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A Convenient Morality
By FRANK BRUNI
Published: February 4, 2013 271 Comments

Last week, the Obama administration proposed a further tweak to its rules about insurance coverage of contraception, trying to quiet religious organizations’ complaints that the edict tramples on their beliefs. Roman Catholic officials have been especially vociferous. Their moral conviction, they insist, cannot be slave to secular convention.

Except, that is, when it works to their advantage. When it profits them. And this two-tracked approach was illustrated by another recent news story, one that flickered onto and then off the public’s radar more quickly than it should have, and deserves a closer look.

The news story brought to light a wrongful-death suit by a widower, Jeremy Stodghill, in regard to his wife and the twin 28-week-old fetuses inside her when she died in a Catholic hospital, St. Thomas More, in Cañon City, Colorado.

The hospital’s lawyers argued that the woman’s death couldn’t have been prevented. As to whether proper medical attention might have yielded the delivery of two healthy baby boys, lawyers argued that the question was ultimately irrelevant, because wrongful death can apply only to people and, legally speaking, fetuses aren’t human lives.

This isn’t how the Catholic Church is supposed to see things. It’s the opposite. The church staunchly opposes abortion, holding that life begins at conception, and has even raised concerns about the morning-after pill. And the fetuses inside Lori Stodghill, 31, were four weeks past what’s generally considered viability.

Lawyers by nature use the best strategies available to them, in a brutal arena where failing to do so puts clients at a disadvantage. And the Colorado litigation is just one case involving one Catholic hospital, which may not have gotten any green light for its arguments from high-ranking church officials. In fact, Colorado’s three Catholic bishops on Monday released a statement that articulated their objection to the hospital’s legal approach and said it should be abandoned henceforth.

But the hospital isn’t some random outlier. It’s run by Catholic Health Initiatives, which operates 78 hospitals in more than a dozen states. And a habit of clinging to a religious identity one moment and abandoning it the next is visible beyond this case, especially in the church’s management of its child sexual abuse crisis.

We’ve been getting a fresh and galling peek into that with the court-compelled release of documents from the Los Angeles Archdiocese, which engaged in a pattern of willful blindness and outright cover-up so egregious that the current archbishop, José Gomez, took the shocking step last week of publicly reprimanding his predecessor, Cardinal Roger Mahony.

The documents show that Mahony and his lieutenants repeatedly failed to report allegations to law enforcement officials and urged accused priests to leave or stay out of the state, lest they face prosecution. They decided, in short, that the church’s representatives and reputation mattered more than justice: that the church could hold itself above laws that governed everybody else.

This was hardly isolated behavior. Around the country, the church has beaten back lawsuits by priests’ victims and tried not to furnish information about priests’ wrongdoing by claiming that such scrutiny violates the free exercise of religion, said Jeffrey Anderson, a Minnesota lawyer who has represented hundreds of victims over three decades. “It’s audacious, it’s bold and it’s across the board,” he said.

But the church has simultaneously reserved the right to behave just like any other institution, leaning on legal technicalities, smearing victims and demonstrating no more compassion than a tobacco company might show. “In the name of Jesus,” Anderson told me, “they do things that Jesus would abhor.”

They do things erratically, that’s for sure. From my extensive reporting on the sexual abuse crisis in the 1990s, I don’t recall any great push to excommunicate priests who forced themselves on kids. But when Sister Margaret McBride, in 2009, was part of a Phoenix hospital’s decision to abort an 11-week-old fetus inside a 27-year-old woman whose life was gravely endangered by the pregnancy, she indeed suffered excommunication (later reversed).

So a fetus matters more than the ravaged psyche of a raped adolescent? And Sister McBride deserved harsher rebuke than a rapist? It’s hard not to conclude that a church run by men shows them more mercy than it does women (or, for that matter, children).

And it’s hard to keep track: just when is the church of this world, and when not? It inserts itself into political debates, trying to shape legislation to its ethics. But it also demands exemption: from taxes, from accountability, from health care directives.

