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Texas Catholic hospitals challenge bishop: announce plans to continue sterilizations (Subscribe to RSS Feed)

Tyler, Texas, Dec. 15, 2008 (CWNews.com) -

A Catholic hospital system in the Diocese of Tyler, Texas, has announced that it will continue to perform sterilizations despite an explicit order from the local bishop to stop the procedures.

Trinity Mother Frances Health Care System, which had earlier responded to criticism by Bishop Alvaro Corrado by saying that its hospitals had performed sterilizations under a "good-faith interpretation" of Church teachings, has now made a stronger claim: "Medically necessary indirect sterilizations are permitted," the Trinity Mother Frances argued, in cases of medical necessity.

In November, Bishop Alvaro Corrada of Tyler issued a public statement acknowledging with regret that Catholic hospitals in his Texas diocese had performed sterilizations, and saying that these procedures constituted a clear violation of Church teaching. The bishop ordered the hospitals to stop the sterilizations immediately, and advised those involved in the operations to recognize their error and confess their sins.

The immorality of intentional sterilization, Bishop Corrada said, "cannot be altered by appeals to erroneous theological opinions." He added that the ban on such procedures is "infallibly and universally taught by the Catholic Church."

Nevertheless Trinity Mother Frances argues that "indirect" sterilizations may be justified on a case-by-case basis by the attending physician. The health-care system cites paragraph 53 of Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Facilities, a document prepared for the US bishops' conference. That paragraph states: "Procedures that induce sterility are premitted when their direct effect is the cure or alleviation of a present and serious pathology and a simpler treatment is not available." That paragraph in the US bishops' document includes a footnote citing a Vatican instruction which stipulates that tubal ligations-- the type of sterilizations performed at Trinity Mother Frances-- cannot be justified.