By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Journalist
Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted of Phoenix is planning to strip a local medical center of its Catholic status tomorrow if it does not meet his demands to guarantee compliance with Church teachings.
The Arizona Republic is reporting that Bishop Olmsted sent a letter on Nov. 22 to St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center, the same hospital where Sister Margaret McBride gave approval for an abortion to be performed on a woman allegedly suffering from pulmonary hypertension last year. In the letter, the bishop is demanding that the hospital comply with Catholic health-care rules, educate its medical staff on those rules, and acknowledge what is the correct Church position on the abortion that took place. If the hospital’s parent company, Catholic Healthcare West (CHW), does not agree to these demands by tomorrow, he will strip the facility of its Catholic status.
“There cannot be a tie in this debate,” Olmsted wrote. “Until this point in time, you have not acknowledged my authority to settle this question.”
News of the abortion caused a national scandal last November and resulted in Bishop Olmsted declaring that Sister McBride had excommunicated herself by being complicit in the abortion.
The hospital has attempted to defend itself by saying the procedure was more about removing a woman’s cancerous uterus than performing an abortion. Even though the former is permissible under church doctrine, it was never determined that this was what actually happened. After months of debate, the bishop has determined that CHW has no intention of changing its policies.
“Your actions communicate to me that you do not respect my authority to authentically teach and interpret moral law in this diocese,” he writes.
“Because of this, I must act now” in order to ensure “no further such violations” take place at the hospital and to “repair the grave scandal to the Christian faithful that has resulted from the procedure.”
He added: “Failure to fulfill these requirements will lead me to decree the suspension of my endorsement of St. Joseph’s Hospital, forcing me to notify the Catholic faithful that St. Joseph’s Hospital no longer qualifies as a ‘Catholic’ hospital,” the bishop wrote.
CHW is based in San Francisco, which is under the authority of Archbishop George Niederauer. The Archbishop has been kept abreast of the Phoenix matter, but it remains unclear what effect the scandal will have on CHW as a whole.
The initial effects of losing Catholic affiliation would include a ban on Mass being said at St. Joseph’s, removal of the Eucharist from the premises and a public advisory on the diocesan website that the hospital no longer had Catholic status with the diocese. Such a decision could directly impact patient use of the facility as well as its contracts, donations, and relationships with physicians.
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