10 things to look for at the U.S. bishops’ fall meeting this week

Zelda Caldwell   By Zelda Caldwell for CNA

November 14, 2022 Catholic News Agency News Briefs 11 Print

 

USCCB Fall Meeting 2021 / CNA

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Nov 14, 2022 / 09:30 am (CNA).

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) will hold its annual fall meeting in Baltimore this week. Here are 10 things to expect from this week’s gathering:

1. Farewell speech from outgoing president Archbishop José Gomez

The meeting will mark the end of Archbishop José Gomez of Los Angeles’ three-year term as president of the USCCB.

Gomez successfully navigated a way out of the controversy (and division among the bishops) over whether Catholic politicians who support abortion should be denied Communion. In deciding to hold a three-year Eucharistic Revival to promote a renewed understanding of a key tenet of the Catholic faith, that Jesus is truly present in the Eucharist, Gomez and the bishops took the issue out of the political realm for the time being. The initiative represents a recognition that pro-abortion Catholic politicians are only a symptom of a larger problem: the tepid and ill-formed faith of many American Catholics.

2. Election of a new president and vice president

The bishops will be electing a new president and vice president of the conference on Tuesday. None of the candidates is actively campaigning for the job, and there is talk that only a “unity” candidate will get the most votes. That might eliminate more outspoken bishops, including Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco. Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore could attract support. He has solid bona fides on pro-life issues but has earned praise all around for championing an emphasis on pastoral care to women and children in light of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Another name that has been bandied about of late is Archbishop Timothy Broglio of the Archdiocese for the Military Services. Because of his unusual archdiocese, he is seen as someone who might have more time and energy to devote to overseeing the USCCB.

3. New guidance on voting for Catholics

On Wednesday the bishops will decide whether to revise “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship,” their guide to help Catholics understand how their faith should inform how they vote. Any changes to the document would be finalized in 2023, but discussion this week, possibly behind closed doors, could determine how much of an emphasis is placed on the issue of abortion.

4. Abortion in a post-Dobbs world

It will be hard for the bishops to ignore that the pro-abortion side carried the day on Nov. 8. Will they follow Detroit Archbishop Allen Vigneron’s model of responding to pro-life losses with prayer, penance, and almsgiving? Or will some advocate a more proactive response? Some bishops’ could advocate a shift in emphasis from opposition to abortion to support for a pastoral approach to the issue, along the lines of the Walking with Moms in Need Initiative.

5. Discussion of Eucharistic Revival initiative

When the bishops decided to embark on a Eucharistic Revival at last year’s general assembly, there was some grumbling about the project’s $28 million price tag. That’s a subject that may be taken up again. An update on the state of the initiative could spark discussion on the general state of formation among Catholics in the pews.

6. State of the priesthood

More time will be dedicated to prayer and fellowship at this year’s general assembly in an apparent acknowledgment of the challenges and stresses involved in the job. Discussion may turn to The Catholic Project’s recent survey that found signs of “burnout” among young priests and diocesan priests, and a decline in trust that priests have in their bishops.

 7. Ukraine War

The bishops will get an update on the war in Ukraine from Archbishop Borys Gudziak, the archeparch of the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia. We can expect the bishops to renew a commitment to the Ukrainian people (Archbishop William Lori traveled to Poland and Ukraine with the Knights of Columbus in October to help distribute aid to those affected by the war). It is unlikely that they would get ahead of the Vatican on the issue of the war and push for an end to U.S. funding of Ukraine’s military.

8. Synod on Synodality

The bishops will discuss the Synod on Synodality and the preliminary findings from the Church’s listening sessions. With the September release of the “National Synthesis,” the bishops are moving from the diocesan phase of the listening process to the continental phase, and it will be interesting to see what findings they choose to highlight. Pope Francis announced on Oct. 16 his decision to extend the synod through October 2024.

9. Canonizations

The bishops will vote on whether to advance the causes for sainthood for three American women: Cora Evans, Michelle Duppong, and Mother Margaret Mary Healy Murphy.

10. And the rest …

The Baltimore meeting will kick off Tuesday with an address from the papal nuncio, Archbishop Christoph Pierre. The bishops also will discuss a new catechumenate model of marriage preparation, World Youth Day 2023, migration, new translations of liturgical rituals, and reflect on the 20th anniversary of the Dallas Charter and where things stand since the Church put into place procedures to address the sexual abuse of minors by clergy.

