The Catholic mission in health care is a continuation of the healing ministry of Christ. When we talk about ethics and health care policy, our goal is to ensure that all medical institutions in our society remain places of healing in which the dignity, and the mystery of the human person is respected — as it was respected by Christ.
The Catholic Church has the oldest, most comprehensive, and most coherent and integral body of teaching on health care, bioethics and medical issues. Our teaching is reasoned, compassionate and practical, having developed out of more than 2,000 years of pastoral experience. Historically, the Catholic Church founded the first hospitals, not to mention the first charitable institutions.
Long before the American revolution, Ursuline nuns were providing health care services in what is now New Orleans. Some of the great figures in American Church history — such as Rose Hawthorne Lathrop, Mother Angeline Teresa McCrory and Marianne Cope — were pioneers and innovators in the care of the sick. Our Catholic health care networks serve millions of Americans, and are a vital part of the well-being of communities around the country.
In 1869, three Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word built Santa Rosa Infirmary, from the ashes of a burned building. Nurtured by the grace of God and the commitment of those who would follow them, we have seen that modest nine-bed facility grow into one of the finest hospital systems in the United States.
This is just an example of the church’s long-standing commitment to excellence in caring for the sick throughout our history. Today the Catholic Church operates more than 600 hospitals in all 50 states. In 20 of those states, they account for more than 20 percent of all admissions.
The U.S. bishops have outlined several principles that we believe are essential to any authentic health care reform legislation.
First, health care must be regarded as a fundamental right and not a privilege. Second, policy must respect and protect human life and dignity from conception to natural death. Third, because health care is a basic human right, policy must give priority to meeting the needs of the poor and the immigrants in our midst.
Finally, in structuring new health-care delivery models, the nation must preserve a pluralism of options, respect freedom of conscience and must restrain costs and spread their burden across the spectrum of players.
But, let’s keep in mind that the bishops are not lobbyists or politicians. Our task in social policy is to help to form the conscience of the laity. It is the laity who have the primary responsibility for bringing the values of the Gospel to the political order.
As Catholics, we can’t divorce our religious beliefs from our public convictions. Our challenge is to advance the Gospel and the teachings of Christ in a ways that are understood to promote the authentic human good in our civil laws and public polices.
How do we do that? I believe we need to be more creative in articulating our teaching in terms of reason and the natural law. The truth is that our teaching is not a sectarian intolerance. Catholic social teaching reflects what our Declaration of Independence calls “the laws of nature’s God.”
We need to gain a new hearing for the church’s teaching by finding new ways to present that teaching on the basis of reason, the natural law and practical public policy considerations.
We need to find new ways to proclaim our teaching in a society that increasingly seems to have lost its foundation, a society that often seems to act against its own good and the well-being of its people.
We need to do that by promoting the Gospel as an integral way of life and a true and attractive answer to our social questions and problems.
The great truth that we must proclaim as Catholics is that life is not simply biological. Our life is also theological. Our life is conceived and lived in dialogue, in a relationship with God.
My brothers and sisters, as disciples of Christ, the author of life, we need to be at the center of the public policy issues. We cannot let the health care debate be framed solely on the basis of economic and bureaucratic interests.
May Our Lady of Guadalupe, the help of the sick, intercede for us, that we may be people of life bringing the Gospel of life to our nation.
Adapted from the presentation given at the Converging Roads Seminar in San Antonio. For the full text, visit www.archsa.org. For more information on the next Converging Roads event, to be held Nov. 6-7 at CHRISTUS Santa Rosa Hospital downtown, visit the Web site www.ConvergingRoads.com for registration details. A subsequent gathering will be held in February 2010.