Leaders of the Boy Scouts of America are set for a final vote Thursday on a proposal to end a ban on openly gay scouts while continuing the ban on gay adult scout leaders.

Some 1,400 local leaders convene as the BSA National Council in the Dallas-Fort Worth suburb of Grapevine this week.

Churches and religious groups, which sponsor almost 70 percent of the more than 100,000 scouting units in the U.S., are divided on the issue of gays — conservative faiths are girding for a potentially culture-changing decision.

Earlier this month, Baptist and evangelical groups backing the longtime bans held dozens of rallies across the U.S..

The conservative Family Research Council and a coalition of self-described “pro-family” groups opposing open homosexuality in scouting have sent out “urgent requests for prayer and action” in mass emails last week asking people to express that opposition at OnMyHonor.net.

Yet the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as the Mormon Church, which sponsors almost half of the faith-based charters (almost 421,000 boys and young men), recently shifted its position and now supports banning only openly gay adult leaders.

In the recent past, LDS, evangelical Christian groups, Baptist groups and the Catholic Church, have indicated there would be a mass exodus fromscouting if the 2.7-million-member organization permitted gay scouts and leaders.

But LDS leaders issued a statement late last month saying they had enjoyed a 100-year “strong, rewarding relationship” the Boy Scouts of America and were “satisfied that BSA has made a thoughtful, good-faith effort” to address one of the most complex issues.

“We appreciate the positive things contained in this current proposal that will help build and strengthen the moral character and leadership skills of youth as we work together in the future,” church leadership wrote April 25.

Local and national Catholic leaders have declined to comment on this proposal to deal with a difficult and sensitive issue until the vote is in, yet the National Catholic Committee on Scouting indicated Catholic teaching on homosexuality won’t be changing.

“The NCCS will respond to the outcome of the May 24 vote according to the truths of our Catholic faith and in conformity with the church’s teaching,” the group said in its last statement, updated May 15.

The Catholic Church, which sponsors almost 284,000 scouts and is the biggest sponsor in northern Colorado, teaches that those who experience same-sex attraction should be treated with dignity and respect, but all sexual acts belong within a marriage, which is one and one woman, the committee said.

The United Methodist Church, which sponsors more than 371,000 scouts, has not issued a denomination-wide statement on the proposed policy, but the United Methodist Board of Church and Society has called for discriminatory policies to be dropped

The United Church of Christ supports the policy change to “welcome all Boy Scouts.” The National Jewish Committee on Scouting also supports lifting the ban on gay scouts and leaders.

Rev. Peter Morales, president of the Unitarian Universalist Association, said the association has long opposed the BSA’s discriminatory restrictions against scouts and leaders.

Electa Draper: 303-954-1276, edraper@denverpost.com or twitter.com/electadraper

This is a syndicated post from CatholicJobs.com. [Read the original article...]

DIRECTOR OF FAITH FORMATION
Religious Education, FT Employee
Good Shepherd Catholic Church (Frankfort, KY)

The DFF is expected to oversee faith formation at the parish from birth to death. In addition to directorial duties, he/she will personally run sacramental formation, RCIA, outreach to the parish’s Hispanic community, collaborate with the pastor and school principal for the formation of catechists, and ensure the fulfillment of catechist certification in accordance with diocesan requirements. Applicants should have a bachelor’s degree in a catechetical or related field, ideally from a Catholic institution (although applicants from non-Catholic institutions are also welcome). Catechetical studies and related fields (pastoral studies, theology, Church history, etc.) are desirable. Master’s degrees in the same subjects are welcome, but not necessary, but the applicant should have either started work on a master’s degree in a catechetical or related field from a Catholic institution or be willing to do so shortly following their hire. Experience in a parish catechetical setting and conversational ability in Spanish are desirable, but not necessary. Above all, the applicant must have a strong personal Catholic faith, be a practicing Catholic in good standing, have the ability to relate to and work well with others, and be willing to follow the lead of the Magisterium, the bishop, and the pastor. (13)

