Commentary on the Catholic Charities Abortion Scandal

If you haven't already read this, sit down.  The Washington Times reports that Commonwealth Catholic Charities employees in Richmond, VA helped procure an abortion of the unborn child of a 16 year old Guatemalan girl. That's right-- employees of a Catholic agency helped an underage girl to kill an innocent baby.  

The picture above was taken at the 2007 Pro-Life Rally at the St. Mary's Oratory of the Institute of Christ the King, Sovereign Priest.  This is the universally-known image of the Catholic Church and its position on abortion:  staunchly pro-life, and willing to make our faith and the natural law known.  A scandal such as the one in Virginia cannot be overstated-- the Church cannot be seen as favoring, promoting, allowing, or looking the other way from, the murder of innocent babies.

There are a couple of bloggers' takes on this that merit reading.  Amy Welborn notes that this type of thing is a result of a group claiming to be Catholic where actually believing the faith is not a requirement of employment.  Parallels could be drawn in other areas, too:

The ignorance plea is getting really old. No one knew pedophilia was incurable, our employees were unaware of the Catholic Church’s teaching on abortion and contraception. Nonsense. Do a Jay Leno and take to the streets and ask John and Mary American…”What does the Catholic Church say about abortion?” I’m pretty sure, unlike Leno’s other questions, you’d get a 100% correct answering rate.

No - a more honest answer might  - note I say might be willing to suggest: “Evidently in this Catholic Charities office, fidelity to Church teaching on life was not part of the criteria for hiring and retention and the offices were not run in a way in which employee action was clearly an expression of the Church’s commitment to life. We’re going to have to re-evaluate the sensibilities, presumptions and environment in which CC and the MRS office operates to make sure this is not systemic. “

And this from Rorate Caeli, which calls for the resignation of the Bishop in its editorial on the subject.  Without commenting on the call for resignation (as I have not nearly enough information on the internal workings of that agency to take a position), their description of what occurred can make you weep:

Catholic Charities of Richmond, Inc, an agency of the Diocese of Richmond, Virginia, first provided a "contraceptive device" to a poor 16-year-old Guatemalan girl. Then, according to Federal authorities, Catholic Charities' "members signed the consent form necessary for a minor to have an abortion and had someone drive her to and from the abortion clinic" in January 2008.

This is much more scandalous than the child abuse crisis. This is murder! Heads must roll, and not just those of the employees, but mainly that of the overseeing Bishop.  He must resign.

Catholic Charities of Richmond is obviously out of control; the overseer of all Catholic activities related to the Diocese of Richmond is its Bishop, Francis Xavier DiLorenzo. What took place under his watch was no mere "incident". It was the death of an innocent human being, placed by Divine Providence under the care of a Church agency, whose overseer was and is the Bishop.