A Defense of Bishop Olmsted to the Attack by the New York Times

The continuous assault on the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church are in a way to be expected. History has recounted numerous occasions in the past two thousand years of evil men, dictatorial governments and treacherous ideas attempting to masquerade as the truth, wiling to destroy those who would not bow to their demands or adopt their ideas. During the last century there were two ideologies which attacked Christianity and especially Catholicism. Today their successors in interest continue their efforts to undermine the timeless teachings of the Church. Whether the subject is abortion, contraception, or homosexuality, secular humanists have pitted themselves against church teaching.

On Tuesday a columnist names Nicholas Kristof, someone who has absolutely no first hand knowledge of the events surrounding the problem at St. Joseph's Hospital, decided to attack Bishop Thomas Olmsted. His opinion piece has the condescending attitude of someone who hates the church. He showed a contempt for the truth, as well as a lack of understanding of Church teaching. But then why figure out the facts when one can gratuitously attack the Church?

It is a common problem when dealing with those who attempt to marginalize reason with what suits them. Here St. Joseph's hospital decades long refusal to adhere to Catholic teaching forced the bishop's hand. Instead of recognizing the authority of the bishop in matters of morality, the hospital chose to dissent. Rather than acknowledge the error and seek to reconcile, the hospital administration and board chose to be obstinate.

Finally one must remember the underlying principle at stake. One can never do a direct moral evil in order to attempt amoral good. Or to quote from the comments section, "Is it morally acceptable that a good result (saving a mothers life) can result from an otherwise evil act (the taking of the fetus life)?" And that question presumes that the action was even necessary.

For those who live with one millions abortions a year, there is no moral quandary. But for those who take serious the admonition, thou shalt not kill, the death of an innocent child must not be allowed. Further, if that death occurs, one must point out that such a loss is a violation of all that is sacred. Calling for an admittance that a wrong took place and asking the party to take responsibility is the act of one who cares about all involved.

Many people have believed the partial story released by the hospital to defend its actions. Such actions included a direct abortion of an unborn child. As much as the hospital "claims: the mother's life was in immediate danger of death, the diagnosis does not seem to bear this out. Finally there is a doctor who treats the underlying cause of the problem and the disposition of the pregnancy to the betterment of both mother and child. I mentioned her work in a previous post at my other blog called Jakubczyk on Life.

Bishop Olmsted is a compassionate bishop who also cares about the integrity of the Faith. He does not need to be questioned by all the little popes who populate the New York Times. After all since when did the Times ever care about the will of God or our immortal souls?

It was a courageous action on the part of the bishop to call the hospital to account. It was arrogance and pride on the part of the hospital to refuse to accept the bishop's admonition. It is a loss to us all whenever the teachings of Christ are ignored. One can only hope that some good will come from this situation.