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On the Feast day of Our Lady of Fatima we meditate on knowing the Holy Spirit and the Grace of Baptism, where the Holy Spirit is received, as seen through the eyes of Mary, His spouse.
Meditations read in front of the exposed Blessed Sacrament for our Daily Holy Hour at our Bloomington, Indiana friary.
Ave Maria!
“A Month with Mary” by Fr. Dolindo Ruotolo
Day #13: Holy Baptism
MARY: The grace of God has enriched you from your birth.You came into the light crying. You were very tiny, but your soul had need of God. A humanly insurmountable barrier was interposed between you and God. You were a slave of the original fault. You were born with the curse that the first man passed on to you as a sad inheritance. This original fault deprived you of a great good: friendship and familiarity with God.
The Lord gave you back a new life, incorporating you into Jesus Christ, you, a creature of Adam, became a creature of the Redeemer, a child of the new Adam from whom you inherited the blessing.
The saving water of Baptism descended on your forehead ” the heavens opened, the kiss of God”s mercy renewed you; you were thus purified and emerged holy and innocent because you found yourself united to Jesus the Redeemer, who with his Blood had washed away all sin. How many angels came around your crib to contemplate the sublime beauty of your soul made innocent and a little child of God!
Always remember with gratitude that grace which God conferred on you. You will be able to gauge it only in eternity.
With Baptism Jesus incorporated you into himself, but preserved intact your freedom and your state of being an exile and a pilgrim. For that reason you madepromisesto the Lord that were like theconsecration of your freedom to God.
With Baptism you were elevated to a superior state and thus you renounced all that is low and vile that the world gathers together or offers as pasturage to your lower nature, and the demon. You renounced the world, the flesh and the devil and offered yourself to God, to the Redeemer and to the Holy Spirit whose living temple you became.
When you feel pulled toward the earth and hear the suggestions of the world, of the flesh and of the devil, remember your promises and do not further desecrate the grace of Baptism. Remember that you are a Christian and you must not dishonor this Baptismal character with a material and disordered life.
Because you are incorporated into Jesus Christ, you must glorify him in your life and being as his fragrance.
THE SOUL: O my Mother, how many bitter tears should I shed at the remembrance of my Baptism! I was beautiful and innocent; I was dear to God and yet I have degraded myself with so many sins! Lift up the weakness that so many wounds have caused and grant that I may wash away my sins with the tears of the most lively sorrow! How many times have I been ashamed even of being Christian and have lived completely immersed in the spirit of the world! How many times have I soiled the garment of my innocence! O Immaculate Heart of Mary, receive me into yourself and have pity on this poor little flower, so often broken, so many times stripped of its leaves by the hurricane of evil.
ASPIRATION: O Mary, make me truly Christian, make me faithful to the promises made in Holy Baptism.
LITTLE WORK: Reflect that the world is a deceiver and only knows how to give bitterness even when it promises pleasures and triumphs.
About the Meditations
The daily School of Mary meditations come from the book,A Month with Mary, written by a holy Italian priest Father Dolindo Ruotolo (1882-1970). Originally written as spiritual thoughts to his spiritual daughter, the work is comprised of thirty-one meditations for the month of May.
To Download Audio go to http://airmaria.com?p=35609

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The music and the crowds can be a little overwhelming after a while. But up on the fourth floor, next to the Cineplex and a barber shop, the atmosphere is more soothing.

A Catholic Mass is being offered for hundreds of Filipino mall-goers who are seated in plastic chairs around a makeshift altar. To reach his congregants, the priest switches between English and the local language, Tagalog.

The Catholic Church in the Philippines is doing all it can to reach out. Even though the Philippines is the third largest Catholic country in the world, the Church has been losing followers. In this hot, humid country, many families prefer to spend Sundays in climate-controlled malls than in church. So the priests have followed them.

At Robinsons, I meet Father Maximo Villanueva. He also preaches at a nearby church but he admits that the mall is more user-friendly. And there are benefits to celebrating Mass in a shopping center.

“About a second after the Mass you can eat anywhere and go to the movies. I like it,” Father Villanueva says, laughing.

But the Catholic Church’s problems run deeper than a lack of AC. Many Filipinos are dismayed by the sex abuse scandals in the Church and they reject its conservative stance on social issues. Last year, for example, the country’s Catholic hierarchy strongly opposed a popular new law that provides free birth control methods to poor people. (That law is now on hold as the Supreme Court decides whether it’s unconstitutional.)

