B. as in "B" and S. as in "S". Yes there is a connection between the two. But let's give the benefit of doubt to our Cardinal Archbishop. Alarmists pointing of fingers at the first shadow of scandal bodes ill. Will you please wait for the Cardinal's explanation?
Will you please wait for the Cardinal's explanation?
Faith, that's exactly what I said I'm doing. Don't jump to the conclusion that I'm jumping to conclusions.
Best,
Mike
Sadly, the explanation for this is that the Cardinal lost control of the See about two years ago. J Bryan Hehir is in complete control.
There is a window of opportunity to rise against this that is quickly ending. I would strongly urge you to vigorously campaign.
Thanks for posting the link.
Carol,
I agree with Mike. We should wait for the Archbishop's response. I certainly don't know all the facts.
Yes, certainly, abortion is an intrinsic evil. But, as Mike pointed out, we don't know the consequences that the diocese would face by pulling out of the contract.
I would advise the words of the Psalmist - "Wait for the Lord. Be strong and let your heart take courage."
Faith,
I think your response may be a little unfair to Mike. He did say, "I am not yet ready to think the worst. So I await the defense."
LP
Forgive me for filling up the combox lately, but the last few posts have addressed things I'm invested in personally.
I just want to make a comment about how the cardinal has been put in a terrible position which he may share some of the blame for (maybe not).
He's dealing with the threat of an all-out revolution by the liberal theological establishment if he calls off the deal and lets Caritas Christi go under.
For instance, you have the Boston College theology department running to the Boston Globe every time their liberal ethos is threatened. James Carroll, the Globe's religion contributor, is shamefully biased and deceptively presents himself as an objective authority. The Globe will eat up anything dissenting Catholic theologians give them, and present it as a reasonable alternative to the oppressive Catholic hierarchy.
BC has already threatened a firestorm of media coverage if the Diocese bails out of the deal. Lisa Cahill, one of the most heretical of them all, pretty much implied that if Caritas Christi was allowed to close it would be a grave injustice on the part of the Diocese. By allowing a hospital that serves the poor to go under on the basis of a legalistic, antiquated moral obsession with abortion is the statement they are preparing to sling at the Diocese. And if you know how lost the state of MA is, you know how incredibly effective such a campaign would be in further distancing the precarious laity.
It looks like the cardinal has his back against a wall. But some of it may be his own fault - he has allowed BC and other "Catholic" institutions to spiral out of control. Maybe he had no choice - I'm too young to see that far into the past. But I'm young enough to see how damaging these institutions are (as someone who was recently a part of one and saw its degradation firsthand).
Eric:
I have no doubt that the progs would roast O'Malley alive if he nixed this deal. If that's the explanation, however, it is no defense for formal cooperation with abortion. So I hope that's not the explanation.
Best,
Mike
My concern is that this pretty much dooms the cause of any sort of conscientious objection to abortion. Basically, it sends the message that cooperating with abortion is something you can do, but only if forced by law to do it.
It reminds me of the case in Dershowitz's class with the Jehovah's Witness mother forced to receive a blood transfusion. Evidently, forcibly received transfusions weren't considered sinful, so the judge reasoned that he could avoid the religious objection by court order. Essentially we've set the same position; if you force us by some legal obligations, we'll reluctantly go along. And once that starts, people start saying "we hear and respect your objection, but here's what you have to do anyway."
Basically, I think we've reached the Dred Scott point of the abortion issue.
Jonathan,
If that account reflects O'Malley's thinking, then forceful Vatican intervention is necessary. Evangelium Vitae made clear that rejecting such legal pressure is morally obligatory for Catholics.
Best,
Mike
I have decided to chronicle the Cardinals conduct in this scandal. Stay tuned.
Mike,
Have you seen this?
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/...n/
09060911.html
In ICXC
John
Mike,
Absolutely right.
As a more-or-less bystander, it seems to me that the liberal Catholics in the USA, in cooperation with the President, are about to enter into some sort of formal rebellion against the church, to make explicit what everybody has known for the past 40 years.
They are against the church on the "down there" stuff, and if you're going to have free sex you have to be able to kill the consequences.
They're not going to give in, not now when they feel they are winning. Like all good Marxists, they believe "history is on their side".
When I attended Catholic churches in Boston, I heard the "change is coming" homily at least twice a month. Well, now change has come. Obama is showing a strong preference for Catholics who support abortion - the more they support it, the higher they can rise.
It's not, I suppose, a unique situation for the church, but it's one that has not occurred for the past 500 or so years and it was, I think, quite unexpected by Rome 40 years ago.
I wonder what they will do now.
Mike:
I was thinking more of the case where the diocese has given the funding but has not retained active management authority. They might have no real authority, particularly in a joint venture, to do anything. But without some easily comprehensible explanation of the situation, it will be confused with the latter. Moreover, once people see this kind of weakness, solutions like confiscation of property from those organizations that won't comply becomes easier to rationalize. Ultimately, I think the government simply becomes emboldened to seize Catholic hospitals, but it starts with insufficient protest here, where the venture never needed to be started.
Not being from Boston I had never heard of Hehir, so I googled him. First link brought me to a blog by some priest in the diocese, who wrote some admiring post on him. I scrolled through the comments, and someone asked about Hehir's role in shutting down CC adoptions after it got out they were placing children with gay "families." The priest - this is an active priest, mind you - made a reply where he claimed that children raised in these "families" grew up just fine and the couples were doing a "wonderful" job of parenting the children in the Catholic faith, and that we need to be open to the "wisdom of human experience."
I think the Lord is taking away the Archdiocese of Boston's lampstand.
"it seems to me that the liberal Catholics in the USA, in cooperation with the President, are about to enter into some sort of formal rebellion against the church, to make explicit what everybody has known for the past 40 years."
