UNITED STATES Hospital stripped of Catholic status


Michael Sean Winters In Washington


BISHOP THOMAS OLMSTEDof Phoenix has ordered St Joseph’s Hospital to cease calling itself “Catholic” because of its unwillingness to admit culpability for an abortion performed at the hospital in 2009, and comply with an ultimatum he issued for such an admission last month. In a highly unusual move, Bishop Olmsted also ordered the hospital to remove the Blessed Sacrament from its chapel and suspended the celebration of all Masses at the facility. Masses are regularly said at non-Catholic hos- pitals and most reserve the Blessed Sacrament in their chapels or other appropriate areas.


■The small town of Champion, Wisconsin, now boasts the first shrine to the Blessed Mother at the site of a local apparition in the United States, writes Michael Sean Winters. Bishop David Ricken of Green Bay, Wisconsin, decreed that the 1859 apparitions of the Virgin Mary to a Belgian


VENEZUELA


Chávez ‘moving towards dictatorship’


ARCHBISHOP Baltazar Porras Cardozo of Merida has attacked the recent move in the national parliament that gives President Hugo Chávez the right to rule by decree, writes Jon Stibbs. The vice president of the Venezuelan Bishops’ Conference scathingly described the Enabling Law “Ley Habilitante”, passed on 17 December 2010, as a sign that the country was “moving towards a dictatorship”.President Chávez asked the National Assembly to give him a year to rule by decree in the aftermath of devastating flooding, which has made more than 100,000 Venezuelans homeless.


FARM STREET, MAYFAIR JESUIT CHURCH


Sunday 2 January 2011 Epiphany:


11am*: Solemn Latin Mass with organ and congregational singing.


* The Choir is on holiday for January 2 2011. They will return to sing at the 11am Solemn Latin Mass on January 9 2011


www.farmstreet.org.uk 34 | THE TABLET | 1 January 2011


At issue in the dispute is whether the abor- tion was “indirect” and therefore licit under the Church’s ethical directives, as the hospital administrators maintain, or if it was a “direct” abortion that violated the ethical directives. A woman suffering from hypertension,


exacerbated by the placenta surrounding her unborn 11-week-old child, was near death when doctors performed the procedure which has already resulted in the bishop’s announce- ment in May that Sr Margaret McBride had incurred the penalty of excommunication for her role in the decision to permit the abortion. The hospital president, Linda Hunt, said: “Consistent with our values of dignity and justice, if … a pregnancy threatens a woman’s life, our first priority is to save both patients.


immigrant, Adele Brise, were authentic, the first such decree in American history. Two years after the


apparitions, a small chapel was constructed to Our Lady of Good Hope. Greatly expanded, the chapel has remained a popular destination for devout Catholics in the Midwest. Now,


If that is not possible, we will always save the life we can save, and that is what we did in this case.” Bishop Olmsted, in his ultimatum to the hospital, wrote: “Your actions commu- nicate to me that you do not respect my authority to authentically teach and interpret moral law in this diocese.” The Catholic Health Association supported the position of the hospital administrators. “St Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix has many programmes that reach out to protect life,” wrote Sr Carol Keehan, CEO of the association. “They had been con- fronted with a heartbreaking situation. They carefully evaluated the patient’s situation and correctly applied the ‘Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services’.”


with the bishop officially decreeing after a two-year investigation that the apparitions are “worthy of belief”, the number of pilgrims is expected to rise. In the US, there are many shrines to the Virgin under the title of “Our Lady of Lourdes” or “Our Lady of Guadalupe”.


Marian devotion in the early US Church is seen by the dedication of the first cathedral, in Baltimore, to the Assumption. In 1846, the American bishops, assembled in Baltimore, decreed that Mary would be the patroness of the US under the title of the Immaculate Conception.


AUSTRALIA Solidarity with asylum seekers after tragedy


THE VATICAN has urged the Australian Church to persist with advocacy and assistance for asylum seekers following the deaths of up to 50 people on 15 December 2010 when their boat was dashed against the shore of the Australian Indian Ocean territory of Christmas Island, writes Mark Brolly. In a letter of condolence two days after the


tragedy, the president of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People, Archbishop Antonio Veglio, expressed his deep sadness at news of the tragedy, his condolences and spiritual closeness to families of the victims and his assurance of prayers for those lost at sea and for the survivors.


■INDIA: Church officials and Christian activists in India suspect that a flurry of attacks on Christian targets ahead of Christmas were coordinated, writes Anto Akkara. On 18 December two dozen


carol singers were assaulted by Hindu fundamentalists in Mumbai, with the assailants even taking the carol singers to a police station and accusing them of insulting Hindus. Two days earlier, Fr Thomas


“In the meantime, I encourage you to keep on with your generous and passionate work in favour of migrants and asylum seekers,” Archbishop Veglio wrote in the letter to Bishop Joseph Grech of Sandhurst, president of the Australian Catholic Migrant and Refugee Office, and co-signed by the council’s under- secretary, Fr Gabriele Bentoglio. ■Bishop Joseph Grech died on Monday, aged 62, following the recurrence of a blood disorder. He had served the Sandhurst Diocese since 2001, having been ordained in 1975 and appointed a bishop in 1998. Bishops’ confer- ence president Archbishop Philip Wilson said Bishop Grech was an “exceptional pastor”.


Chirattavayalil, who heads a remote mission centre at Odagady village under Satna Diocese in Madhya Pradesh state, was attacked and seriously injured in a midnight raid on the mission. Statues of the Virgin Mary, St John and Mary Magdalene at Calvary were found decapitated and disfigured at Our Lady of Health shrine in Guntakal under Kurnool Diocese in Andhra Pradesh


state on 12 December. “These attacks look sporadic and isolated. But there is a clear pattern and strategy behind it. Maybe, this is their way of greeting us for Christmas,” said Joseph Dais, secretary of the Catholic Secular Forum of Mumbai. “Certainly, we have reasons to suspect there is a hidden agenda behind such violence,” said Fr Babu Joseph, spokesman for the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India.


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