Still Running Off at the Keyboard

Charles J. Chaput, Archbishop of Denver, is pointing to coercion by pro-abortion groups and some state legislators in a local controversy over the merger of non-Catholic hospitals with a Catholic health care system run by the Sisters of Charity. ...

Critics of the merger have proposed two bills in the state legislature to hinder it.

In his February 22 letter, Archbishop Chaput defended the merger against its critics.

He noted that Catholic hospitals had served Colorado for more than a century. He suggested that some critics, ignorant of this history, lacked both “memory and common sense.” The hospital merger, the archbishop said, had sparked “unreasonable resistance” that should concern all Catholics. ...

Archbishop Chaput said, “the local bishop does have the obligation to ensure that Catholic hospitals act in accord with their Catholic identity. Reasonable people will see very quickly that there is no such thing as ‘strictly’ or ‘loosely’ following the ERDs -- any more than a person can be strictly or loosely faithful in a marriage. A husband is faithful, or he isn't.”

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