Various excerpts from a New York Times editorial written by Nicholas  D. Kristof about the Catholic hospital and nun who recommended a woman get an abortion, with commentary:

“Yet the person giving Jesus the heave-ho in this case was not a Bethlehem innkeeper. Nor was it an overzealous mayor angering conservatives by pulling down Christmas decorations. Rather, it was a prominent bishop, Thomas Olmsted, stripping St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix of its affiliation with the Roman Catholic diocese.

The hospital’s offense? It had terminated a pregnancy to save the life of the mother. The hospital says the 27-year-old woman, a mother of four children, would almost certainly have died otherwise.”

In this passage, the writer is trivializing the seriousness of abortion. Regardless of the reasons for engaging in this evil action, a willful act of infanticide is always infanticide. The Church’s teaching on this matter is clear, and has been reaffirmed throughout the centuries, from the Lord’s commandment not to kill, to the writings of the early Church Fathers, to the words of the modern Holy Fathers and bishops of today.  Obviously this was a very delicate and difficult situation for anyone to be faced with. However, it is not for us to play God and take it upon ourselves to decide whether the life of the mother or the child is more important. Every effort should be made to save both, but we must ultimately put our faith in God when all options have been exhausted, and not take the place of God by killing one life because we think one or both may be in danger. When there are no other options, we must rely upon the divine mercy of God as to what will transpire. A difficult situation like this does not give one free reign to murder.

“Now the bishop, in effect, is excommunicating the entire hospital — all because it saved a woman’s life.”

This is not correct. The bishop has stripped the hospital of its Catholic title and no longer permits Mass to be celebrated on its premises not because it “saved a woman’s life,” but because the hospital was an accomplice to murder. I don’t believe the “entire hospital” was excommunicated, as this writer suggests, but only those who had a significant hand in the abortion. Additionally, the excommunication was incurred latae sententiae, which means that it happened automatically when the event took place. This is detailed in Canon 1398. It was not by the bishop’s hand that the excommunication took place, but by the hands of the parties involved with the abortion.

“The main consequence is that Mass can no longer be said in the hospital chapel. Thomas C. Fox, the editor of National Catholic Reporter, noted regretfully that a hospital with deep Catholic roots like St. Joseph’s now cannot celebrate Mass, while airport chapels can.”

I am not aware of airports procuring abortions.

“To me, this battle illuminates two rival religious approaches, within the Catholic church and any spiritual tradition. One approach focuses upon dogma, sanctity, rules and the punishment of sinners. The other exalts compassion for the needy and mercy for sinners — and, perhaps, above all, inclusiveness.”

I hardly consider it compassionate for a person to put anther’s immortal soul in danger by encouraging them to commit murder. Where is the compassion in that? We too often think about making others feel good in this life that we neglect what affect this desire to placate may have on our neighbor’s eternal life. If we have a friend who is engaging in sodomy and wishes to enter into a homosexual “marriage”, do we remain silent or even support these actions in the spirit of inclusion and wanting the other person to be happy? Rather, shouldn’t we demonstrate true compassion, and inform the person that they are putting their soul in peril by engaging in sinful behavior?

“The thought that keeps nagging at me is this: If you look at Bishop Olmsted and Sister Margaret as the protagonists in this battle, one of them truly seems to me to have emulated the life of Jesus. And it’s not the bishop, who has spent much of his adult life as a Vatican bureaucrat climbing the career ladder. It’s Sister Margaret, who like so many nuns has toiled for decades on behalf of the neediest and sickest among us.

Then along comes Bishop Olmsted to excommunicate the Christ-like figure in our story. If Jesus were around today, he might sue the bishop for defamation.”

If Jesus were around today, he might sue this New York Times writer for defamation! The progressives (Catholic or otherwise) are constantly manipulating the true Jesus Christ so as to make Him into who they want Him to be; an amalgamation of Gandhi, Susan B. Anthony, and Martin Luther King. The fact of the matter is that this is/was not Christ! A careful reading of the Bible will reveal that our Lord was a fiery preacher who admonished sinners, called all peoples to repentance regardless of how much they had sinned and to what nation they belonged, and reproved hypocrites who manipulated the law and failed to follow their own manipulations. Jesus was warm, fuzzy, and loving, make no mistake, but He was also firm, truthful, and faithful.

Sr. Margaret deserves no comparison to Christ because Christ did not, and would not condone murder. I am also struck by how the author seems to suggest that the Sister has done good for others while the bishop has done nothing but enforce Church laws. Does this writer know every detail of the bishop’s life which would enable him to prove that Bishop Olmstead never cared for the “neediest and sickest among us”? Let us not be so quick to exalt those who flaunt their good works (think Callan) while condemning those who chose to help others quietly (think Pope Pius XII).

Feel free to read the entire article. There is plenty of nonsense to be found.

Tags: Abortion, Culture of Death, Democrats, Politics, Pro-life, Progressive Drivel

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