And in the Colorado wrongful-death case, the hospital suddenly adopted the courts’, not the church’s, definition of life. Only now, with that argument already made, is Catholic Health Initiatives saying it made a moral error.

A district court rejected Jeremy Stodghill’s wrongful-death claims. He and his lawyer, Beth Krulewitch, have appealed to the state’s Supreme Court.

One final verdict is already in. On the charge of self-serving hypocrisy, the church is guilty.

D1B wrote:When it profits them

89Hen wrote:

D1B wrote:When it profits them

AZGrizFan wrote:I thought we'd seen the end of these, what with the Catholics saving your brother and all?

AZGrizFan wrote:I thought we'd seen the end of these, what with the Catholics saving your brother and all?

D1B wrote:

89Hen wrote:

Bruni's quote.

89Hen wrote:

D1B wrote:
Bruni's quote.

Yes, and it's stupid.

D1B wrote:

89Hen wrote: Yes, and it's stupid.

Whatever. What is your church doing?

89Hen wrote:

D1B wrote:
Whatever. What is your church doing?

In this case, asking the law be applied consistantly. The church spends a lot of time, effort and money campaining for the right to life, BUT until the courts agree with them, they are simply asking for the courts to follow their own laws.

D1B wrote:

89Hen wrote: In this case, asking the law be applied consistantly. The church spends a lot of time, effort and money campaining for the right to life, BUT until the courts agree with them, they are simply asking for the courts to follow their own laws.

What a bunch of fucking losers and cowards.

D1B wrote:

AZGrizFan wrote:I thought we'd seen the end of these, what with the Catholics saving your brother and all?

Just the negative posts. The Times article deals with several pertinent political and moral issues.

If you don't like these threads, go **** yourself you boorish, unrefined prick.

89Hen wrote:

D1B wrote:
Whatever. What is your church doing?

In this case, asking the law be applied consistantly. The church spends a lot of time, effort and money campaining for the right to life, BUT until the courts agree with them, they are simply asking for the courts to follow their own laws.

ASUMountaineer wrote:

89Hen wrote: In this case, asking the law be applied consistantly. The church spends a lot of time, effort and money campaining for the right to life, BUT until the courts agree with them, they are simply asking for the courts to follow their own laws.

So, the moral high ground is of no concern? I understand what you're saying, but the church is trying to bully its way to not providing insurance coverage for birth control. So, if the church is "simply asking for the courts to follow their own laws," shouldn't the church be willing to follow the law?

Lawyers by nature use the best strategies available to them, in a brutal arena where failing to do so puts clients at a disadvantage.

LeadBolt wrote:

D1B wrote:
Just the negative posts. The Times article deals with several pertinent political and moral issues.

If you don't like these threads, go **** yourself you boorish, unrefined prick.

Now there is a response that's neither boorish nor unrefined.

89Hen wrote:

ASUMountaineer wrote:
So, the moral high ground is of no concern? I understand what you're saying, but the church is trying to bully its way to not providing insurance coverage for birth control. So, if the church is "simply asking for the courts to follow their own laws," shouldn't the church be willing to follow the law?

The church will continue to fight for the right to life, that's where the moral high ground will be fought.

Lawyers by nature use the best strategies available to them, in a brutal arena where failing to do so puts clients at a disadvantage.

GannonFan wrote:Eh, I've said all along I don't believe the Church is consistent anyway when it comes to birth control. Natural Family Planning (with the graphing of morning temperature, check of the fluids downstairs, etc), if done correctly, has the same effectiveness as condoms or other birth control. Heck, the Church actively advertises it as a way to postpone childbirth and to have children when it makes sense to have children. And non-Catholics who are having trouble getting pregnant use that method, or variance of it, to pinpoint when they can get pregnant.

If the Church says on one hand that you can plan pregnancies and when to have kids, and then on the other hand says you can't do it the same thing with a latex condom, then all they are saying is that God's kryptonite, apparently, is the all-mighty latex. Frankly, I think the creator of the universe should be able to overcome latex if he wanted to. I'm all for birth control, in spite of the Church's teachings on it.

