Archbishop Wuerl: health-care reform is a moral imperative.
Good get for Politics Daily:
We teach that health care is a basic human right, an essential safeguard of human life and dignity…. Health care reform especially needs to protect those at the beginning of life and at its end — the most vulnerable and the voiceless. It is essential that reform include long-standing and widely supported federal restrictions on abortion funding and mandates and uphold existing conscience protections for health care providers.
(…)
Universal coverage should be universal, including everyone. Health care reform cannot leave people out because of pre-existing conditions, chronic illnesses, their place of work or because they cannot afford insurance. Reform should not leave people out because of where they come from or when they arrived here.
(…)
Our political leadership faces both a challenge and an opportunity. We hope and we also pray that all in this debate will remember that what is really at stake are the lives, dignity and health care of all our people. Securing health care that protects the life and dignity of all is a moral imperative and an urgent national priority.
Read the rest right here.
Update: Our own Dave Gibson responds to the Archbishop’s column elsewhere at Politics Daily.
This is very, very good.
My only gripe is, it seems to me that the bishops are a little late to the table. These principles should have been clearly enunciated – in pastoral letters, web sites, bulletin inserts, etc. – back in the spring, when they could have influenced the national conversation/debate in its nascent phase. Istm the bishops aren’t getting the publicity machine cranked up until late summer, well after the basic contours of the issue have already been established by other political forces.
It seems quite possible, even likely, that whatever gets signed into law will fulfill *none* of the bishops’ requirements: it will leave many millions (including illegal immigrants) without medical care; it will be irresponsibly expensive; and it will not include adequate life protections.
FWIW, my take on the column and the “pushback” from the center–relevant to Jim Pauwels’ concerns, I think:
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/09/16/debating-health-care-the-catholic-center-pushes-back/
I urge everyone to read David’s excellent post. Please note the letter signed by the 45 theologians including pasat and current president of the Theological Society as well as our own Cathy.
Despite calls from allen and others for the pro;lifers to turn down the rhetoric, Judie Brown wants to “buryObamacare” and ther eare still lots of shrill voices in the Catholic community.
The speakup against Neumann and Finn then is late but only after they came foward with their poor understanding of Catholic social justice.
I continue to be amazed at the GOP’s hardline (despite saying they’re willing to compromise _ Iguess that means only on terms they dictate-) and how little the common good really dominates the discussion.
Sure A/B Wuerl is late putting out an ‘old’ Catholic teaching; The Kansas cities bishops put their ‘no’ on the health effort even though Obama has not written any parts of the health bills except to jaw-bone some points. The GOP opposition is all about getting an Obama defeat which won’t happen given their transparent attacks. The Dems will definately go for the old way …make it… then fix it…
If the good Archbishop is looking for a “Wuerlwind” of change, he is many days late and many dollars short.
It’s safe to speak from the sidelines. Leadership, however, comes from the front and early on.
But, after all, he IS a member of the Catholic prelature. Leadership isn’t one of their shining virtues. But he looks nice in his outfit.
http://www.usccb.org/sdwp/national/health1.shtml
I agree with the Bishops, and am glad they are chiming in on this important topic. If I understand correctly, the Church’s requirements for supporting this (per the Bishops’ statements) are that a US national health care plan would:
1 – Be decent and caring i.e., would not cover abortion or euthanasia
2 – Be universal i.e., would cover all residents of the country, not just citizens
That seems reasonable enough. Actually it does not matter much if I like what the Bishops say; they are giving the Church’s recommendation. They are trying to guide the flock.
As for all the carping on this thread and others about episcopal leadership regarding health care, I try to take it with a pillar of salt. It is always easy to sit on the sidelines and second-guess and/or complain.
I have read where about thirty percent of the hospitals in the US are Catholic-affiliated institutions. Hence it simply would not be responsible for US Bishops to shoot from the hip and toss around flip statements or recommendations about such an important matter.
Certainly the US Bisjops have given this matter more thoughful consideration than most lay people have.
Catholic healthcare stats: http://www.usccb.org/healthcare/facts.shtml
In the old days before JPII and the assault on Vatican II collegiality, the NCCB/USCCB would have already developed and published a pastoral letter on national health care.
Sad that those days are long gone; USCCB is too afraid of Rome; and does not have the leadership or vision for this type of true Catholic evangelization. (also, the “Republican Cathlic Bishops would fight this tooth and nail).
the Church’s requirements for supporting this (per the Bishops’ statements) are that a US national health care plan would: 1 – Be decent and caring i.e., would not cover abortion
This is doubtless an unpopular opinion to express, but a health care plam that doesn’t allow medicaid to pay for legal and doctor approved abortions doesn’t seem especially decent or caring of poor women.