Many Filipino Catholics are flocking to other religions, while some are just becoming less devout. A recent survey found that only 37% of Filipino Catholics go to Mass, down from 64% in the 1990s.

Bringing Mass to shopping malls might help reverse these trends. In fact, the practice is now being copied by a handful of priests in the US and Europe. But there are some downsides, says Rene Santiago, a retired car salesman attending Mass at Robinsons Place. He complains that people come to Church, but they don’t dress properly.

“They wear shorts. They wear slippers as if they are in the house,” he says. “I mean, you only face God once in a week. Why don’t you dress properly?”

Another problem is that an escalator cuts through the space where Father Villanueva holds Mass, bringing a constant stream of pedestrians.

“I am very aware that most people are not fully concentrated in the celebration,” says the priest, “There are too many distractions. But it’s the challenge, I believe. Wherever they are, the church will be there for them.”

With the religious service over, workers stack chairs and haul away flower pots. Soon this temporary holy space will be overrun by shoppers. But Mass here has become so popular that Father Villanueva is lobbying management to build a permanent chapel inside the mall.

CRISIS OF VALUES
Francis, the former Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio of Buenos Aires, said the world was going through not just an economic crisis but a crisis of values.
“This is happening today. If investments in banks fall, it is a tragedy and people say ‘what are we going to do?’ but if people die of hunger, have nothing to eat or suffer from poor health, that’s nothing. This is our crisis today. A Church that is poor and for the poor has to fight this mentality,” he said.
Many in the crowd planned to stay in the square overnight to pray and prepare for Francis’ Mass on Sunday, when the Catholic Church marks Pentecost, the day it teaches that the Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles.
On Saturday morning, Francis met German Chancellor Angela Merkel and discussed Europe’s economic crisis.
Apparently responding to his criticism of a heartless “dictatorship of the economy” earlier in the week, Merkel, who is up for re-election in September, later called for stronger regulation of financial markets.
On Thursday, Francis appealed in a speech for world financial reform, saying the global economic crisis had made life worse for millions in rich and poor countries. (Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

Loading Slideshow

• Luke 6:20-21

  strongLuke 6:20-21/strong Then he looked up at his disciples and said: ‘Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.

  ‘Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. ‘Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.

• Luke 4:16-19

  strongLuke 4:16-19/strong When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:

  ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’

• Matthew 25:34-36

  strongMatthew 25:34-36/strong Then the king will say to those at his right hand, “Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.”

• Mark 10:21-22

  strongMark 10:21-22/strong Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.

• Mark 12:41-44

  strongMark 12:41-44/strong He sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. 42 A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. 43 Then he called his disciples and said to them, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. 44 For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”

• Luke 14:12-14

  strongLuke 14:12-14/strong He said also to the one who had invited him, “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

• Luke 16:19-25

  strongLuke 16:19-25/strong “There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried.

  In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. He called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.’ But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony.

• Luke 11:39-42

  strongLuke 11:39-42/strong Then the Lord said to him, “Now you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. You fools! Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also? So give for alms those things that are within; and see, everything will be clean for you. “But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and herbs of all kinds, and neglect justice and the love of God

• Luke 12:16-21

  strongLuke 12:16-21/strong Then he told them a parable: “The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’ Then he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”

Archbishop Elect Father Peter Loy Chong

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Talking of the New Testament miracles and the meaning of faith, Weigel writes: “In the Catholic view of things, walking on water is an entirely sensible thing to do. It’s staying in the boat, hanging tightly to our own sad little securities, that’s rather mad.”

In the following months, that life outside the boat – the life of faith –would come to make increasing sense to me, until eventually I could no longer justify staying put. Last weekend I was baptised and confirmed into the Catholic Church.

Of course, this wasn’t supposed to happen. Faith is something my generation is meant to be casting aside, not taking up. I was raised without any religion and was eight when 9/11 took place. Religion was irrelevant in my personal life and had provided my formative years with a rolling-news backdrop of violence and extremism. I avidly read Dawkins, Harris and Hitchens, whose ideas were sufficiently similar to mine that

I could push any uncertainties I had to the back of my mind. After all, what alternative was there to atheism?

