Cardinal seeks changes to Caritas venture

For me, the key sentence of the article is this one:

"When a patient seeks such a procedure, Caritas healthcare professionals will be clear that (a) the hospital does not perform them and (b) the patient must turn to his or her insurer for further guidance,"[Dr. Ralph] de la Torre said."

In other words, is there a real, substantial equivalence between what the Cardinal is sayin, "no referrals," and what Dr. de la Torre, President of Caritas is saying,
when he says "the Caritas health care professionals will make clear" and "turn to one's insurer for more guidance," or is the Dr.'s phraseology a 'referral?' Until i find out, i continue to reluctantly withhold my archdiocesan appeal donation.

Yes, that's the statement that grabbed me, too.

What Catholics are supposed to do when someone "seeks such a procedure" is to try to prevent it. It's called being "pro-life."

There are a zillion, and perhaps I'm exaggerating a tad but not much, places to refer women (and their partners) seeking "such procedures" which are compassionate, effective, safe...and save lives.

Hi gaudete, Mikey, ALL,

ST: Cursed either Way / Encouraging Life

Accepting money from the state that makes the rules always causes problems. Yet we pay money to the state and should be able to help the population at large even non-pro-life Christians/Pagans with our money. It is one of those ethical dilemmas that needs to worked out when the state is cooperative. We just saw NH do a naughty, yet they may have placed a workable band-aide on their new Mass copy cat law.

The thing I really want to see is the Doctor or Nurse Practitioner encouraging Life, Breast Feeding, etc as part of the patient/medical dialog. Tell them who to see about Life Planning that includes children, religion, family, and money. Maybe the Hospital even has parent classes. NOW if the patient really wants an abortion or asks about it, you can give your option-out after you have given your life opt-in.

Maybe they need a "Warning Sign" placed on the wall like at hazardous sports parlors so that the patient is informed and the medical people ONLY need to be pro-life, using the sign as their referral.

The joint statement was, sadly, misleading. The arrangement is, in fact, not at all exactly the same procedures in place now at Catholic hospitals. When emotionally distraught women in an unplanned pregnancy come to a Catholic Hospital, we are free to give them guidance consistent with Catholic teachings alone. The referrals we currently give are to pregnancy crisis centers with personnel that assist the mother in understanding there is a child within her womb and abortion is not an option for her. The referrals we give are about assistance and support during her pregnancy, counseling, guidance and if necessary, references about adoption services. Abortionists are not involved. Caritas has promised to give proabortion guidance to the patient and monitor Catholics to be sure they are complying.

Secondly, when Mr. de la Torre says the patient will be sent back to "their insurance company" what he is leaving out in that dynamic, is that the "insurance company" is "Celticare" which Caritas owns and Caritas has contracted with the abortionists to provide the abortions under the name "Celticare". Caritas also under the name "CeltiCare" has hired bilingual people to answer the phone in the call centers to give out the number of the people they subcontracted with to perform the abortions.

The Joint Statement backfired.

Does anyone educated on the facts really believe that the National Catholic Bioethics Center has been trying to crack the code of Humanae Vitae and Evangelium Vitae to find a morsel they can use to modify the partnership agreement that will comport with the creation of CeltiCare to hire people to answer the phone to send the women to the abortionists Caritas has subcontracted with so they can flow the multimillion dollars through and claim the arrangement is not a cash cow?
The Cardinal has one card left in his hand and if he's smart enough to listen to his colleagues telling him what the problems are theologically that make this deal impossible, he'll have an epiphany. there will be a 'ta da' moment and he'll block the venture and walk away with some measure of his credibility intact and recoverable.
If he sticks with the credo of the last three months, he's got a big web of lies on his hands that will grow like Pinocchio's nose. We will not let this kind of a scandal blow over.