In addition, the bishops will elect chairmen of several committees. Of some interest will be the election for chairman of the Committee on Evangelization and Catechesis, as whoever succeeds Bishop Andrew Cozzens, whose term ends at the end of the meeting, will be taking on the high-profile job of quarterbacking the Eucharistic Revival initiative.

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Pro-life doctors: Despite Ohio bill, there is no procedure to save ectopic pregnancies

May 16, 2019 CNA Daily News 1

Cincinnati, Ohio, May 17, 2019 / 12:32 am (CNA).- An Ohio bill seeking to limit insurance coverage of non-lifesaving abortions erroneously states that a procedure exists in which a doctor can reimplant an ectopic pregnancy in a woman’s uterus. No such procedure yet exists that has been proven safe and effective, two pro-life OB-GYNs told CNA.

“It astounds me that people would be writing law like this who don’t know the basics,” Dr. Lorna Cvetkovich, an OB-GYN with the pro-life medical practice Tepeyac Center, told CNA.

An ectopic pregnancy occurs when an embryo implants somewhere other than the uterus – usually in a fallopian tube. Ectopic pregnancies cannot survive outside of the uterus and pose a serious threat to the mother’s life, Cvetkovich said.

The legislation in question in Ohio is HB182, a bill that was introduced in April by state Rep. John Becker (R), and was co-sponsored by 19 other state legislators.

The bill seeks to limit insurance coverage for “nontherapuetic abortions” – elective abortions that are not performed when a doctor determines that the mother’s life is at risk.

The legislation states that it would still allow insurance companies to cover certain exempted procedures, including: “A procedure for an ectopic pregnancy, that is intended to reimplant the fertilized ovum into the pregnant woman’s uterus.”

“I don’t know of any way that we can technologically, surgically put that embryo through the trauma (of reimplantation),” Cvetkovich said.

The doctor said the procedure has reportedly been tried three times, but it has not worked, and there is no approved, standard medical procedure for reimplantation that has undergone the appropriate steps to ensure it is safe and effective.

Journals reporting on two such cases are posted on John Becker’s Facebook page. One case occurred in 1915, before ultrasounds were invented, and another in 1980.

Cvetkovich said of the 1915 case that not enough documentation of the procedure exists to confirm its scientific validity, and that the 1980 case was found to have used falsified research.

The reason reimplantations have yet been impossible for doctors, Cvetkovich said, is that once an embryo implants into either the uterine or the tubal lining, it begins creating microscopic blood vessel connections with the mother.

“It’s like a microscopic heart-lung machine, and you can’t just disrupt that and redo it,” she said.

In rare cases, ectopic pregnancies have reimplanted themselves in the liver or bowel, causing an abdominal pregnancy, but there has not been a successful surgical reimplantation in a uterus, Cvetkovich noted.

Dr. Donna Harrison is an OB-GYN with the American Association of Pro-Life OB-GYNs (AAPLOG).

Harrison told CNA that AAPLOG would support an ectopic transfer procedure if it “were scientifically validated through the usual channels of animal studies to prove safety and efficacy, and then human trials to prove safety and efficacy. If such a procedure followed that protocol, and if such a procedure were then validated to be safe and effective in a human being, AAPLOG would support that,” she said.

“We would love to be able to save the baby if we could,” she said.

But to date, an ectopic pregnancy transfer procedure does not yet exist that has gone through the required safety and efficacy procedures to Harrison’s knowledge, she said.

However, she added, Dr. Stephen Sammut at the Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio is currently investigating such a transfer in animal models.

“So there is research being conducted in animal models right now, but it is very preliminary right now and there are no conclusions of that research yet,” she said. “And as far as I know that is the only research being conducted so far in the animal model.”

Because ectopic pregnancies can pose a serious threat to the life of a mother, pro-life doctors can morally perform a procedure in which they remove the fallopian tube or other organ where an ectopic pregnancy has implanted, Cvetkovich said.

This allows doctors to remove a malfunctioning organ of the mother in order to save her life, which has the secondary but unintended effect of terminating the pregnancy, she added.