As a teenager, I realised that I needed to read beyond my staple polemicists, as well as start researching the ideas of the most egregious enemies of reason, such as Catholics, to properly defend my world view. It was here, ironically, that the problems began.

I started by reading Pope Benedict’s Regensburg address, aware that it had generated controversy at the time and was some sort of attempt –futile, of course – to reconcile faith and reason. I also read the shortest book of his I could find, On Conscience. I expected – and wanted – to find bigotry and illogicality that would vindicate my atheism. Instead, I was presented with a God who was the Logos: not a supernatural dictator crushing human reason, but the self-expressing standard of goodness and objective truth towards which our reason is oriented, and in which it is fulfilled, an entity that does not robotically control our morality, but is rather the source of our capacity for moral perception, a perception that requires development and formation through the conscientious exercise of free will.

It was a far more subtle, humane and, yes, credible perception of faith than I had expected. It didn’t lead to any dramatic spiritual epiphany, but did spur me to look further into Catholicism, and to re-examine some of the problems I had with atheism with a more
critical eye.

First, morality. Non-theistic morality, to my mind, tended towards two equally problematic camps: either it was subjective to the point of meaninglessness or, when followed logically, entailed intuitively repulsive outcomes, such as Sam Harris’s stance on torture. But the most appealing theories which could circumvent these problems, like virtue ethics, often did so by presupposing the existence of God. Before, with my caricatured understanding of theism, I’d considered that nonsensical. Now, with the more detailed understanding I was starting to develop, I wasn’t so sure.

Next, metaphysics. I soon realised that relying on the New Atheists for my counter-arguments to the existence of God had been a mistake: Dawkins, for instance, gives a disingenuously cursory treatment of St Thomas Aquinas in The God Delusion, engaging only with the summary of Aquinas’s proofs in the Five Ways – and misunderstanding those summarised proofs to boot. Acquainting myself fully with Thomistic-Aristotelian ideas, I found them to be a valid explanation of the natural world, and one on which atheist philosophers had failed to make a coherent assault.

What I still did not understand was how a theology that operated in harmony with human reason could simultaneously be, in Benedict XVI’s words, “a theology grounded in biblical faith”. I’d always assumed that sola scriptura (“scripture alone”), with its evident shortcomings and fallacies, was how all consistent, believing Christians read the Bible. So I was surprised to discover that this view could be refuted just as robustly from a Catholic standpoint – reading the Bible through the Church and its history, in light of Tradition – as from an atheist one.

I looked for absurdities and inconsistencies in the Catholic faith that would derail my thoughts from the unnerving conclusion I was heading towards, but the infuriating thing about Catholicism is its coherency: once you accept the basic conceptual structure, things fall into place with terrifying speed. “The Christian mysteries are an indivisible whole,” wrote Edith Stein in The Science of the Cross: “If we become immersed in one, we are led to all the others.” The beauty and authenticity of even the most ostensibly difficult parts of Catholicism, such as the sexual ethics, became clear once they were viewed not as a decontextualised list of prohibitions, but as essential components in the intricate body of the Church’s teaching.

There was one remaining problem, however: my lack of familiarity with faith as something lived. To me, the whole practice and vernacular of religion – prayer, hymns, Mass – was something wholly alien, which I was reluctant to step into.

My friendships with practising Catholics finally convinced me that I had to make a decision. Faith, after all, isn’t merely an intellectual exercise, an assent to certain propositions; it’s a radical act of the will, one that engenders a change of the whole person. Books had taken me to Catholicism as a plausible conjecture, but Catholicism as a living truth I came to understand only through observing those already serving the Church within that life of grace.

I grew up in a culture that has largely turned its back on faith. It’s why I was able to drift through life with my ill-conceived atheism going unchallenged, and at least partially explains the sheer extent of the popular support for the New Atheists: for every considerate and well-informed atheist, there will be others with no personal experience of religion and no interest in the arguments who are simply drifting with the cultural tide.

