Skip to content

We ask you, humbly: don't scroll away.

Hi readers, it seems you use Catholic Online a lot; that's great! It's a little awkward to ask, but we need your help. If you have already donated, we sincerely thank you. We're not salespeople, but we depend on donations averaging $14.76 and fewer than 1% of readers give. If you donate just $5.00, the price of your coffee, Catholic Online School could keep thriving. Thank you.

Help Now >

Catholic Physicians Guild Supports Bishop Olmsted's Rebuke of Nun over Abortion

Free World Class Education
FREE Catholic Classes
Guild stands by the church's teaching that is guided by the Holy Spirit in ordering life toward truth and love

The Catholic Physicians Guild of Phoenix has come out in support of Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted, who expressed outrage that a nun administrator at a Catholic hospital in his diocese permitted a direct abortion. The bishop had said that those who were formally involved in the abortion were automatically excommunicated from the Catholic Church.

We ask you, humbly: don't scroll away.

Hi readers, it seems you use Catholic Online a lot; that's great! It's a little awkward to ask, but we need your help. If you have already donated, we sincerely thank you. We're not salespeople, but we depend on donations averaging $14.76 and fewer than 1% of readers give. If you donate just $5.00, the price of your coffee, Catholic Online School could keep thriving. Thank you.

Help Now >

Highlights

By Kathleen Gilbert
LifeSiteNews (www.lifesitenews.com)
5/19/2010 (1 decade ago)

Published in U.S.

P>PHOENIX, Arizona (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Catholic Physicians Guild of Phoenix has come out in support of Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted, who expressed outrage that a nun administrator at a Catholic hospital in his diocese permitted a direct abortion. The bishop had said that those who were formally involved in the abortion were automatically excommunicated from the Catholic Church.

"The Catholic Physicians Guild of Phoenix fully supports the Most Rev. Thomas J. Olmsted with respect to matters of life of a mother pregnant with a child in her womb," stated William H. Brophy, M.D., president of the Guild, as published in the Arizona Republic Wednesday. "The Guild stands by the church's teaching that is guided by the Holy Spirit in ordering life toward truth and love."

Brophy continued: "An action which is in and of itself wrong, in that it lacks goodness as discerned by the light of human reason, is never justified by circumstances or intended end. Such is the case of abortion. A medical procedure, where the direct intention is the termination of pregnancy, is an abortion."

Echoing the sentiments of the Phoenix Bishop, Brophy reaffirmed that "medical treatments are appropriate for the direct purpose of curing a proportionately pathological condition of a pregnant woman, when they cannot be safely postponed until the unborn child is viable. When an unborn child attains viability, labor may be induced."

Olmsted had rebuked a religious sister and Catholic hospital administrator, who condoned a 2009 abortion on an 11-week pregnant woman suffering from pulmonary hypertension. According to the diocese, Sr. Margaret McBride of St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix told the bishop that she believed the abortion "was a morally good and allowable act according to Church teaching."

However, Olmsted, in a statement provided to the Republic, said that, "An unborn child is not a disease." "While medical professionals should certainly try to save a pregnant mother's life, the means by which they do it can never be by directly killing her unborn child. The end does not justify the means," he said.

Dr. Paul A. Byrne, Director of Neonatology and Pediatrics at St. Charles Mercy Hospital in Toledo, Ohio, told LifeSiteNews.com Monday that he knew of no situations when an abortion was necessary to save the life of the mother, and that "given just pulmonary hypertension, the answer is no" to abortion.

Sr. McBride has since been demoted from her position as vice president of mission integration.

---

LifeSiteNews.com is a non-profit Internet service dedicated to issues of culture, life, and family. It was launched in September 1997. LifeSiteNews Daily News reports and information pages are used by numerous organizations and publications, educators, professionals and political, religious and life and family organization leaders and grassroots people across North America and internationally.

Light Your Free Payer Candle for a departed loved one

What is Palm Sunday?

Live on March 20, 2024 @ 10am PDT

Join the Movement
When you sign up below, you don't just join an email list - you're joining an entire movement for Free world class Catholic education.

Lent logo
Saint of the Day logo
Deacon Keith Fournier Hi readers, it seems you use Catholic Online a lot; that's great! It's a little awkward to ask, but we need your help. If you have already donated, we sincerely thank you. We're not salespeople, but we depend on donations averaging $14.76 and fewer than 1% of readers give. If you donate just $5.00, the price of your coffee, Catholic Online School could keep thriving. Thank you. Help Now >

Catholic Online Logo

Copyright 2024 Catholic Online. All materials contained on this site, whether written, audible or visual are the exclusive property of Catholic Online and are protected under U.S. and International copyright laws, © Copyright 2024 Catholic Online. Any unauthorized use, without prior written consent of Catholic Online is strictly forbidden and prohibited.

Catholic Online is a Project of Your Catholic Voice Foundation, a Not-for-Profit Corporation. Your Catholic Voice Foundation has been granted a recognition of tax exemption under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Federal Tax Identification Number: 81-0596847. Your gift is tax-deductible as allowed by law.