“It’s what we call the principle of double effect,” she said. “You can go in to do the procedure that will save the mother’s life. Your intent is not to destroy that pregnancy, your intent is to keep her healthy. In the process of doing that, you accept but do not want that there’s a fetal demise. So that’s how we would handle this rare, rare situation where you would have…a viable fetus with a heartbeat in the tube.”

This kind of procedure is permitted by the Catholic Church, she said, which states that abortion is never permissible, though a procedure to save a woman’s life that has the unintended effect of an unborn baby’s death is morally permissible.

“Operations, treatments, and medications that have as their direct purpose the cure of a proportionately serious pathological condition of a pregnant woman are permitted when they cannot be safely postponed until the unborn child is viable, even if they will result in the death of the unborn child,” the U.S. Catholic bishops state in the fifth edition of their Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services.

This kind of procedure would also be exempted under the Ohio bill, which states that insurance companies could still cover: “A procedure, in an emergency situation, that is medically necessary to save the pregnant woman’s life.”

Cvetkovich added that it was concerning that the Ohio legislators apparently did not consult with medical experts or research before writing the bill.

Legislation that contains erroneous scientific statements makes the pro-life movement “look bad, it makes us look silly, it makes us look stupid,” she said.

“I wish these guys would do some consultation before they wrote this,” she added.

On the other hand, Harrison said the bill could spur further research into developing a scientifically valid transfer procedure.

“I think the bill could encourage the appropriate research needed to develop such a procedure,” she said.

 

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9 Comments

  1. After reading through the points and expected responses the tinge of desolation, and a desire not to succumb to the futility of a moribund hierarchy.
    Address the immense issue of disunity over canon 915 and aberrant Catholic politicians? Not a chance. What with an Archbishop Lori [who noticeably denounces abortion, although with a familiar greater emphasis on pastoral care of women involved] as a unanimous candidate for pastoral niceties and appeasement. Or Archbishop Timothy Broglio whose plus is more time to devote to the Conference.
    As Zelda Caldwell assesses What to look for, it’s not going to be the ‘outspoken’ prelate like Cordileone. God forbid. His Holiness has roundly criticized his lack of pastoral sensitivity. So bishops make nice, rather than address what is required as defenders of the faith get along with each by all means, and march together in insipid unity.

    Reply

    • Added to this comment is the following reported by the Lepanto Institute.
      “The following report on organizations receiving funding from the Catholic Campaign for Human Development [CCHD] for Fiscal Year 2020–2021 provides a list of clickable reports. Each of the organizations profiled received a grant from the CCHD, according to the latest reported list from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops [USCCB]. The types of violations are clearly marked as follows: Abortion, LGBTQ, Contraception, Marxism, Occult. Each report which is accessed by clicking the name of the organization in the chart provides visual evidence accompanied by a website link to the source” (Lepanto Institute Nov 11, 2022 in LifeSiteNews).
      The dismay continues. Our bishops, those who are faithful must respond in defense of the faith.

      Reply

    • A third effort to log in…
      Five observations on the Big Ten, applicable to some bishops and not others…

      #1, the Eucharistic Revival gets at the big picture of broad/remedial evangelization, but is also a dilution of what is meant by Eucharistic Coherence—the integral conformance of personal actions with the sacramental life and objective morality.

      #4, might as well get to the bottom of things and mention the virtuous life, you know, chastity and that sort of stuff. And the likely and eternal alternative.

      #5, the $28 million cost of the delegated, proceduralized, and cash cow for consultants (?) Eucharistic Revival…

      Might we assume, however, that every diocese and parishes already have an educational program (a program!), and that existing budgets could support some basic witnessing? And that, for the routine cost of chancery office mailings, could well advise pastors to join their bishops to simply preach the Real Presence? A Eucharistic Church, after all, and not congregational. Takes a convincing and convinced ten minutes, once every ten years whether needed or not.

      #8, regarding the Synod on Synodality, and the so-called “continental phase,” might the bishops reflect on whether they are firstly Successors of the Apostles, or instead, “facilitators” of a “compiled, aggregated, and synthesized” plebiscite. In a demonstration of revived coherence, the undecided could consider skipping the continental breakfasts.
      #10, the year 2022 marks not only the 20th anniversary of the Dallas Charter, but also the 138th anniversary of the more comprehensive 1884 Baltimore Catechism, and the 28th anniversary of the new 1994 Catechism (English edition), and even the 29th anniversary of Veritatis Splendor as the Magisterium’s now explicit affirmation of moral absolutes.

