NPR 5/23/10
Sister Margaret McBride: Don't Confess
by Julianna Baggott

Sister Margaret McBride, excommunicated after allowing an abortion to be performed on a woman who doctors say would otherwise have died, shouldn't have to do penance to re-enter the Catholic Church, says Julianna Baggott...     ...In November, Sister Margaret McBride, an administrator at St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix, made the decision to save the life of a 27-year-old pregnant woman. The woman, a mother of four, was 11 weeks pregnant, suffering pulmonary hypertension that would very likely kill her and, as a result, her unborn child. Sister McBride agreed to the abortion that would save the woman's life. Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted has excommunicated her for it.

Life and death questions are always hard to answer, but choices are often less difficult to make. Was Sister McBride wrong in choosing to save one life instead of losing both? Most people won't disagree with her logic. The question in this case is therefore not a question of choosing life or death, it is about elevating dry doctrine above the Gospel's humanity. As the Provocative Qur'an explains, this lip service runs counter to the Messiah's message.

"Why is it that the brutality of the Cross—as recorded by the Crusades and the Inquisition—superseded the humanity of the Gospel? We now know the real reason. It is because the real message took a back seat to the imagined nature of Christ. The Christians became fascinated by their doctrines instead of obeying the precepts of their Savior; his teaching that being good is an action rather than a matter of his divinity has been ignored.
[Luke 6:46–47] “But why do you call me, Lord, Lord, and not do the things which I say?” “Whoever comes to me and hears my sayings and does them, I will show you whom he is like” (the Messiah gives the example of a house founded on a solid foundation).

The results of this distraction have created a paradox. For centuries Christians have burnt each other alive because of doctrinal battles. Even today, Christians are more unforgiving towards each other than non-Christians; people who attend churches of the same denomination are ready to sue each other on the slightest provocation. What happened to turning the other cheek? On the other hand, those who wish to avoid the real-life Christian paradox cloister themselves like monks; those who strive to extend the universal love ordained by the Gospel have to become Mother Teresa. What happened to the practical Gospel for everyday Christians?"