The Continuing Embarrassment of Uncle Harry

Every family has one — let’s call him Uncle Harry:  A family member whom everyone wants to see go away, but he shows up at every family gathering, loud, full of himself, and usually drunk. Although largely irrelevant for years, he is the only one who doesn’t know it.  He’s one of those know-it-alls who won’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.  A major family embarrassment, whom the family puts up with because … well, he’s family.

This image occurred to me as I picked up the latest issue of the National Catholic Reporter and saw where Bishop Thomas Olmstead of Phoenix is back in the news. You may recall, as reported here (“Power Corrupts; Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely”), the bishop declared Sister Margaret Mary McBride automatically excommunicated when she and other Catholics at St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix assented to terminating an 11-week pregnancy.  The decision was made when it was determined the woman’s life was in mortal danger if she continued the pregnancy

Bishop Olmstead is having none of this.  He is now demanding the hospital agree with him in writing that the procedure was an abortion and comply with other demands.  If the hospital doesn’t fully comply, he says, he will strip the hospital of its Catholic status.  There is no “tie in this debate,” the National Catholic Reporter reports the bishop as saying.  “Until this point in time, you have not acknowledged my authority to settle the question.”  He says his action is necessary “to repair the grave scandal to the Christian faithful that has resulted from this procedure.”

The only scandal, in my mind, is the rock-headed authoritarianism of the bishop who is a continuing affront and embarrassment to many Catholics around the country, including this one. To her credit, Sister Mary Margaret McBride is maintaining her silence. She doesn’t need to say anything.  He’s said it all.

Once again the Catholic Church is made to look foolish, and that is not the Catholic Church many of us still believe in despite the continuing idiocies of many of the hierarchy. The Catholic Church I choose to focus on is the one recently touted in a USA Today article (“Why Catholicism is Good for America”) by non-Catholic Tom Krattenmaker, a Portland based writer who specializes in religion in public life.

“Under the weight of these problems and others, some are probably more convinced than ever that it's time for the Catholic Church to fade into history. But as a non-Catholic paying attention to the church's travails, I am struck, too, by the steadfast faith of the Catholics I know, and the principled public witness of the Catholics on the ground — the nuns, community activists, volunteers and everyday parishioners who keep on keeping on in the face of adversity.”

Gerald E. Lavey