      Maybe even including (inclusiveness!) a posting on the USCCB’s website alongside Fr. James Martin’s recently erected LGBTQ link? Or, at least a footnote purporting to exonerate the bishops from the millstone thingy so presciently promised by Our Lord, Jesus Christ.

      Reply

  2. Let me great right to the most important points:

    What’s for lunch? Who’s cooking?

    What times are Eucharistic Adoration?
    Will all these ‘men’ of the ‘cloth’ say Mass? If said privately, I will not believe it happened.

    Reply

  3. Peter Beaulieu above – “. . . the 138th anniversary of the more comprehensive 1884 Baltimore Catechism . . .” Now you’ve got my attention! More comprehensive than what?

    Reply

    • So good to hear from you…well, to start, the Baltimore Catechism was more “comprehensive” in that it dealt with all Ten Commandments rather than just one. Compared to the Dallas Charter, the Catechism was not limited to only #10, all ten of which trace back not 20 years, but more like 3,500 to Moses in the Old Testament:

      “You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife; and you shall not desire your neighbor’s house, his field, his male servant, his female servant, his ox, his ASS [#10!], or anything that is your neighbor’s” (Deuteronomy 5:21; here actually #6 and 9, butt especially #10).

      Reply

  4. Yesterday I suffered the misfortune of missing my Sunday obligation at my TLM parish. Instead I took the plunge and participated in 40 minutes of purgatorial NO pain. The “welcoming” took longer than any other part of the Mass. All visitors together with their native birthplaces were noted. I attempted to sleep through the rest, but I imagined a discussion of the weather and highlights from the priest’s sad and boring week. Had I had to hold my breath waiting for “In nomine Patri,…” I’d be in REAL purgatory now.

    The mini homily consisted of a sentence or two on each lectionary reading. St. Paul’s second letter to the Thessalonians was 3:7-12, beginning, “…you ought to follow our example. We were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone’s food without paying for it ….” and ending, “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat….Such people we command and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and earn the food they eat.” With nary a nuance or parse, hearers were encouraged to support the Parish Food Bank to feed and house the hungry and the homeless.

    Leaving this Mass, walking past the downstairs parish hall entrance, I noted a homeless man living in a house of cardboard boxes which appeared to contain many rooms. I noted a rat (it was dusk) in his neighborhood. Piles of dead leaves and fast food trash littered the main entrance to the church.

    Thus ended my foray into the NO, but the less than savory images linger still. Thank GOD Jesus was there with all the while, because our City upon a Hill showed forth a less than stellar light. The large church contained only a handful of seemingly sad faithful. Singing was less than weak.

    If the USCCB president bishop believes the tepidity and faith of the laity is ill-formed, I suggest the president bishop look also at the priests and the bishops and the cardinals and the pope whose limping and crippled teaching warrants extraordinary measures of life-support. I KNOW Jesus and His Spirit yearn to give us all that we need. If we don’t want His help, He won’t force it on us. And alas, it seems that few of us want Him anywhere near.

    Reply

  5. My harsh, but accurate and defensible, comment seems to have been blocked. Gomez and company originally were preparing to issue some kind of statement addressing Biden’s egregious abortion policies shortly after the election, but Bergoglio ordered them to stifle it. To their eternal shame, they surrendered unconditionally and have never returned to the subject. Likewise, the Eucharistic Coherence document was watered down because of pressure from the Vatican, with all references to politicians who support abortion deleted. They betray and demoralize the flock while earning the contempt enemies of the Church.

    I request that my original comment and this follow-up be allowed.

    Reply

    • I got blocked a couple of times. I defer to the Editors and their experience and take it as a blessing. It’s a learning moment besides.

      Another thing to keep in mind is, you were harsh and you’re asking them to justify blocking it. How good is that. If the shoe was on on the other foot and they threw some kind of a slurve ball at you, would you be able to make as temperate representation in the affair as they? Would you handle it quietly and not be murmuring and grumbling and going around telling everybody?

      I recommend taking it in stride and accepting it when it happens and stay and keep up with CWR, they do very good work here.

      Reply

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