BRAINTREE – Cardinal Seán P. O’Malley announced on his blog March 6 that he will seek the advice of the National Catholic Bioethics Center on the proposed relationship between Caritas Christi and the Commonwealth Care Program, a state run health program for the poor.

“There has been a significant amount of public dialogue concerning my statement yesterday (as copied below) about the proposed arrangement involving Caritas Christi Health Care with the Commonwealth Care Program.

To be perfectly clear, Caritas Christi will never do anything to promote abortions, to direct any patients to providers of abortion or in any way to participate in actions that are contrary to Catholic moral teaching and anyone who suggests otherwise is doing a great disservice to the Catholic Church. We are committed to the Gospel of Life and no arrangement will be entered into unless it is completely in accord with Church teaching.

Recognizing the complexity of the proposed arrangement, I will ask the National Catholic Bioethics Center to review the arrangement and to provide me their opinion.”

To read the blog entry, visit www.cardinalseansblog.org/2009/03/06/