As the popularity of belligerent, all-the-answers atheism wanes, however, thoughtful Christians able to explain and defend their faith will become an increasingly vital presence in the public square. I hope I, in a small way, am an example of the appeal that Catholicism can still hold in an age that at times appears intractably opposed to it.

This article first appeared in the print edition of The Catholic Herald dated 24/5/13

Rizzi, 25, will be one of eight men to be ordained in the ceremony at the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Newark at 10 a.m., according to a notice sent out Monday by the Archdiocese of Newark.

The next day at noon, Rizzi will celebrate his first Mass at Holy Family Church in Nutley.

Rizzi attended the College Seminary at St. Andrew’s Hall, Seton Hall University. From there, he attended the Immaculate Conception Seminary. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Catholic Theology, a MA in Systematic Theology and a Master in Divinity degree.

He did his field education and summer ministry at the parish of St. Francis of Assisi in Ridgefield Park and the Church of the Assumption in Roselle Park.

The Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart is located at 89 Ridge Street in Newark.

FORT WAYNE —Catholic leaders of northeast Indiana met on Wednesday to complete the formation of the St. Thomas More Society of Fort Wayne, a private association affiliated with the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, serving under the oversight of Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades.

After several months of planning, the society formally adopted its constitution and bylaws and elected its founding governors and officers. Father Mark A. Gurtner has been appointed chaplain by Bishop Rhoades.

“The society is a wonderful opportunity to honor and emulate St. Thomas More, the patron saint of attorneys, statesmen and politicians,” said Father Gurtner. “Indeed, his steadfast conviction in the face of death is a reminder for legal professionals to not forsake their private conscious for their public duties.”

Father Gurtner told Today’s Catholic of his duties to the society: “First not only have I been appointment chaplain, but as a canon lawyer, I enjoy membership in the society in my own right. I am also a founding member.”

“My duties as chaplain though will focus on the spiritual well being of the society,” he said. “I will offer Mass for the group periodically, seek to foster the spiritual life of its members, and be available as spiritual counsel for its members individually and for the group as a whole. I would also anticipate that I would serve to represent the society to the diocesan bishop and to represent the diocesan bishop to the society.”

The St. Thomas More Society is a Catholic professional association that promotes the mutual interaction of faith and culture in the realm of law and public policy. Any lawyer, member of the judiciary, canon lawyer, law professor or student at an ABA accredited law school residing, practicing, serving or studying primarily in the greater Fort Wayne area is eligible to apply for membership.

Magistrate Craig Bobay of the Allen Circuit Court and member of St. Jude Parish, Fort Wayne, said, “We hope to meet several times per year to discuss issues of faith and the legal profession, attend Mass together, pray together and help organize an annual Red Mass.”

“Catholic and non-Catholic lawyers and judges should join the society to explore the place for our Christian faith in the legal profession,” he encouraged.

Michael Barranda, an attorney with Burt-Blee-Dixon-Sutton and Bloom, LLP, and member of St. Vincent de Paul Parish, Fort Wayne, encouraged Catholics in the legal profession to consider joining the society.

“Legal professionals are required to take continuing education classes,” Barranda said. “In addition to fellowship, the society offers members educational opportunities that will strengthen both their faith and their practice.”

Father Gurtner added, “I would encourage those in the legal profession to join the society in order to seek even more fully to integrate their Catholic faith into their work. Also, membership in the society will serve to deepen their own faith because it will afford them access to special Masses offered for the society, will join them in the spiritual benefits of mutual prayer for each other in the society, will be a source of encouragement for the members to stay faithful to the tenets of the faith in the face of opposition, and will offer members continuing education in the faith and the legal profession through periodically-offered presentations.”

“Each of the founding governors is more than willing to speak with prospective members of the society,” Barranda noted. “Incidentally, we just happen to represent a great cross-section of the area parishes. Applications for membership are available through the Membership Chair, Chris Nancarrow.”

Attorney Tom Blee of Fort Wayne’s Burt-Blee-Dixon-Sutton and Bloom, LLP, firm, said the “society is being reenergized by Magistrate Craig Bobay and some associates with a new constitution, bylaws and a membership drive.”