Jim, that is prophetic. I believe this is exactly what is in the wings, and will be unleashed soon enough. They can't wrest control of the Church from Rome and hierarchy through the Church itself, though they made quite an effort, so they will do so via politics. That bill in New England to wrest control of the parishes and dioceses from clergy that was later pulled back - we will see this again, around the country. The liberal Catholics will use politics and the courts to seize control of the Church in the USA.
As for what we will do now - we will suffer the inevitable persecution. Lord have mercy!
An earlier poster says, "Basically, I think we've reached the Dred Scott point of the abortion issue."
With due respect, this is hilarious. We are well, well past that point, light years past it. Intentional murder of unborn children at any point in any pregnancy for any reason or no reason has been enshrined as the law of the land in all 50 states for decades now.
Dred Scott?
The Catholic obligation to fight the battle will never change, of course. But the battle is lost. It's time to see that, and fight on anyway.
With due respect, this is hilarious. We are well, well past that point, light years past it. Intentional murder of unborn children at any point in any pregnancy for any reason or no reason has been enshrined as the law of the land in all 50 states for decades now.
So had slavery been before Dred Scott. The question there was whether conscientious objectors were going to be dragooned by federal law into violating their own principled objections, which is the point we are now reaching. This strikes me as a new level, and I don't think making that distinction is laughable. Indeed, in our own history, it was practically the distinction between peaceful political opposition and war.
Jonathan, slavery was NOT the law of the land in all 50 states at the time of Dred Scott. Abortion is far, far more entrenched today, enshrined everywhere and at all times. (At the time the Constitution was ratified, black men could vote in 10 of the then-13 states, in fact. By the time of the decision, though, half those states had restricted it somehow.)
It's not any distinction that's laughable, by the way. It's your non-chalant failure to see that. Our situation today is much worse.
Inkstained:
I find Jonathan's pessimism more realistic than your counsel of despair. The latest polls shows that half of Americans want abortion to be illegal in most circumstances. That percentage is likely to increase slowly as ultrasound spreads and the viability of prematurely birthed infants gets pushed ever further back toward the first trimester. If not in our generation, then in some future one, Roe could be overturned. Popular consensus does not always change for the worse.
In the meantime, under the current administration more and more Catholic health-care providers are going to be faced with the choice to violate their consciences or get out of the business altogether. The only solution will be to have our own, privately-funded health-care centers. They will be fewer but purer. Rather like the Church of the future.
Best,
Mike
The only solution will be to have our own, privately-funded health-care centers.
If Obama gets his megalomaniacal ambitions fulfilled, it's not clear that we'd be far from being banned from doing that. The government could make as a federal requirement for the license to prescribe drugs that one not have a practice without "family planning" (read, abortion) access. Can you imagine a modern doctor unable to give any drug that requires a prescription? No anesthetics or antibiotics for surgery? If they decide to do this, there are very few procedural impediments to simply outlawing even private practice of health care in a way consistent with Catholic ethics.
Now, I'm not sure that our Chicago-thug-in-chief grabs any margin in beating down Catholicism particularly. But if he thinks he can seize more stuff to give to his buddies, he'll surely do it without blinking. He has no moral compunctions about treating private assets like his own personal looting ground; that's what health care reform is all about.
Your Chicago-thug-in-chief doesn't want to beat down Catholicism - he wants to take it over. How else do you account for Sibelius, Napolitano, Sotomayor, rumors of Granholm, the ND speech - he seeks out and surrounds himself with pro-death Catholics.
I think you will see soon a "American Catholic Church" rather like the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association. I don't know what Obama's obsession with corrupting the Catholic church comes from, but it's real and he has lots of Catholic friends to help him.
"I don't know what Obama's obsession with corrupting the Catholic church comes from"
From Alinksy, for one, and from his father. And not the Kenyan one.
How much about Obama's political career in Chicago am I unaware of? (past the born alive infant scandal).
How else do you account for Sibelius, Napolitano, Sotomayor, rumors of Granholm, the ND speech - he seeks out and surrounds himself with pro-death Catholics.
Sure, but that's just pandering for votes. "Look, it's OK; you Catholics can vote for me."
How much about Obama's political career in Chicago am I unaware of?
You know a politician by his associates, and Emanuel's connection to Blagojevich and several others stinks to high heaven. And have you see what ACORN is doing with voting registration? And then there's the terrorist Bill Ayers. This guy has been waiting for his moment to get his hands on the Treasury for years, so that he can pay off his political buddies. I just thought he would at least cloak it in some semblance of legitimacy, but he's not even bothering; he's going for broke to exploit every situation and what's left of his popularity to take as much as he can. He seized the banks (and won't take the money bank); he seized GM; he's about to seize health care.
I don't think Obama cares about Catholicism, other than having people and assets he can take. But the fact that there are Catholics out there foolish enough to let themselves be exploited in this way shows just how much, to use of one Mark Shea's favorite lines, "Sin makes you stupid."
Mike L:
I hope you're right. But mine is not a "counsel of despair." It's reality in plain English. Some 53 percent of American Catholic voters — not simply American voters, but *Catholic* voters, mind you — voted for this man. Nearly half of those who say they are weekly mass-goers voted for him, as well.
Think about that.
That said, I have no illusions about the ultimate outcome. But your someday-all-will-be-better analysis does not convince. Polls do not save lives, although they may please politicians. I have a bit more hope for ultrasounds, as you mention, but even what you throw out there sounds pretty iffy and tentative.
And again: Our responsibility to wage this battle, however bleak the outlook, remains unchanged. That may be this generation's cross to carry. His will be done, in any case.
Beyond the value of seeing reality as it is, though, I am not sure what value there is in declaring the battle lost. So I'll leave it at that.
Tom
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