AmericanPapist Comments
Bravo Bishop Corrada for his forthright stand. Methinks many other shepherds are or will conduct similar audits at Catholic medical centers. Separating sheep from goats, as we heard in Scripture at Sunday Mass.
A reminder that honesty goes a long way. Just being honest and dealing with problems and challenges as they come is all most reasonable people expect from their leaders. We just get distracted by so much blame and pride sometimes that we forget that. Good for this bishop!
I feel for the many bishops with 'vaguely' Catholic hospitals in their dioceses. So many are run by religious orders who have little respect for Church teaching and even less for the local ordinary. Short of kicking the hospital out of the diocese entirely, it seems that there isn't much a bishop can do except try to use personal influence? Am I right about that?
Yes, back in 1985 and 1989 as I was in labor being checked in at the supposedly Catholic St. Mary's hospital in Knoxville, Tennessee (owned by Mercy Health System), I was asked both times by the nurse checking me in, if I were going to have a tubal ligation! What a time to be talking about that-when one is in great pain! It was so exploitive of women and this at a Catholic hospital! They probably asked again in 1992. I talked to the bishop about it, but since he was outed on TV, I can understand why he did not get too excited about it. It outrages me to this day that a Catholic hospital would allow sterilizations!
For everyone's information, tubal ligations can only be for contraceptive purposes! If there is a a diseased organ, it may be removed. A tubal ligation doesn't remove anything. It mutilates a part of the body.
Yesterday I was at my obstetrician's office. He delivers babies and performs surgeries at St. Joseph East, a local Roman Catholic hospital. In his inner waiting room is a picture of a doctor sitting at his desk with Jesus looking over his shoulder, and in his examination rooms, there is a large sign that clearly says that tubal ligations are not performed at St. Joseph East. I feel very fortunate to be in the care of this doctor and hospital during my pregnancy, and show this as an example of the many good Catholic hospitals out there following our faith tradition and moral teaching.
We could not afford our here had to let it go. It retains its name but not under Archdiocesan control.
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