Bobay told Today’s Catholic, “Bishop Rhoades has mentioned that a society existed in his previous diocese, and a few of us got together, and prepared a proposed framework for the group. We then presented it to the bishop, who gave us his blessing and encouraged us to identify people to make up an initial board of directors, and then plan to recruit members.”

Blee said in addition to preparing and hosting the annual Red Mass, a Mass for those in the legal profession, the society will arrange programs and activities related to the intellectual and religious growth of the members, as well as honor those professionals that represent the principles and ideals of St. Thomas More.

Blee said, “An essential goal of the group is to create a strong membership of attorneys, which will attract prominent speakers to the St. Thomas More Red Mass celebration, and promote the unity of the family, the dignity of the person and the justice of civil society — all traits exhibited by the life and death of this patron saint of statesmen, politicians and lawyers.”

Blee has been devoted to St. Thomas More since his admission to the law profession at age 45. He wears a St. Thomas More medal, and a painting of Thomas More hangs in his office. The painting is used at the Red Mass in Fort Wayne.

Blee said, “When something is demanded of me because of my faith — something which seems just too hard, or even unfair — I need only to think of St. Thomas More in his prison cell — and it doesn’t seem hard or unfair at all.”

The elected officers are president — Magistrate Judge Craig J. Bobay, Allen Circuit Court; vice president — Liz Brown, civil and domestic mediator; treasurer — Tom Niezer, Barrett McNagny LLP; and Judge Michael J. Kramer, Noble Superior Court.

Founding governors also include: Kathleen Anderson — Barnes Thornburg LLP, Michael Barranda — Burt, Blee, Dixon, Sutton Bloom, LLP; Judge Thomas J. Felts — Judge, Allen Circuit Court; Scott Hall — Hall Gooden, LLP; Judge Kent W. Kiracofe — Wells Circuit Court; Chris Nancarrow — chief deputy, Allen County Clerk of Courts.

Professionals interested in membership opportunities may contact Membership Chair Chris Nancarrow at cnancarr@gmail.com.

(Image: Modern hospital and emergency sign via Shutterstock)

In 2010, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, an elderly woman was rushed to a local hospital called St. John. She had suffered a massive stroke and could no longer eat, drink or speak. Mercifully, she was one of the growing percent of Americans who have prepared for such an eventuality by writing an end-of-life directive. Hers said that said she did not want artificial hydration or nutrition if she wasn’t going to recover. Unfortunately, St. John is a facility where the directives of the Catholic bishops take precedence over the directives of individual patients, and one such directive orders hospitals to feed and hydrate end-of-life patients whether they want it or not.

Americans would do well to consider what happens when theology dictates health care.

In the official language of the bishops, St. John is a “Catholic health care ministry,” their term for all Church-affiliated hospitals and clinics. Catholic health care ministries are publicly licensed institutions intended to serve the general public. They are highly subsidized by public dollars. To fund them, the Church uses a variety of public revenue streams including Medicare, Medicaid, county appropriations, federal dollars allocated through the 1946 Hospital Survey and Construction Act, and tax-exempt government bonds. As with any hospital, additional revenues come from insurance payments and investments, with the end result that the Catholic Church contributes less than 5 percent of the funds flowing through their hospitals and clinics. And yet the bishops place theological restrictions on care for all patients and sometimes forbid providers from telling patients that treatment options exist elsewhere.

According to MergerWatch, Catholic control of health dollars and hospital facilities is on the rise across the United States. In Washington State, for example, if all currently proposed mergers go through, almost half of hospital beds will lie in the hands of religious institutions by the end of 2013. Across the US, as Catholic systems such as Peace Health and Catholic Health Initiatives (CHI) quietly absorb secular hospitals, the bishops are fighting in court for the religious equivalent of corporate personhood, claiming that the constitution gives them institutional conscience rights that trump patient choice. Meanwhile, Catholic-owned pharmacies are suing for the right to deny services; and other Catholic-owned business are demanding (and winning) religious exemptions from health insurance obligations.

