Hard to get excited.

So this is the beginning of the big week. I'm reading all over the Internet how diocese all over the country are having a special Mass to celebrate Summorum Pontificum and all the celebrations as well. You want to know what is on the itinerary for our area? Let's see, it will be getting a bit cooler so the grass may finally grow with the coming rains. Yep, while many of you will be basking in the return of the sacred, we here in Cincinnati and Covington will be watching the grass grow, literally. Neat, huh? The hierarchy in our Church starts with the Holy Father. Yes, even for the bishops here in the US. I, for one, think it is such a joyous occasion to be able to watch the grass grow in Cincinnati.

While one bishop puts out loopholes galore on one side of the river and the other makes a generic statement early on and then says nothing in our diocesan newspaper further since then(other than the magic 100 # and some other nonsensical norms that I'm not sure where they came from exactly), yeah it seems to be catching here. If there is going to be fidelity to the Holy Father, I hope we start seeing signs soon. Right now it's looking dismal. I will still read the stories about the celebrations, the processions, the Masses that take place this week with joy. Because, thankfully, the Catholic Church does not begin and end in the Ohio Valley region. I have prayed so much in the past year that we could call a parish home and it looks like that home may not be here. I'm tired of fighting. Tired of politics that don't belong in the Church. I'm done. I don't want to be a downer for those excited about what is to come in their area or parish.

More trouble for Covington KY diocese and our Catholic hospital

We have a pot that is about to boil over in our diocese with a merger of our Catholic and non-Catholic hospitals(it will form a monopoly, there are only 2 in our area). St. Elizabeth Medical Center, part of the Diocese of Covington, currently allows emergency contraception in cases of rape but ONLY if the woman is not pregnant. The Catholic Conference of Kentucky, the lobbying group for the state's four Catholic bishops, approved the use of emergency contraception in Catholic hospitals for this reason of "rape"(which any woman can say she was raped to get it).
The other problem is St. Elizabeth has a policy of withdrawing food and water from some patients and this violates Catholic teaching(which the linked article below clearly points out). On the St. Elizabeth website, there is a link to fill out a living will which if you are admitted to this hospital, God forbid, you run the risk of having food and water taken from you and very well may starve to death as Terry Schiavo did.
Death Without Dignity: Starvation and Dehydration
An amazing article written by Robert C. Cetrulo that outlines the clear teachings of Holy Mother Church on end-of-life moral obligations.

So now, with the merger, our Catholic hospital may plunge even further into the culture of death with the details of the merger unknown. Regardless, death is not just from the wages of sin but also the lot of those of us who have no alternative hospital in Northern Kentucky. While this is being worked out on paper, our bishop has remained silent on the matter.
Allowing such things to happen at a Catholic hospital is intrinsically evil. As Catholics, we must be pro-life from conception until natural death and not starve our weakest citizens and chemically kill them before they implant in their mother's womb.
For more information on this saga you can go to Northern Kentucky Right to Life website HERE.