The right to Episcopal authority

Who holds the proprietary rights to Catholicism? Is it the shrinking few, elderly, effete, male only, pseudo celibate, largely closeted, homosexual, socially isolated, hierarchy or the one billion plus, young, vibrant, growing laity, world wide?

Which side of that fence are you on Ronny?

"If an entity wants to call itself 'Catholic,' it needs to live up to the standards established by the Church."

First off, a plague on all those who use Super Bowl or any other sports analogies in connection with anything involving the church. A plague and an itchy rash on anyone with the temerity to invoke contract law and trademark protection similarly. Hast thou no shame?

Second, you might conceivably have a point with respect to the term, capital-C, "Catholic". But I prefer the original meaning of the lowercase-c term as it properly describes the universal scope of all Christendom. My church is bigger than your Church.

Since these hospitals are funded by tax and insurance dollars and are not the church run and financed charity hospitals of yore, hasn’t the Vatican lost the ‘branding rights?’

I, too, believe that the Catholic health care services can dictate what services they will provide. However, I do not believe they should receive federal money for anything if they can't provide all the services that the general population has a right to expect from a hospital. And that includes a woman getting her tubes tied if she doesn't want to have any more children.

If the religious based medical providers want to base their services on their religion, fine. But no government money. It is a easy, clear, no squabbling, line.

I don't want my tax dollars supporting religious institutions that won't provide all the health care the general public has a right to expect.

Branding, indeed. There are lots of Catholics who don't go along with the medieval structure of leadership that still has: princes (of the church) dictating how you live, breathe, and think. We hold onto our faith in spite of - not because of - popes like the recent ones. The last good Popes John XXIII and Paul VI.

If the religious communities, if you will, like to follow certain precepts they are free to do so. I don't feel neither government nor anyone else can interfere with that. That being said the religious institutions such as RCC, Baptists, and whatever shade they may be should not encroach into secular domain unless they are willing to live by the secular rules. Otherwise they can go away like the Amish and remove themselves from the secular world all together.

Given that RCC and all these bigoted religious institutions have a strangle hold, whenever there are these extra secular fiats at the hospitals their funding from the benefactors and the patients should stop patronizing these institutions run by theses bigoted people and institutions. I passionately believe that we secularists should dig and start doing that. Next time when we are going for an elective procedures we should ask this of the hospital and make sure that the specialist we engage has privileges at more secular hospitals too and request that we be treated in those secular hospitals. Cut the bastards off their life line, $$$$$$$.

This is a church that claims to run a country. It claims to have the right to demand that affiliated hospitals engage in medical malpractice. It runs an ownership shell game so it doesn't have to pay the victims of the bishops who moved rapists around rather than turn them over to the authorities. It told the victims to keep quiet and the bishops conspired to keep the rapists free. When the victims finally did speak up, they avoided responsibility by putting their dioceses into bankruptcy. Benedict refused to take responsibility from the top for that conspiracy, even though the evidence is clear that he knew about it.

The Roman Catholic Church is a pathetic, immoral joke. It is becoming ever more shrill as it falls apart. What it is not doing is reforming. I urge all American Catholics to leave for other churches until the RCC reforms itself. It seems unable to do so without pressure from all.

I have no use for Bishop Olmsted or his totally irresponsible, unethical views of medicine. He is clearly unwilling to acknowledge his errors. He needs to have all hospitals taken away from his control.

I, personally, believe if using the 'Catholic' designation requires rules that restrict women's health care and in some cases endanger their lives, these facilities should not receive any governmental money. No Medicare, no Medicaid, no governmental research funds, no governmental aid whatsoever. If your beliefs require such restrictions, you really can't expect me to pay for them.

I also feel such an instruction should not be called a hospital. Your driving force appears not to be the practice of medicine, but the practice of religion. Such a facility might be called a religious healing center, but not a hospital. Hospitals provide any medically valid treatment. Apparently Catholic facilities don't

No, to use "Catholic" as a trademark name, you have to say "Roman" in front of it. Catholic means "universal," although in common religious parlance we usually mean the Roman church.

But you can't claim a trademark on universality.