A shocking report in the Washington Times today:
Federal authorities are investigating the actions of a Catholic charity in Richmond which helped a 16-year-old Guatemalan girl to receive an abortion in January, in possible violation of Virginia law.Officials have called the matter to the attention of U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) headquarters in Washington, urging it to prevent any repetition of the incident.
Four employees of Commonwealth Catholic Charities, Richmond, (CCR) have been fired and one supervisor with the bishops' Migration and Refugee Services agency has been suspended, according to federal sources and a secret April 29 letter written by three bishops to 350 bishops nationwide.
The two-page missive from Richmond Bishop Francis X. DiLorenzo, Salt Lake City Bishop John C. Wester and Bishop Michael P. Driscoll of Boise, Idaho, was prompted by a federal investigation requested on April 23.
The bishops' letter, first publicized Friday by the Wanderer, a national Catholic weekly newspaper, detailed a series of botched management decisions that preceded the Jan. 18 abortion.
The unnamed girl, who already had one child, had been fitted with a contraceptive device provided by CCR two months earlier, the letter said. CCR members signed the consent form necessary for a minor to have an abortion and had someone drive her to and from the abortion clinic.
This is rich:
"Some members of the MRS staff were not sufficiently aware of church teaching and [USCCB] policy regarding these matters to take stronger and more appropriate actions," Bishops DiLorenzo, Wester and Driscoll said in a letter to their peers.
Yes, some people who work for the Catholic Church are apparently unaware that the Catholic Church teaches that abortion is the taking of a human life. Really, these bishops expect people to believe that.
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The CCR people involved in this horrendous scandal have been fired, and --- if they're Catholic -- they are excommunicated latae sententiae (automatically.)
They may be fired, but they are most likely not excommunicated. The person who signed the consent form, given its apparent absolute necessity, would be excommunicated as an accomplice assuming the 4 other factors necessary for excommunication were present. The only other clean up is that ignorance generally isn't a defense for an intrinsically evil act.
Ignorance doesn't absolve one of their moral culpability for committing an intrinsically evil act; it does mean they don't also incur a canonical penalty for it. In Church law (vs. civil law), you can't be sanctioned for doing something you didn't know had a sanction attached to it. (Canon 1323 of the 1983 Code is the one listing the conditions on penalties like excommunication, for those interested.)
Julianne's point about Catholic Charities being funded by non-Catholic sources is a good one, but deserving of amplification. There are individual Catholic Charities groups which are part of their own dioceses, which do not necessarily receive government funding. (The Catholic Charities in my diocese receives no tax dollars whatsoever, for instance.)
These diocesan groups are not necessarily part of the national Catholic Charities organization, which does receive tax dollars.
The Bishop of Richmond is ultimately responsible for the conduct of those in his employ. Like Bernard Law, he will probably be promoted instead of confronted. Aiding in and actually procuring an abortion is one of the most grave offenses against the Catholic Faith. On a scale from spitting on a sidewalk to capitsal murder it's right up there with murder. The only decent response is for him to resign. He hates the diocese. He has no use for any of the priests. Ironically a number of priests he threw out of Honolulu are now being restored to priestly ministry by the current administration. He has shown not an ounce of mercy or compassion. Let's hope the people of the Diocese of Richmond as well as the priests show him absolutely no mercy for what he is ultimately accountable for: not only allowing but encouraging a 16 year old juvenile to have an abortion...the murder of an innocent life. He should be thrown out.
Write to the Holy Father. Write to the Apostolic Nuncio in Washington. Do not give anything to the church collections but encourage your pastor to set aside your donations in a special fund until the bishop is removed. Show that his behavior is not acceptable. USe your voice and the power of the purse to make Rome remove him. Otherwise, if you do nothing, the un-Christian, un-Catholic behavior will continue.
The only acceptable solution to this grave scandal to God's people pf all faiths is that the Bishop of the Richmond Catholic Diocese should be made to retire or forced to resign.
I have been scandalized and I am sure thousands upon thousands of others have as well. To even think of a Catholic entity promoting much less procuring an abortion is unthinkable.
To do this to a minor child under their care is something that must be punished appropriately.
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