyle, of course.
In fact, according to Courageous Priest, Sr. McBride told Bishop Olmsted that she believed performing an abortion in this case “was a morally good and allowable act according to Church teaching.”
Fr. Doyle’s logic would seem to go something like this, I guess: The Church can’t be against killing the unborn because some in the Church have sinned.
As illogical as the argument is, the specter of the sexual abuse scandal is still causing great damage. The enemies of the Church (even those on the inside) can publicly impeach the authority of the Church by calling on the sex abuse scandal and the media will hurrah their every utterance. People will be swayed and souls will be lost. That is the horrible truth.
And many in the media who have these liberal priests and theologians on speed dial cheer every time they bring it up. And they will continue to do so as long as it hurts the Church.
Audio below:
May 23, 2010 at 12:09 am
speaking of bishops and sex (oh, and death threats!)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100522/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_brazil_church_abuse
May 23, 2010 at 12:27 am
There are no easy answers here, and in any case, I seriously doubt any mortal sin was committed in the occurrence under discussion. The situation is analogous to having a gun put to your head. Excommunication is certainly unwarranted.
These are some rash assumptions considering we don't know the medical details. More importantly, I haven's seen anything indicating that this decision was made under the kind of duress that fogs the will. Since those taking shots at the bishop have been dabbling in euphemism, the smart money is on the bishop who is not only a bishop whom some deferrence (not absolute of course) is due, but is also a canonist and has the expertise to apply these things.
May 23, 2010 at 6:14 am
In response to Rick's comment, posted at 4:03 p.m.:
When you told the story about the bishop whose priests were executed one by one, I immediately thought of the heroic Jewish mother of seven sons in 2 Maccabees 7. It is a longish chapter, but worth reading in its entirety–which is not hard, since it is one of the most gripping accounts in the Bible. She counseled each of her sons to stand firm and accept martyrdom rather than renounce their faith, because the only thing that really matters is doing God's will, and if we do His will, we shall all meet again, for God has promised resurrection to eternal life.
I have known a couple of women who were told that their pregnancy jeopardized their lives. They both chose to trust God and leave it up to Him. One of these women died, like St. Gianna Beretta Molla; the other one lived. Both babies lived, and grew up to be wonderful, loving, godly young women. Both mothers, including the one who died, had peace of heart because they knew that choosing to trust God is always the right decision.
The birth of my second child was complicated, and if we had lived 150 years ago, without modern medical technology, both I and my son probably would have died. But I can tell you from my heart, that if the situation had been different, and it had come down to having to choose between my son or myself, I would have chosen to let him live. Isn't that what parents do–lay down their lives for their children? Isn't that what Jesus said a true friend does? "Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends."
I'm not saying it would have been easy; after all, I would have been leaving my husband to raise two kids by himself. But I would have trusted God to take care of all three of them, for that is what God DOES; that's THE WAY HE IS; we KNOW this about Him! Why should the choice be "agonizing"? Painful and difficult, yes. Heartbreakingly sad, yes. But "agonizing"? One need never agonize if one trusts God, who is living and REAL!
In one of those huge, crazy twists that life is so full of, ten years after that complicated birth, my precious husband was the one who died. Cancer. Despite the fear, pain, nausea, and incapacitation, he had joy and peace through the whole ordeal, not only because he knew that Jesus was preparing a place for him in heaven, just as He promised, but because he did not worry about what would happen to me and the children after he was gone. He said that he KNEW that God would take care of us.
And God has, and does.
May 24, 2010 at 2:59 pm
Our pastor is the Director of Medical Ethics for the Diocese of Phoenix. You can read what he wrote in response to this situation at http://www.staphx.org. Very clear. In Mass yesterday, he summed it up with "Don't kill children."
May 24, 2010 at 7:56 pm
Maronite Catholic,
You seem not to have accepted the principle here. Basically, you can't directly kill the baby, even to save the life of the mother.
The principle of double effect lets you remove a cancerous uterus even if it is pregnant.
The ectopic preganancy in a fallopian tube is a questionable case. Perhaps removing the tube qualifies as double effect. The use of methotrexate to flush the tube is clearly, clearly prohibited. I am not sure what to make of situations in which the embryo is implanted somewhere else. What would be ideal would be to attempt to reimplant the embryo inside the uterus, but I am guessing that by the time pain from bleeding makes the situation known it usually isn't medically possible to get those to reimplant.
But what if the mother is too weak to undergo such a surgery? Then the doctors do their best to support her life with IV fluids, transfusions, pressors (drugs to raise blood pressure) or whatever else it takes.
(Actually, I don't think much of a surgery would be involved, as what would be done is a partial dilation of the cervix and inserting the trophoblast into the uterus. I don't think this is a cut the uterus and try to sew the forming placenta into the right place sort of thing. I don't think that would work. )
There is no way the situation described is a double effect situation. It was an abortion, plain or simple. And this can't be done, even if prenancy had a high chance of being fatal for the woman. That's the moral law.
I think the situation was probably a tough one for the sister because if she did NOT agree to the abortion there could be serious legal and financial consequences for the hospital. The hosital could clearly be sued for not providing "standard of care" treatment. I don't doubt that she may also have felt compassion for the woman and her family. But the bishop is right to uphold the moral law.
This isn't a new dilemma but rather an old one we have to face much less often these days. Has anyone seen the old movie "The Cardinal"? It revolves around a "mother or baby" choice.
Susan Peterson
May 25, 2010 at 1:22 am
Point acceded, Susan. You're right.