excommunication.net

[Source: Hamilton Spectator (Canada) May 4, 2001 via Pro-Life Infonet.
Dr. Ranalli is a Toronto neurologist. He was born at St. Joseph's Hospital and raised in Hamilton, Canada. He is an internationally-recognized expert on fetal pain and is a widely-published author.]

Teachers teach that knowledge waits
Can lead to hundred-dollar plates
Goodness hides behind its gates
But even the president of the United States
Sometimes must have
To stand naked   --Bob Dylan, 1965

Back in September 1997, when public shock at President Bill Clinton's
sex scandal with Monica Lewinsky was white-hot, would anyone have dreamed
that one day, just weeks after his term of office expired, Clinton would
be invited as the keynote speaker at a benefit for a Catholic hospital, in
Hamilton no less? And yet it has happened. On May 2, over the objections
of many concerned Catholics in this community, Bill Clinton will speak to
an audience of a thousand $200-a-plate guests at a benefit for the Morgan
Firestone Foundation, part of St. Joseph's Health Care.

Perhaps our sense of moral affront is simply dulled by the passage of
time, yet the recent odiferous exit from the White House, tainted by the
pardons scandal, serves as a sharp reminder that the deep character flaws
embedded in William Jefferson Clinton do not change with time. Notoriety
sells - the dinner speech is sold out - but what Catholic in this city
thought they would ever live to witness their once-proud healing
institution stoop to a level many would have once considered unthinkable?

The specific Catholic objection to Bill Clinton's appearance is that
he is the most pro-abortion president in American history, and is
manifestly proud of it. In twice vetoing Congressional bills limiting
partial-birth abortion, which received broad bipartisan support in both
Houses, Mr. Clinton revealed the radical nature of his abortion stance.
By thwarting the majority will of Americans concerned about this most
heinous form of abortion, a procedure even many pro-choice advocates
cannot stomach, Mr. Clinton is indirectly responsible, over the past five
years, for several thousand cases of what has been termed by some as
"legalized infanticide". It is not simply a matter of Mr. Clinton's
"personal" beliefs: as president, he had the power to convert his own
moral bias into tragic public policy, and did so. By his words and
actions, Bill Clinton mocks the very heart of Catholic beliefs. Many feel
that St. Joseph's need not search around for an American flag with which
to welcome Mr. Clinton on May 2; they could simply run up a hospital
bedsheet, not to advertise health care, but to signify their surrender of
morality to money.

And where is the Catholic leadership on this? One can only guess,
since both Sister Anne Anderson, president of St. Joseph's Healthcare, and
Bishop Anthony Tonnos, who once criticized a visit by pro-choice New York
Governor Mario Cuomo, appear to have gone to ground since the controversy
broke. Bishop Tonnos is reported to have signed off on the Clinton visit
over a year ago, and neither he nor Sr. Anderson have offered a direct
response to press inquiries, or to the avalanche of letter and telephone
protests from the anguished Catholic faithful. Church members yearn for a
more manifest show of leadership, knowing that an institution that no
longer stands for something will fall for anything. Even New York
financial investment firms have displayed greater moral decisiveness:
one cancelled its invitation to Mr. Clinton after the pardons scandal,
while the chairman of the firm Morgan Stanley, flooded with e-mails
critical of his hosting a speech by Mr. Clinton, admitted: "We clearly
made a mistake."

Aside from abortion, the inappropriateness of a caring institution
hosting Mr. Clinton goes further. Consider the quality of a man Mr.
Clinton felt worthy of a full presidential pardon, fugitive tax cheat Marc
Rich. In 1996, as his daughter lay dying of leukemia in a New York
hospital bed, Mr. Rich confronted the choice of flying back, risking
arrest, to see her one last time, or staying put in his Switzerland
hideout, safe to continue living the high life of wealth and luxury. He
chose the latter.

The PR people at St. Joseph's Foundation have dealt with all of this
by sticking to a shopworn set of talking points, claiming, plaintively,
that Mr. Clinton is coming to speak on "global affairs". Exasperated
spokesperson Cathy Wellwood implored the public to "not bring up all the
dirt and crap that's in the past". Alas, a mischievous press will likely
have different ideas, finding an irresistable angle in the incongruity,
indeed the hypocrisy, of a Catholic hospital raking in the dollars by
hosting a man whose position on the most contentious moral issue of our
time can best be described as diametrically opposite to the Catholic view.
Pro-choice supporters can take smug satisfaction as Clinton's visit
entombs, in the minds of many, any residual pretense to a Catholic
tradition of healing at St. Joseph's Hospital.

Even before the final take is counted, we know the value of funds
raised by the upcoming St. Joseph's Clinton dinner: the modern Canadian
equivalent of thirty pieces of silver.
________________________
You can contact St. Joseph's hospital to express your views at: St.
Joseph's Hospital, 354 King St. W., Hamilton, ON Canada L8P 1B3, (p)
905-521-6036, (f) 905-577-0860, (e) stjhcf@i, (p)
905-521-6036, (f) 905-577-0860, (e) stjhcf@interlynx.net