by Tom Boyle
Nun Excommunicated
Sister Margaret McBride, Vice President of Mission Integration at a Phoenix, AZ hospital (owned by Catholic Healthcare West) served on the ethics committee.
A pregnant woman suffering from pulmonary hypertension, a condition which prevents the heart and lungs from functioning properly was considered by the ethics committee which included medical doctors for an abortion. If the pregnancy were to continue it would most likely cause her to die. The treatment (abortion) was performed to save the mothers life. Bishop Thomas J. Olmstead, head of the Phoenix Diocese, in a statement said, “the Catholic involved (Sister Margaret McBride) was automatically excommunicated. I sent Bishop Olmstead the following email: “Bishop Olmstead, When did you get your degree in medicine? Excommunicating a Nun who acted in good faith! May God help you to understand the real world, and the difficult decisions that have to be made. If the pregnancy continued, both mother and child would have been lost.”
The Church acted swiftly in the case of Sister Margaret McBride, why then did the Vatican take over ten years to defrock a pedophile priest after AZ Bishop Manuel Moreno convened a trial that found Rev. Michael Teta molested children?
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger aka Benedict XVI took over the case in 1992. Bishop Moreno followed up five years later (1997) urging Cardinal Ratzinger to defrock Teta, since only the Vatican has the power to do so. Nonetheless, it took the Vatican another seven years to accomplish that.
Martin McGuinness
Martin McGuinness visited Chicago to have a ceremony at Union Park at 8am to pay tribute to James Connolly. Martin McGuinness’ plane was held up in New York and it was decided to have the brunch at O’Brien’s Restaurant on Wells St. late morning. Martin arrived and was warmly welcomed. During his speech he said, “We will have a united Ireland through peaceful and democratic means…” Amen!
Cook County Board
Although they don’t seem to be able to manage the business of Cook County, they have approved an irresolute boycott of the sovereign state of AZ to appease some Hispanic board members. They then turned around and awarded a red light camera company, an AZ company-American Traffic Solutions, a contract. This was done when they could have given all the business to an IL company, Red Speed Illinois, of Lombard. The story has it, the AZ company was minority owned. So now we have a politically correct irresolute boycott that only offends Caucasians.
Arizona Law
What’s with President Obama and his cabinet members? They were quick to condemn the AZ law. President Obama, Janet Napolitano, Secretary of Homeland Security, and Eric Holder, Attorney General, admitted they had not even read the law.
Maybe they haven’t heard about the drug wars and the death squads along our southern border. What about the thousands of illegal aliens crossing the border at Nogales, smuggling millions of dollars in marijuana, some of which was seized.
Drugs suck up the money that could otherwise be spent on necessities and help drive our economic recovery.
Now, the Presidente of Mexico Felipe Calderon has the cajones to criticize the AZ law while addressing a joint session of Congress and the Democrats applauded. Adios amigo, and the burro you rode in on.
The Presidente also stated that “if we remain with our arms crossed, we will remain in the hands of organized crime, we will always live in fear,” in an essay which also blames Mexico’s violence on the United States and its voracious appetite for illegal drugs. Do you have any other problems you would like to blame us for?
BP Gulf Oil Disaster
This environmental disaster is far more serious than the Exxon Valdez. The ecosystem on our southern shores may never recover. I’ve heard a lot of hollow promises and presidential bluster, what we need are the best environmental biologists in the world to give us a plan to clean up the mess.
The Saville Report
Bloody Sunday, Derry, January 30th, 1972. Thirteen people who died, and another who eventually died from his wounds, may now find peace. The British Army has been found guilty of murder after 38 years. Hopefully, they will be prosecuted for their crimes.
Helen Thomas
Helen Thomas made a major mistake politically by publicly stating that Israel should get out of Palestine. Unfortunately, anybody who would stand up and take issue with Israel’s tactics would be quickly torn to shreds. Helen should have left out the part about sending people back to various countries in Europe, and she might have survived the firestorm.
Apostolic Ireland Visitation
Four archdioceses will receive a visitor: Armagh, Dublin, Cashel and Emly, and Tuam. The visitation will be extended to some dioceses, the communique revealed.
The visitors named for each archdiocese include: Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, retired archbishop of Westminster, for the Archdiocese of Armagh; Cardinal Sean Patrick O’Malley, Archbishop of Boston, for the Archdiocese of Dublin; Archbishop Thomas Collins of Toronto, for the Archdiocese of Cashel and Emly; Archbishop Terrence Prendergast of Ottawa, for the Archdiocese of Tuam.
The Apostolic Visitors will set out to explore more deeply questions concerning the handling of cases of abuse and the assistance owed to the victims; they will monitor the effectiveness of and seek possible improvements to the current procedures for preventing abuse, taking as their points of reference the Pontifical Motu Proprio “Sacramentorum Sanctitatis Tutela” and the norms contained in Safeguarding Children: Standards and Guidance Document for the Catholic Church in Ireland, commissioned and produced by the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church.
But according to a report in the Irish Independent, the real mission is to reestablish the old time Irish Catholicism: doctrinal strictness, regular sacramental observance, and ancient devotional practices. Not to mention “to restore a traditional sense of reverence among ordinary Catholics for their priests” and “counteract materialistic and secularist attitudes.” [Lots of luck!]
That does seem to be the approach being promoted by the Visitor responsible for seminaries, Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York, who recently told a gathering of Irish priests “to return to basics” and to ground their ministry in “prayer, humility and a rediscovery of identity.” Not surprisingly, his talk pleased the Irish Primate, Cardinal Sean Brady, the unwavering defender of the past.
All of this is totally inconsistent with the thinking of Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, who now is a proponent of progressive reform in the Irish Church, “Any remnants of the culture of clericalism should be challenged.”