In an effort to standardize the rules of Catholic institutions and the advice that priests give laypeople, the bishops have created what they call “Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care,” called ERDs for short. When secular and religious institutions merge, the bishops’ directives often restrict services in both. Patients may not realize that a once secular institution named Swedish or Highline is now subject to theology and could impose religious beliefs at odds with those of the patient. Following mergers, changes often are gradual, occurring slowly as staff leave and are replaced with believers, which makes the shift even harder for patients to detect. (Religious hospitals are exempt from non-discriminatory employment practices, somewhat remarkable given that so much of their funding is public.) Hospital administrators may state that they do not interfere in the doctor-patient relationship while at the same time advertising for staff who are “deeply familiar” with the bishops directives.

From a consumer standpoint, one problem with putting religion rather than science in charge of health care is that patients may not know they are being denied the full range of medically appropriate options. They may have no idea when institutional rules prevent doctors and nurses from honoring end-of-life wishes or discussing services that are available in secular settings – services like contraception, abortion, tubal ligation, vasectomy, fertility treatment, or death with dignity. For example, one woman tells of being diagnosed with an ectopic pregnancy at a religious hospital. She was advised that she needed to have her fallopian tube removed. Fortunately, she consulted her smart phone and realized that elsewhere she could simply obtain a medication to end her nonviable pregnancy. The medication is safer and leaves fertility intact, but the Catholic directives treat this as a direct abortion, while the surgery (which damages long term fertility) kills the fetus indirectly and so is acceptable.

Other countries where Catholic theology limits health options offer a dire warning of what might happen here if the Church had an equal hold on the levers of power. In El Salvador, Catholic theology was written into law in 1998, banning all abortions, even those intended to save the mother. As a consequence, a 22-year-old mother named Beatriz, who carries a nonviable fetus, lies in a hospital bed with her kidneys failing, hoping to be granted an exception by El Salvador’s Supreme Court. She has been waiting for over a month. In Catholic Ireland last October, a young dentist, Savita Halappanavar, died after being refused an abortion.

In an ironic twist, the extremity of Catholic directives leads many people to believe that they couldn’t possibly be implemented here. Consider the case of Beatriz. She is the mother of a young child. Her fetus is anencephalic, meaning it has no brain and never will be a person under any circumstance. (Note: Somewhere between 60 and 80 percent of human fertilized eggs self-destruct naturally before a full-term gestation, most before a woman knows she is pregnant, and many because they are defective.) In other words, the Salvadorian anti-abortion law risks the life of a young mother for an incomplete fetus that is a normal failed reproductive product rather than a potential child. For someone who thinks that morality is about well-being, this just sounds crazy. Of course, this could never happen in the United States, right? You may be astounded to learn that a Phoenix nun was excommunicated and her hospital was forcibly disaffiliated from the Catholic Church for allowing an abortion under similarly hopeless circumstances.

In Ireland, after Halappanavar’s unnecessary death, thousands of men and women demanded medical services based on scientific evidence and individual conscience. Halappanavar became the tragic face of an international movement. Even so, given the power of religious institutions and traditions, legal change in Ireland is likely to be minimal. The largely Catholic Irish Medical Association has declined to request abortion rights even in cases of incest, rape and nonviable fetal anomalies. Currently Irish law allows abortion only when a mother’s life is threatened, which is not good enough for a case like Halappanavar’s. A leading obstetrician testified that Halappanavar probably would have survived if she had gotten an abortion during the first three days of her hospital stay. But at that time, there was not a “real and substantial threat to her life.” By the time she met the legal criteria, it was too late.

Patients count on their doctors to know and suggest their best options to protect health and well-being. But as medical options increase, especially at the beginning and end of life, the range of services excluded for theological reasons also increases. Catholic “ethicists” devote millions of dollars to analyzing biomedical technologies in the pipeline and then advocating policy based on theological priorities. They block certain lines of research and prevent affiliated hospitals from participating in clinical studies that require participants to be on contraception, for example a study of a cancer treatment that might cause fetal defects. Procedures opposed by the theologians are likely to be absent altogether from patient-doctor conversations.

Some patient advocates say that mandatory disclosure is part of the solution: Pharmacies that refuse to fill some prescriptions should post the fact that they are not full-service. Church-run abortion diversion centers known as crisis pregnancy centers should post that they are not medical providers. Treatment consent forms should list the scientifically and medically accepted practices that a doctor or hospital refuses to provide so that patients know that these services are available elsewhere. Conversely, providers who sign onto a Patients’ Bill of Rights promising to base care only on medical science and patient conscience could get the equivalent of a Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.

