Are the Bishops Being Faithful to Their Own Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Services?

the Lepanto Institute is calling for the nation’s largest Catholic health network, CommonSpirit Health, to be immediately stripped of its Catholic identity for engaging in practices utterly defiant of Catholic Medical Ethics. St. Francis Memorial Hospital of San Francisco is part of CommonSpirit Health’s subsidiary, Dignity Health.

Lepanto’s report shows that the hospital performs so-called sex change operations, provides transgender 'services' (and to cover such in employee health plans), and conducts surgical sterilizations. Not denying such, the Archdiocese of San Francisco counters that the hospital falls under a Catholic umbrella but is not Catholic itself (cf. Hospital doing transgender surgeries is not Catholic, San Fran archdiocese says, The Pillar 6/14/23)....

 

What Do Those ERDs Say?

Well, at numerous points in the USCCB's current ERDs (Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services), we are reminded that Catholic healthcare MUST always act in conformity with Catholic teaching. The current ERDs updated Part Six from its Fifth edition, leaving the rest intact: 

• Preamble
• General Introduction
• Part One: The Social Responsibility of Catholic Health Care Services
• Part Two: The Pastoral and Spiritual Responsibility of Catholic Health Care
• Part Three: The Professional-Patient Relationship
• Part Four: Issues in Care for the Beginning of Life
• Part Five: Issues in Care for the Seriously Ill and Dying
• Part Six: Collaborative Arryangements with Other Health Care Organizations and Providers
• Conclusion

What Stayed Unchanged?

As per the preamble, "the directives promote and protect the truths of the Catholic faith as those truths are brought to bear on concrete issues in health care."  As per the general introduction, "For the Christian, our encounter with suffering and death can take on a positive and distinctive meaning through the redemptive power of Jesus' suffering and death."

Part One crucially reminds us that "within a pluralistic society, Catholic health care services will encounter requests for medical procedures contrary to the moral teachings of the Church. Catholic health care does not offend the rights of individual conscience by refusing to provide or permit medical procedures. that are judged morally wrong by the teaching authority of the Church."

As per Part Two, "Catholic health care has the responsibility to treat those in need in a way that respects the human dignity and eternal destiny of all."

Part Three reminds us that "All persons served by Catholic health care have the right and duty to protect and preserve their bodily and functional integrity.16 The functional integrity of the person may be sacrificed to maintain the health or life of the person when no other morally permissible means is available.17"

Part Four reminds us that every new human being has the right to originate in the loving embrace of a mom and dad who are married to each other.  Yet no matter the origin, each human life is to be treated with absolute respect; abortion is absolutely forbidden.  While certain procedures that aid the marital act toward its end may be acceptable, procedures that replace the marital act are forbidden.  Surrogacy is prohibited.

What's New?  Part Six: Collaborative Arrangements with Other Health Care Organizations & Providers

"The Catholic moral tradition provides principles for assessing cooperation with the wrong- doing of others to determine the conditions under which cooperation may or may not be....morally justified, distinguishing between 'formal' and 'material' cooperation....

 

 

The response from the Archdiocese of San Francisco reminds me of 'Three Card Monte' from the streets of NYC. And despite the recent Doctrinal Note on the Moral Limits to Technological Manipulation of the Human Body (USCCB 3/20/23), the USCCB only voted in their June 2023 meeting to start working on an update to the ERDs [!!!]....

"To paraphrase Teddy Roosevelt, we need to speak clearly and carry a big stick (i.e., no apologies or 'namby pamby' approaches to proclaiming God’s Truth). Dioceses have a moral responsibility to follow the Catholic and Religious Directives, Scripture, and the Church’s teachings when dealing with Catholic hospitals and other hospitals that are in their network.

For any bishop to PRETEND that there is any lack of clarity as to whether Catholic health care should be in any way involved with sex change operations strikes me as depraved.  If a bishop is unwilling to proclaim God's truth, he should do all of us a favor and step aside, so that God's will can be clearly proclaimed.