This May Explain His Position on Abortion

Don, I’m sorry to stick this here in the comments section.

We’ve got huge problems and are desperate for some help getting it out there. Catholic periodicals are refusing to to publish the story because it exposes a Cardinal in a series of lies that will ultimately lead Catholic physicians, nurses and healthcare workers in Massachusetts and eventually other places from losing their conscience protections.

He has opined that Catholics may speak to women seeking abortions putting abortion in a positive light in a primary healthcare setting, they may provide referrals to abortion hotlines and even provide the woman with transportation. He has agreed to have planned parenthood monitor healthcare workers to be in compliance with this contract. One healthcare worker is suggesting that monitoring be done directly in the examination room with pregnant women. This, the Cardinal says, is completely consistent with Catholic ethics and the Gospel of Life.

Boston Catholics organized a large contingency of opposition which forced the Cardinal asked for a second opinion from the Bioethics Center but the Bioethics Center’s opinion will remain confidential and with the dishonest tenure of Cardinal O’Malley who has permitted Bryan Hehir to run the diocese, we do not trust that the opinion will be released in a timely manner or the be honest about the the contents of the opinion.

In response, the Cardinal is circulating communications that are dishonest about the facts and maligning faithful prolifers as people who are doing a disservice to the Church.

http://www.cardinalseansblog.org/

To be perfectly clear, Caritas Christi will never do anything to promote abortions, to direct any patients to providers of abortion or in any way to participate in actions that are contrary to Catholic moral teaching and anyone who suggests otherwise is doing a great disservice to the Catholic Church. We are committed to the Gospel of Life and no arrangemt will be entered into unless it is completely in accord with Church teaching.

Details from the Boston Globe:

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/03/13/mass_regulators_ok_joint_caritas_centene_healthcare_venture/

The Connector Authority board, which oversees the Commonwealth Care program, voted unanimously in favor of the joint venture proposed by Centene Corp., a St. Louis-based health organization, and Caritas Christi Health Care Network.

The vote followed several closed-door sessions in which officials from Centene and Caritas, the minority partner in the joint venture, assured regulators that women will have “ready access” to family planning and reproductive services, an issue that sparked concerns from abortion foes and reproductive rights activists.

Among the written assurances are a pledge that medical staff operating under the Centene-Caritas insurance plan, known as Commonwealth Family Health Plan, will inform women of their healthcare options, including abortion. The insurers will also provide a toll-free customer service line, available around the clock, to inform women about where they can get contraception, sterilization, and other family planning services not offered in the immediate setting. In an emergency, a service representative will arrange transportation to the nearest appropriate facility, officials said.

The regulators promised to watch closely. “We will certainly monitor their performance,” said Jon Kingsdale, the authority’s executive director. “We will not allow them to start up or continue if they are not in compliance.”

As a measure of the underlying tensions, four board members emphasized the need for oversight.

“I remain somewhat concerned about implementation,” said Nonnie Burnes, state commissioner of insurance and a former Planned Parenthood board member. “I am willing to support this as long as we have some way to monitor this” in doctor’s offices and other healthcare facilities.

When Caritas let the cat out of the bag the plans at the hospital level, he had to cease and desist saying there would be “no abortion referrals”. His most recent statement implies that while he appreciates the opportunity for Caritas employees to serve poor woman by providing her with abortion information, resources, phone numbers and sending her by taxi for the abortion, he’s waiting for the Bioethics Center to render an opinion on whether this is honest to God Catholic credo.

While I appreciate the opportunity given to Caritas Christi to serve the poor through this agreement, I wish to reaffirm that this agreement can only be realized if the moral obligations for Catholic hospitals as articulated in the Ethical and Religious Directives of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops are fulfilled at all times,O’Malley said. “To assure me that this agreement will provide for the integrity of the Catholic identity and practices of Caritas Christi Health Care System, I have asked the National Catholic Bioethics Center to review the agreement and to assure me that it is faithful to Catholic principles.”

This is a news release from Boston Catholic Action League.

NEWS RELEASE

THURSDAY, MARCH 12, 2009

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: C. J. DOYLE

(781) 251-9739

CATHOLIC ACTION LEAGUE DENOUNCES CARITAS CHRISTI DEAL WITH COMMONWEALTH CARE

The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts today criticized the Archdiocesan hospital network, Caritas Christi, for accepting a state contract, in conjunction with the Centene Corporation, to provide Commonwealth Care health insurance, which includes abortion coverage. The Commonwealth Health Insurance Connector Authority Board awarded the contract this morning after Caritas/Centene assured the panel that women will have “ready access” to timely family planning services such as abortion, sterilization and contraception.

The Catholic Action League called the contract “a significant defeat for the pro-life movement, inflicted not by secular society, but by the Catholic Church in Boston.”

Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle stated: “What remains of the Catholic character of Caritas Christi has now been fatally compromised. The partnership in which Caritas Christi is one of the two principals will provide ‘ready access’ to abortion, which the Catholic religion condemns as ‘an abominable crime’. ”

“It is now clear that the Archdiocese of Boston has spent the last week cynically misdirecting Catholics and the general public with empty assurances that Caritas Christi would not collaborate in abortion. If a woman with a Commonwealth Care card walks into a Caritas Christi hospital seeking an abortion, she will be directed back to her health plan — the Caritas/Centene partnership — which will not only arrange for the procedure, but if necessary will provide transportation to the facility which performs it.”

“With Caritas Christi now thoroughly embedded in the culture of death, we are now facing the end, in Massachusetts at least, of Catholic medical resistance to abortion and contraception. This tragic state of affairs is the personal responsibility of the Archbishop of Boston, Cardinal Sean O’Malley, who not only failed to stop this contract, but who endorsed it while making unsupportable assertions implausibly denying what everyone else knew — that the contract required participation in the deliberate killing of innocent unborn children.”

Please help us get it out there – Carol McKinley
http://votingcatholicin2008.blogspot.com/