But disclosure alone won’t ensure state-of-the-art health care for many Americans, especially those living in small towns or rural settings. Sometimes one clinic or pharmacy serves a wide area, or all nearby services are managed by the same religious institution. In these cases, a woman with a painful and life-threatening ectopic pregnancy might not be able just to get in her car and drive to another clinic. Denial of service hits low-income communities hardest because members often have less flexible time off work and more restricted access to transportation and child care. The right of religious doctors and institutions to deny services obstructs the right of patients to receive timely care that meets normal medical practice standards, which are designed to maximize well-being.

That is because Catholic theology isn’t necessarily about well-being; it is about submitting to the perceived will of God. Sometimes these two align, and sometimes they don’t. To serve God’s will, Catholic theologians attempt to derive moral principles that are about the inherent goodness or evil of certain beliefs and behaviors, regardless of their consequences. In this way of thinking, contraceptives or abortions should not be provided because they are “intrinsically evil,” even when contraception or abortion may save a woman’s life.

To make matters worse, Catholic theology values passive submission to harm when it is believed to serve Catholic practice or faith. Saints are heralded for their commitment to theological principle even in the face of outrageous and foreseeable outcomes, including martyrdom. In fact, Catholic theology sees pain as having positive soul-purifying benefits. This is called redemptive suffering. In the ERDs, it is offered up as an alternative for patients whose unbearable pain leads them to seek death with dignity:

Dying patients who request euthanasia should receive loving care, psychological and spiritual support, and appropriate remedies for pain and other symptoms so that they can live with dignity until the time of natural death…. Patients experiencing suffering that cannot be alleviated should be helped to appreciate the Christian understanding of redemptive suffering.

Former nun Mary Johnson (author of An Unquenchable Thirst) spent 20 years working with Mother Teresa’s organization, the Missionaries of Charity, which has been accused of providing substandard treatment and pain management. She explains the sometimes abysmal conditions in their facilities thus:

Most people today would say that we help the poor by helping them out of poverty. That was never Mother Teresa’s intention. Mother Teresa often told us that as Missionaries of Charity we did not serve the poor to improve their lot, but because we were serving Jesus, who said that whenever service was rendered to one of the least, it was rendered to him. Jesus promised eternal life to those who fed the hungry and clothed the naked.

The point, in other words, is not necessarily to solve the problem but simply to perform service. Ultimately, it isn’t about real world outcomes for the person on the receiving end, but about eternal outcomes for the person on the giving end. The difference is important. And although Johnson doesn’t mention it, the passage she quotes mentions the ill as well as the hungry and naked. The Jesus of the gospel promises eternal life to those who feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit prisoners and care for the ill. When religion and healing are at odds, the way to get to heaven is to offer theologically principled care, even when more compassionate options are available.

This difference in objectives seems like reason enough to separate religion from medicine. Thanks to science, fertility treatment has come a long way from the mandrakes and dove blood prescribed in the Bible. Victims of sexual assault now have options other than being forced to bear rape babies (also the Biblical solution). As we face death, we have alternatives to convincing ourselves that suffering is redemptive. Do we really want theology at the helm of our biggest hospital and clinic systems?

If not, it may be time for ordinary men and women to speak our minds. In Washington State, where the battle over Catholic hospital mergers is heating up, the state constitution specifically prohibits the use of public funds to support religious institutions. Despite that prohibition, one district actually has a line-item in the property tax code to subsidize a Peace Health facility, leaving the local community with no secular alternative. With the Peace Health clinic newly open, the local bishop has already tried to block the now-Catholic system from providing lab work for Planned Parenthood, as was done in the past. Legal challenges may play out in court thanks to a patients’ rights campaign by the ACLU and grassroots groups, but the broader question is this:

When it comes to medical options, whose beliefs count: the bishops’, or the patient’s? Who gets to say whether one woman is forced to incubate a pregnancy gone wrong or another is force-fed at the end of life? Whose version of god gets to dictate how you live and how you die?