Bishop Joseph Strickland of Tyler is the only bishop in Texas to refuse to sign a “Statement on Scarce Healthcare Resources” in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The document by the Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops (TCCB) was published last Friday. It encourages Greg Abbott, the governor of the Lone Star State, to waive “regulations and statutes which could result in fines, civil liability, and even criminal charges for decisions related to the allocation of resources during this declared disaster.
On Sunday, Strickland explained his decision, saying the TCCB statement, “while flowing from a laudable concern for the difficult challenges faced by health care professionals in respect to limited resources, fails to show a due regard for the importance of law and amounts to asking Governor Abbot to abandon the excellent laws he has helped put in place to protect the vulnerable.”
The bishop admitted the difficulty of making the correct decision in life-and-death situations when resources are limited. “Fortunately, and rightly, the law itself has a degree of flexibility in it that enables judges to be prudent and take into account factors that may lead to questionable decisions not motivated by malice of any kind but rather by misguided compassion.”
In this regard, Strickland called on judges, juries, and the public to be understanding, giving the benefit of the doubt to the people working in health care. “But to suspend the law altogether is to remove a major incentive for ensuring that due diligence is exercised in difficult times and puts the ill, vulnerable, poor, and marginalized at risk.”
Full story at LifeSiteNews.
Once again, we have Bishops making their own rules. What we need is a church in America that speaks with one voice. O that we could have that in our governments as well.
I don’t deny a bishop’s authority to make different decisions, I just don’t think the should do it. It spews confusion among the folks.
What Bob One wants is conforming to what ever the liberals in the Church. It doesn’t matter how much destruction they have caused the Church for the past 60 years, from the liturgy, to vocations and even architecture they have destroyed everything they touched
Bishop Strickland is right! He is providing real leadership and a clear head in this age of Coronavirus. The “one size fits all” healthcare notion is particularly dangerous in time of crisis, especially if you are older or have ongoing health issues. You would be the first one to be deemed beyond help and left to die as a sad statistic. Thankfully, this Texas bishop gets it.
We need a church that speaks with one voice. It would be nice if we had that. I want to be able to say that “this is what the Catholic Church teaches.” I don’t want 195 bishops thinking they rule their kingdom any way they want. It isn’t liberal or conservative, it’s one voice.
You want to know what the Church teaches, pick up the Baltimore Catechism….liberals destroy all they touch
Bohemond, the Baltimore Catechism, which I swear I was forced to memorize over an eight year period is no longer the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
Anonymous, the Catechism is still true, even if people don’t believe it anymore. Study up, you need it now more than ever!
God bless Bishop Strickland.
We need more like him.