NC Register...asks who speaks for the Church...Bishops or Sr. Keehan....

Now this is getting really interesting. It appears that there may be some internal conflict within CHA if Sr. Carol Keehan is acting with board approval or as an individual. This article outlines the issues well.  

Sister Keehan was consulted ahead of the announcement by Obama of the "accommodation, but not the US Council of Catholic Bishops. So she greeted the announced accommodation with enthusiasm which was gleefully reported on the White House blog. The Bishops who had not been privy to the announcement in advance expressed "polite but wary "response until further study.  As an aside, the WH blog originally reported the support of Catholic Charities but CC has disputed that claim  and  I don't see a correction on the blog.

“Obama has made clear who is part of his ideological coalition and who is not. Discussions on the structure and restructuring of the contraceptive policy were conducted between the administration and pro-choice and feminist groups. The institutions targeted by the mandate — particularly those represented by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops — were not in the room,” stated Michael Gerson in a column published in The Washington Post today.

“The administration engaged in no substantive consultation with Catholic bishops, who were only called to receive pronouncements. Interest-group liberalism is alive and well in the Obama White House,” Gerson wrote.

So Sr. Keehan is among the feminists and pro choice in crowd??  But what is she embracing??

"That same rule had been “finalized without change,” said Doerflinger, who stressed one single point: “The only thing that has force of law is that same final rule. It’s still in place. The rest is something that might happen.”

It appears that Sr. Keehan is relying upon the promise of  future accommodation from POTUS ...and if she is so trusting why is CHA still carefully reviewing all the fine print.  Does this remind you of Pelosi "we have to pass the bill to find out what is in it?"


Did the CHA board approve of Sr. Keehan's actions. Specific questions to this remain unanswered. This leads to the question of who speaks for the Church?

“On the basis of what information and what authority did she issue this endorsement? It’s embarrassing from a policy standpoint,” noted Paul Danello, an expert on civil and canon law issues in Catholic health care, who has received calls from Catholic hospitals worried about the implications of the HHS final rule.

“If the CHA board hasn’t authorized this, if she has no mandate from the USCCB, and if there are no legally binding documents, she is operating without any legal, governance or regulatory basis. That is a hell of a situation for a Roman Catholic nun that heads the Catholic Health Association to be in.”