Catholic? Come on! [re: colleges/universities identifying as Catholic]
Germain Grisez's brutally honest take on Catholic health care
Photo by Christoph Schmid on Unsplash
For a time (I do not know if this remains true.), the works of Germain Grisez were very much in favor at Philadelphia's St Charles Borromeo Seminary.
Some years ago, I had a personal moral dilemma and wondered what Grisez's thinking would be. So, I picked up the phone and called him at Mt St Mary's in Maryland. Dr. Grisez provided me with a patient and clear answer. Though thought to have been influential in Pope Paul VI's Humanae Vitae, he was not too self-inflated to take my call.
Way back in 1997, Dr Grisez was quite prescient about prospects for Catholic health care in our Post-Christian society:
"Catholic hospitals that avoid all wrongful cooperation and maintain their identity may not be economically viable. Therefore, Catholics committed to health care as an apostolate may have to look for other, better ways of carrying it on."
Though clearly not a naive man, I doubt Dr Grisez would have been prepared for Trinity Healthcare Midatlantic's flagrant heterodoxy (i.e., https://www.instagram.com/trinityhealthmidatlantic/p/C79nrCPN_3X/). In addition to the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, Trinity Health Mid Atlantic has one hospital in Delaware:
Art. 11. – The diocesan Bishop is obliged, if necessary, to make known to the faithful the fact that the activity of a particular charitable agency is no longer being carried out in conformity with the Church’s teaching, and then to prohibit that agency from using the name “Catholic” and to take the necessary measures should personal responsibilities emerge.
(Pope Benedict XVI, 11/11/2012; https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/motu_proprio/documents/hf_ben-xvi_motu-proprio_20121111_caritas.html)
Archbishop Perez and Bishop Koenig need to stop Trinity Health Mid-Atlantic from continuing to identify as Catholic.
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