Sept. 4, 2009 THE BISHOP'S VOICE: True Health Care Reform
Bishop Michael Sheridan, S.T.D.
Confusion is the name of the game when it comes to deciphering the real and the reported content of the several pieces of health care reform legislation that are floating around the House of Representatives and Senate. There are many complicated proposals being debated within a byzantine political process. Frequently, misinformation and sound bites are used to distort the truth in support of one agenda over another. Despite these difficulties, Catholics cannot sit on the sidelines and hope for the best.

On the contrary, because health care reform is such an important issue, Catholics must speak up and help to steer the direction of a much-needed reform. Whatever form the final legislation takes, there are certain fundamental issues that must be addressed. Authentic health care reform must, at a minimum, ensure the following:

— Access to health care coverage for all people, including legal immigrants, from conception until natural death (access does not necessarily demand government-operated health care. Catholic health care facilities have been providing access to health care for all who come to them throughout the history of the church);

— No federal funding for abortions and no support for euthanasia;

— Protection for freedom of conscience for healthcare workers and institutions;

— Lower health care costs and equitable cost sharing;

In his encyclical Deus Caritas Est (DCE), Pope Benedict XVI recognized that it was the responsibility of the lay faithful to work for a just ordering of society. Catholics cannot relinquish their participation "in the many different economic, social, legislative, administrative and cultural areas, which are intended to promote organically and institutionally the common good." (DCE 29)

Some will ask why the Catholic Church and other faith-based organizations are involved in the health care debate at all. Secular purists erroneously argue that a separation of church and state means religious organizations should not be part of any discussion of health care reform. Nothing could be farther from the truth. For nearly 2,000 years, health care has been an integral part of the charitable work of the church. In fact, the Catholic Church "invented" hospitals as part of our charity toward the poor and the sick.

St. Ephrem set up 300 beds for plague victims in Edessa in the fourth century. He sacrificed his life to treat their illnesses. During the Black Plague in Europe, Catholics ministered to the dying after governments quarantined cities and wrote off entire populations as dead. In the Hawaiian Islands, Blessed Damien de Veuster ministered to lepers who had been placed under government-sanctioned quarantine on Molokai.

The church has always and everywhere shared the love of Christ by caring for the sick, especially the poor and those most marginalized by society. The examples in our own diocese are many, including the ministries of the Sisters of St. Francis and the Sisters of Charity, whose legacies are Penrose and St. Francis Hospitals. Care for all the sick has been the work of the Catholic Church throughout her history. Charity is integral to the church’s mission.

Government, of course, also has responsibilities in the area of health care. The state’s role and the church’s are different but complementary. The church must never take upon herself the roles proper to government. Neither must she favor one political agenda over another. As Pope Benedict reminds us, "Christian charitable activity must be independent of parties and ideologies. It is not a means of changing the world ideologically, and it is not at the service of worldly stratagems, but it is a way of making present here and now the love which man always needs." (DCE 31).

In addition, the Catholic doctrine of subsidiarity states that "a community of a higher order should not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order, depriving the latter of its function, but rather should support it in the case of need and help to coordinate its activity with the activities of the rest of society, always with a view to the common good" (Pius XI, Quadrigesimo Anno I). In other words, care of the sick should be provided at the local level, not from the top down.

Church and state meet at the intersection of justice and charity. "Justice is both the aim and the intrinsic criterion of all politics . . . . The State must inevitably face the question of how justice can be achieved here and now. But this presupposes an even more radical question: what is justice? The problem is one of practical reason; but if reason is to be exercised properly, it must undergo constant purification, since it can never be completely free of the danger of a certain ethical blindness caused by the dazzling effect of power and special interests." (DCE 28).

Catholic lay faithful must recognize and accept their responsibility to refine and sanctify the government’s search for just systems. Affordable health care for all individuals is certainly a just, noble and worthy goal. But Catholic politicians must ask themselves and their colleagues difficult questions. Is it just to achieve a noble goal by sacrificing the lives of our most vulnerable citizens? Must the unborn and the elderly be killed in order to achieve health care reform? Can we, as a nation, ever justify reaching a good end by evil means? Catholics, and all men and women of good will, know the answers to these questions in their hearts.

This is where faith and politics meet. "Faith enables reason to do its work more effectively and to see its proper object more clearly. This is where Catholic social doctrine has its place: it has no intention of giving the Church power over the State. Even less is it an attempt to impose on those who do not share the faith ways of thinking and modes of conduct proper to faith. Its aim is simply to help purify reason and to contribute, here and now, to the acknowledgment and attainment of what is just." (DCE 28).

Once again, I urge all Catholics to become involved. Take an active role in shaping legislation that has the potential to provide affordable access to health care for everyone, especially those who are most vulnerable in our society. Help ensure that any new laws protect the conscience rights of healthcare workers and institutions so they can continue to provide the compassionate, charitable care they have provided for centuries. Help ensure that our country does not fall victim to ethical blindness nor become beholden to special interest groups. Help serve as a moral compass as our nation struggles to reform its health care system. In short, be the leaven in our society and the light in the darkness that Christ calls each of us to be.