"Catholic" Hospitals and Universities: Scandal Again

What part of “Catholic” don’t Catholic hospitals and universities understand?! And when will we begin to see more of the disciplinary action that needs…begs…to be taken?

The Cardinal Newman Society reports that:

Creighton University, a Catholic Jesuit institution in Omaha, Nebraska, has announced a partnership with the Phoenix hospital that was stripped of its status as a “Catholic” hospital by Bishop Thomas Olmsted after a scandalous abortion was made public.

 …But in 2010, Bishop Olmsted stripped St. Joseph’s of its status as a “Catholic” hospital after Mercy Sister Margaret McBride, who served on the hospital’s ethics panel, approved of an abortion because the mother was suffering from severe hypertension. That abortion led to the excommunication of Sr. McBride and the hospital’s loss of its status as a “Catholic” hospital.

Sr. McBride has reportedly been accepted back into the Church, but the hospital apparently is still not considered “Catholic.” Bishop Olmsted prohibited the celebration of Mass on the hospital’s campus and had the Blessed Sacrament removed from the hospital’s chapel in 2010. The Diocese of Phoenix did not return phone calls.

This is an in-your-face nose-thumbing at the magisterial and governing authority of the Church. It is a further undermining of the power of our bishops. It is a scandal that leads the faithful to believe that “all that Catholic” stuff is not really all that important; it says that it’s okay to disagree and act in ways that run counter to Church teaching – and bishops’ pronouncements – and still be a fine “Catholic”.

The article further states:

Creighton spokesperson Deborah Daley told The Cardinal Newman Society that both Creighton and St. Joseph’s Hospital “follow the ethical and religious directives for Catholic health care.”

But that strains credulity when the hospital put out a statement answering “frequently asked questions” about the incident, indicating that it has not changed its position on the illicit abortion: “We would do the same thing again.”

For one thing, the ERD’s are sort of a joke, if you ask me – and yes, I have read them and watched a ridiculous video series on them; but at least they are there as an attempt to “guide” Catholic hospitals in the practice of Catholic medicine. But as I have mentioned before, Catholic hospitals are not run by Catholics (let alone faithful Catholics). Catholic hospital ethics committees are not comprised of Catholics (let alone faithful Catholics). Catholic hospitals often to not even mention the ERD’s on their web pages any more.

Now this formerly Catholic hospital, which nominally-Catholic Creighton University has embraced, is apparently guilty of the following violations of Catholic teaching.

Contraceptive counseling, medications, supplies and associated medical and laboratory examinations, including, but not limited to, oral and injectable contraceptives, intrauterine devices, diaphragms, condoms, foams …and suppositories

Voluntary sterilization (male and female)

Abortions due to the mental or physical health of the mother or when the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest

These are all expressly forbidden by the ERD’s, and that is why Bishop Olmsted stripped the hospital of its “Catholic” label. He was only formally doing something which the hospital, had it been honest, would have done of its own accord some time ago. But satan has his plan: let “Catholic” hospitals do all these diabolical things, and let the faithful think these hospitals are truly Catholic, and then the faithful will be misled to believe that the Church really does allow these atrocities.

And as for Catholic universities…well, thanks be to God there are still some out there. But it does not appear that Creighton is one of ‘em. God only knows what else they are teaching there!

Related:

The Illusory Catholic Hospital, Part I

The Illusory Catholic Hospital, Part II 

The End of Catholic Hospitals?