Catholic Diocese Creates 12 Step Progran for Gays; Bishops Restrict Medical Procedures

We are witnessing more anti-modernity by the Catholic hierarchy in the USA as the Diocese of Colorado Springs launches a 12 step program for gays - treating sexual orientation akin the alcoholism - and elsewhere bishop endeavoring to restrict procedures provided at Catholic controlled hospitals even when do so goes against sound medical care. In one case in Montgomery County, Maryland, such behavior will hopefully result in the state's denial of a certificate of need for a new hospital. Frankly, if Catholic controlled hospitals will not offer needed services and procedures, the state should not give such approvals and the public would be better served with other institutions getting the needed state approvals. Medical and societal backwardness arising from religious extremism needs to carry a cost. It's far past time when the corrupt Catholic hierarchy should be allowed to trump the judgment of medical experts, First these highlights from Colorado Springs Gazette on the anti-gay 12 step program idiocy:
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The Catholic Diocese of Colorado Springs is borrowing a page from Alcoholics Anonymous by launching a 12-step program that offers pastoral care and support for homosexuals.
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Over the years, many organizations have appropriated AA’s 12 steps to reach out to people with addictive behavior, such as shopaholics and workaholics. The Catholic Church’s Twelve Steps of Courage is another version of AA’s steps. Participants admit they are powerless in overcoming same-sex attraction, ask God for help, and make amends to those they’ve hurt, among other steps.
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The program has 110 chapters worldwide, including one in Denver, according to its website. The website offers a few testimonials of success but no statistics or studies regarding the program’s effectiveness. Courage International officials weren’t available Tuesday to comment on its effectiveness.
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No surprise that these jerks will not talk about statistics and "effectiveness." None of these "ex-gay" programs work and participants might just as well hire an African witch doctor as join such a program that will only inflict additional psychological and emotion harm beyond what the Church's anti-gay agenda has already done. Again, this kind of ignorant bullshit needs to be stopped and as the Washington Post reports, the bishops may be killing Catholic hospitals in the longer term by refusing to accept modern medical practices. Here are some highlights:
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[D]isputes between hospitals and church authorities appear to be arising because of a confluence of factors: Economic pressures are spurring greater consolidation in the hospital industry, prompting religiously affiliated institutions to take over or merge with secular ones, imposing church directives on them. At the same time, the drive to remain competitive has led some medical centers to evade the directives. Alongside those economic forces, changes in the church hierarchy have led increasingly conservative bishops to exert more influence over Catholic hospitals.
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The clashes have focused attention on the limitations on care available at Catholic hospitals. In Montgomery County, concern about those constraints has emerged as an issue in the battle over whether Holy Cross Hospital, a Catholic institution in Silver Spring, or Adventist HealthCare in Rockville should be authorized to build a new hospital in the county.
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A coalition of advocacy groups Wednesday urged the state to reject Holy Cross, citing concerns about access to reproductive health care, especially for poor women and teenagers. A decision in that case is expected Thursday.
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"Physicians are being told they must refuse to provide certain services even when they believe their refusal would harm their patient and violate established medical standards of care," said Lois Uttley, who heads MergerWatch, a New York-based group that fights the takeover of secular medical centers by religiously affiliated hospitals.
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In addition to barring abortions, the directives prohibit tubal ligations, the surgical sterilization of women and the second leading form of contraception in the United States. . . Several doctors interviewed across the country, particularly in rural areas, described frustration over being barred from taking a few extra minutes during a Caesarean delivery to tie the tubes of women who no longer want children or face complications if they become pregnant again.
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Of even greater concern to many doctors and advocates are conflicts over treatments for women who have miscarriages and ectopic pregnancies. Standard care for ectopic pregnancies, which are life-threatening, is to inject the drug methotrexate or to remove the embryo surgically while leaving the fallopian tube intact, both procedures that are intended to preserve fertility. But some Catholic hospitals refuse to perform either and will extract the embryo only by taking out the fallopian tube.
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For centuries the bitter, corrupt old men who head the Catholic Church have been anti-woman and the above described issues are simply more of that backward and uncaring mindset. The bishops need to be removed from decisions on health care and if they refuse to do so, I hope that Catholic hospitals will be increasingly denied certificates of need. In the case of my LGBT clients, I advise them to avoid the Catholic hospitals in the Hampton Roads area since they are likely to inflict anti-gay attitudes on patients and their partners.