89Hen wrote:

ASUMountaineer wrote:
So, the moral high ground is of no concern? I understand what you're saying, but the church is trying to bully its way to not providing insurance coverage for birth control. So, if the church is "simply asking for the courts to follow their own laws," shouldn't the church be willing to follow the law?

The church will continue to fight for the right to life, that's where the moral high ground will be fought.

Unless it's in their best interest to do otherwise.

Lawyers by nature use the best strategies available to them, in a brutal arena where failing to do so puts clients at a disadvantage.

UNI88 wrote:Catholic Health Initiatives ceded the moral high ground when their hospital's lawyers made the argument that "legally speaking, fetuses aren’t human lives." When they made that argument they demonstrated a willingness to compromise their values and as a result, I see no reason that that particular organization should be given a waiver from the requirement to provide coverage for birth control. If they can compromise their values to win a legal action then they can compromise on health care coverage.

ASUMountaineer wrote:Catholic Health Initiatives enabled their lawyers to use strategies that are counter to catholic teaching (fetuses are not human lives). You can try to push the blame on the lawyers that serve at the pleasure of the Catholic Health Initiatives, but it is disingenuous and shifting responsibility. The truth is, Catholic Health Initiatives placed saving money (avoiding being put at a disadvantage) above their convictions.

What better way to prove that they value human life, than by admitting that a mistake was made and that they will compensate the husband/father for his losses?

89Hen wrote:

ASUMountaineer wrote:Catholic Health Initiatives enabled their lawyers to use strategies that are counter to catholic teaching (fetuses are not human lives). You can try to push the blame on the lawyers that serve at the pleasure of the Catholic Health Initiatives, but it is disingenuous and shifting responsibility. The truth is, Catholic Health Initiatives placed saving money (avoiding being put at a disadvantage) above their convictions.

What better way to prove that they value human life, than by admitting that a mistake was made and that they will compensate the husband/father for his losses?

Do you think that would help change the law?

ASUMountaineer wrote:

89Hen wrote: Do you think that would help change the law?

No, but it wouldn't have been counter to their convictions. Actually, CHI should be actively lobbying to change the law, not embracing it to save $$.

Do you agree that CHI sacrificed their "deeply held" convictions to save $$. And, if so, are you saying it is ok for CHI to be hypocritical to save some $$? I am sure the opportunity to reach of settlement was available. That would have benefited everyone and allowed CHI to maintain their convictions. Instead, you're trying to hide behind the law and lawyers--much like CHI. If it's all about the $$, just say so.

89Hen wrote:

ASUMountaineer wrote:
No, but it wouldn't have been counter to their convictions. Actually, CHI should be actively lobbying to change the law, not embracing it to save $$.

Do you agree that CHI sacrificed their "deeply held" convictions to save $$. And, if so, are you saying it is ok for CHI to be hypocritical to save some $$? I am sure the opportunity to reach of settlement was available. That would have benefited everyone and allowed CHI to maintain their convictions. Instead, you're trying to hide behind the law and lawyers--much like CHI. If it's all about the $$, just say so.

The LAW is counter to their convictions. Doing something contrary to the law is a foolish way to behave. No, I don't agree they sacrificed anything. I'm sure CHI is actively lobbying to change the law.

89Hen wrote:

ASUMountaineer wrote:
No, but it wouldn't have been counter to their convictions. Actually, CHI should be actively lobbying to change the law, not embracing it to save $$.

Do you agree that CHI sacrificed their "deeply held" convictions to save $$. And, if so, are you saying it is ok for CHI to be hypocritical to save some $$? I am sure the opportunity to reach of settlement was available. That would have benefited everyone and allowed CHI to maintain their convictions. Instead, you're trying to hide behind the law and lawyers--much like CHI. If it's all about the $$, just say so.

The LAW is counter to their convictions. Doing something contrary to the law is a foolish way to behave. No, I don't agree they sacrificed anything. I'm sure CHI is actively lobbying to change the law.