What Does It Profit Our Catholic Hospitals to Gain the Whole World and Lose Their Souls?

Just last week, young Calvin Frieburger provided excellent insight into the bizarre situation of physicians with morally repugnant practices having "privileges" at Catholic hospitals:

"The Church Amendments [PDF link] state that no hospital receiving federal money for biomedical or behavioral research, or under the Public Health Service Act, the Community Mental Health Centers Act, or the Developmental Disabilities Services and Facilities Construction Act is permitted to 'discriminate in the extension of staff or other privileges to any physician or health care personnel, because he performed or assisted in the performance of a lawful sterilization procedure or abortion' (They also protect doctors who refuse to perform abortions from the same.).  In a similar vein to the way many churches have let the government buy their silence with tax-exempt status, federal statute makes hospitals’ compliance the price of receiving cash....religious hospitals will have to make a choice: take the money and admit the abortionists, or stand on principle and let the chips fall where they may. After all, Christianity only survived to the modern day because of people who chose to trust that God would steer them through far greater sacrifices than losing some federal grants (In Admitting Privileges Fight, Wisconsin Churches Discover the Flip Side of Federal Funding, Live Action News, 8/15/13.).

Frieburger maintains that federal funding has placed Catholic hospitals in positions of untenable ethical compromise.  While those in leadership may talk as though Catholic hospitals have no choice but to allow "privileges" to all doctors, can't hospitals always choose to push themselves away from the funding trough?

"Privileges" and Catholic Hospitals in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia

Excellent as it was, Frieburger's commentary just touched the tip of the iceburg. Many would be shocked to learn of how vastly inappropriate it can be, as to who gets "privileges" at many Catholic hospitals.  In the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, for example, there are six Catholic hospitals:

1. Holy Redeemer
2. St. Mary's (under Catholic Health East)
Mercy Health System (under Catholic Health East)
3. Mercy Fitzgerald
4. Mercy Philadelphia
5. Mercy Suburban
6. Nazareth

I have repeatedly tried to raise concern to the Archdiocese (and to the National Catholic Bioethics Center, which is headquartered in the Archdiocese) about highly inappropriate patterns of "privileges" with direct impact on core identification as "Catholic" hospitals:

1) among OBGYNs with privileges, there is a paucity of NFP-only physicians (i.e., I have only been able to find one OBGYN associated with our hospitals who is on One More Soul's list of NFP only OBGYNs);

2) privileges for IVF specialists (e.g., ALL of Holy Redeemer's "Reproductive Endocrinologists and Obstetricians" are IVF specialists -  Dr Jennifer Nichols of Abington Reproductive Medicine, Drs Arthur Castelbaum, Martin Freedman, Benjamin Gocial, and Jacqueline Gutmann of Reproductive Medicine Associates of Philadelphia, and NONE of Holy Redeemer's obstetricians are to be found on a list of NFP-only physicians!);

3) privileges for associates of a practice involved with "fetal reduction": As per posters at FertileThoughts.com, Dr. Frank Craparo is a practitioner of "reduction" - a euphemism for abortion (According to at least one listing, Craparo has affiliations at Mercy Fitzgerald, Nazareth, and Saint Mary's.  This cannot be confirmed at those hospital's web sites.).  ALL of St Mary's specialists in "Maternal Fetal Medicine" - are associates of Craparo at "Abington Perinatal Associates."  

Philadelphia's Catholic hospitals also provide information on "advance directives,"which fails to clearly specify that Catholic teaching must be honored - particularly with regard to the provision of nutrition and hydration (i.e., Neither Saint Mary's Advanced Directives and Living Wills, nor Holy Redeemer's Making Your Own Health Care Decisions and Advance Directive Form, nor Mercy Health System's Vendor Compliance Program properly specify

• Catholic teaching with regard to nutrition and hydration, and
• that health care services cannot honor advance directives (e.g., non-specific directives to forego nutrition and hydration) opposed to Catholic teaching.).

While the Archdiocese of Philadelphia is generally non-responsive, I was recently told I write too prolifically (That is NOT how it was phrased.) and that much of what I write is "too harsh and unreasonable."  Were my parents still alive, I'd have no doubt gotten a good crack in the mouth just for receiving that criticism and reminded of how I was taught better - to always be respectful.  It's been a struggle, I've failed repeatedly, and I need frequent recourse to the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  I know that my parents would have also reminded me of Jesus' harsh words about scandal (cf., Mark 9: 6 - 9).  We are responsible for each other's salvation.

When "the activity of a particular charitable agency is no longer being carried out in conformity with the Church’s teaching"

Shortly before his resignation, Pope Benedict XVI provided guidance which would certainly appear to have direct bearing on Catholic hospitals:

"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' [Emphasis added.] and to take the necessary measures should personal responsibilities emerge (Apostolic Letter Issued 'Motu Proprio' of the Supreme Pontiff Benedict XVI on the Services of Charity).

Sister Carol Keehan's Catholic Health Association of the USA (CHAUSA) recently brought in a retired professor of canon law for commentary on Pope Benedict XVI's Motu Proprio: "although offering health care is certainly a charitable activity, ...it seems that the text refers to works such as those of Catholic Relief Services, Pontifical Mission Societies, Development and Peace, Catholic Charities, Caritas and the like in other countries" (Rev. Francis G. Morrisey, Benedict XVIs Motu Proprio - What Is Its Scope, Health Progress, May/June 2013). Huh?

With surprising candidness, one of CHAUSA's senior directors of ethics recently wrote of how end runs have been maneuvered at Catholic hospitals: "in the context of partnerships with secular organizations, pastoral exceptions have been replaced with carve-outs, namely, creating firewalls between the Catholic partner and the secular partner performing sterilizations" (Ron Hamel, Catholic Identity, Ethics Need Focus In New Era, Health Progress, May/June 2013).   On the streets of my native New York, that sort of deception has long been employed in shell games and "Three Card Monte."

The HHS Mandate, the USCCB, and the CHAUSA

As per Cardinal Timothy Dolan, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops,

"the Administration issued its final rule regarding the HHS mandate, which requires healthcare coverage for sterilization, contraception, and drugs and devices that may cause abortions....[There are] three categories of religious freedom problems in the mandate—in short,

"problems with the 'religious employer' exemption;
problems with the 'accommodation' for employers deemed not 'religious enough' for the exemption; and
problems with the lack of any exemption or'accommodation' for individuals and for-profit businesses....
"our study has not discovered any new change that eliminates the need to continue defending our rights in Congress and the courts."

It probably should have come as no surprise that the CHAUSA would quickly defy the USCCB with an "approval" of the mandate, "throwing under the bus" any who struggle to be faithful witnesses in the face of assaults on conscience (See www.chausa.org/newsroom/women's-preventive-health-services-final-rule.).  When it comes to rendering unto God or unto Caesar, they appear to have made a choice. 

The Fellowship of the Ring 

I sometimes envy that my parents were not faced with such things as the CHAUSA's duplicitousness.

“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

Echoing Pat Archbold of the National Catholic Register (7/12/13), many have decided that the time has come to ask the USCCB to immediately remove the designation "Catholic" from Sister Carol Keehan's group.