The Grinches at Catholics United

Hope your Christmas day was filled with joy, laughter, love and the presence of our newborn King.    We had a great day here at Camp McKinley.      I don't know about you, but I'm not psyched up for this 'blizzard'.   I don't know how to operate my snowblower.  :O)    Guess today's the day I'm going to learn!

Meanwhile, here's something to warm the cockles of your heart...

I somehow missed this, but apparently Chris Korzen and James Salt of Katholycs United responded to Bishop Olmsted's stripping of Catholic status and excommunication over the abortion at St. Joseph's Hospital by asking him to reverse his decision and saying he's too much of a hardliner and out of touch with many Catholics.

In a nutshell, they do a convoluted jig around the 'moral analysis' relied upon to perform the abortion.   The teaching of the Church is that it is never permissible to perform an abortion no matter what the circumstances, even when the abortion would improve the health of the mother.   If a pregnant woman is in a health crisis, medications, operations, procedures that will improve her health are permissible, even if those procedures risk the life of her unborn child, but never an abortion.

It's a tough teaching in the circumstances these individuals were in, but it is the teaching.     The administrator of the Catholic Hospital was there to uphold the teaching.  You tell her we'll do what we can to stabilize the situation until the baby can survive outside of the womb, give her the best medical care available, get the prayers and novena's going.  If the pregnant mother of four made the choice to pursue an abortion, we don't chain people to their hospital beds and she has the option of arranging a transfer to a non-Catholic hospital.

This is why you see a dance around calling the procedure an abortion in their 'moral analysis', as in this Condomweal piece here.

 “ “The procedure performed at St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center on November 5, 2009, cannot properly be described as an abortion. The act, per its moral object, must accurately be described as saving the life of the mother. The death of the fetus was, at maximum, nondirect and praeter intentionem. More likely, the fetus was already dying due to the pathological situation prior to the intervention; as such, it is inaccurate to understand the death of the fetus as an accessory consequence to the intervention.”

There are numerous flaws in this analysis.  The procedure was an abortion with the direct intention of killing the child.   The child in utero was not dying and saying 'more likely' that it was is 100% conjecture.  But the most compelling observance of their moral poverty was their description of the 'death of the fetus as an accessory consequence to the intervention".

When dilating the woman's cervix, inserting the vacuum to the living child within her womb and tearing the child into small enough pieces to go through the tubes and into the jar, they approached the procedure with the intention of permitting the child to live.  In the course of this medical intervention, the dead child was an unintended accessory consequence and therefore, it is 'bogus' (as Korzen calls it) to describe the procedure as an abortion.

The hospital has the support of the Catholic Health Association, the U.S. Catholic community foremost healthcare authority, Catholics United says. Gotta love that.    (They also have the support of the reliable contradictors of Catholic teaching .  The crew at the National Catholic Reporter.   James Martin conveniently gathers the links of the people adrift from One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church at Condomweal here.  Vox Nova here.)


Taking a quick glimpse at other press releases at "Catholics United", it's quite a peculiar focus for a Catholic group.  In fact, I couldn't find anything that actually defended Catholic teaching.  When they "unite", they "unite" behind people people who procure and legislate abortion or pour ants over the Catholic Crucifix to blame Catholic teaching for the HIV caused by irresponsible sex.

I doubt they were edified with Bishop Olmsted's response --

The Phoenix Diocese issued the following statement: "Unfortunately, St. Joseph's hospital and 'Catholic's United are not in union with Bishop Olmsted and have no claim to being considered authentically Catholic, nor do they speak for the church in any way."

Why don't they just use the take away the right of "Catholics United", the "National Catholic Reporter" and the "Catholic Health Association" to use the name "Catholic" to set up an alternate 'magisterium'?  

Take the ax to the root.