Chrystal – I do not understand how anyone could see abortions as either decent or caring, or why you would think (as you seem to imply) that the Catholic Church could possibly approve of a national health plan that would force Catholics to pay for abortions.
Ken, Catholics already pay for legal abortions: many (most?) private health insurances cover abortions.
Ken,
I think of medicaid as decent and caring. By limiting federal money for certain procedures, we’re penalizing people who can’t afford private insurance. I’m not saying abortion is decent or caring, but I do think the health care of women is a subject that just gets sidelined in the discussion about abortion. As for the Church not approving of how our tax dollars are spent, haven’t our taxes also paid for war and capital punishment and torturing people at Gitmo?
Crystal – First of all, abortion is not “health care for women”. Abortion is murder, plain and simple.
I agree with you that Medicaid and Medicare are decent programs, and currently neither of them fun abortions.
Regarding your comment “As for the Church not approving of how our tax dollars are spent, haven’t our taxes also paid for war and capital punishment and torturing people at Gitmo?”, I want to make sure I understand you correctly. Are you trying to say that you think the Catholic Church places abortion on the same moral plane as war and capital punishment?
If in fact that is what you think, please allow me to clarify.
The Catholic Church has long held that war and capital punishment are prudential matters that are left to the state. In fact while the Catholic Church has a just-war philosophy, and while the Vatican has repeatedly indicated that in modern societies that have capable state governments, that she does not see a reason for capital punishment, ultimately the Catholic Church renders these matters unto Caesar.
And so while they are all objectively wrong, abortion, captial punishment and war are not on the same moral level – at all.
This involves the notion that the ends can never be used to justify the means, and also the notion of right and wrong and the level of guilt or culpability. We Catholics hold that the ends Cannot be used to justify the means.
Killing a human being is always and everywhere objectively wrong; that much we know. Then what about circumstances?
Even in situations of defending oneself or society against a criminal, or defending the whole society against organized aggression (i.e., war), the ends still do not justify the means; killing is still wrong.
However, while it is still objectively wrong to kill, the question of guilt must include our own will.
In situations like a hostage taking (which my force us to lie) or a war that probably would force us to kill, everything is already wrong, and we have been dragged against our will into an impossible moral quandary. And so while our actions (lying, or shooting the criminal or dropping the A-bomb on Japan) are still objectively wrong, because in fact we were been placed in those situations against our will and really have very limited options, and hardly any time to rationally consider the options that are available, our culpability is reduced accordingly.
Under normal circumstances, that is to say in the routine course of our daily lives, when we are not being stalked, molested or otherwise threatened by a criminal, when we are not at war fighting for the survival of ourselves, our families, our nation, under normal circumstances, circumstances where we have the opportunity and the responsibility to think and act with reason, of course the ends cannot be used to justify the means.
Even outside of normal circumstances (outside of normal morality) the ends still do not justify the means, but because we have effectively been coerced, our guilt is reduced.
I cut it short, but meant to conclude by looking at abortion.
Can you think of a case where the ends (a woman free of a child that she does not want) justifies the means (i.e., killing the baby)?
The only time I would not question whether an abortion was necessary is in the case where the mother’s life was at stake. In such a case, the abortion would not be the “means”, but would be the result of other measures the doctor was using to try and save the mother. In other words; the dead child would not have been the primary intent of the treatment.
Ken: I’m a Catholic who has no children, but I pay taxes to support schools. I’m against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but I pay taxes to support the military.
One of the conditions of living in society is that you pay for what the elected representatives determine is in the best interest of society. You can disagree and work to unseat a representative that supports what you don’t, but, until that happens, you live to fight another day.
If something is done for the “common weal”, it is done in the interests and for the benefit of the majority or the general public.
If the general public wants abortions funded under healthcare, then that is the way things will (and should) go.
The Catholic Church and other like-minded religious organizations have been woefully inadequeat in providing compelling reasons for some women NOT to have abortions. Until they can do so, the general public will support what women have the legal right to do.
Ken,
Thanks for the reply. I believe you know much more about Church doctrine and theology than I do, but still I’d like to respond ….
I know that in the distant past, the Church was ok with capital punishment and with war – hence popes ordering executions in the papal states, the torture and death caused by the inquisition, the crusades, etc. But I think today you would be hard pressed to get someone in the Vatican who would say outloud (whatever they may actually believe) that all life, whther it be the life of a convicted criminal or a fetus, is not of equal worth. The fact that the Church signs off on war and capital punishment says to me that they indeed do accept the idea that the ends justify the means, and I think they (and Augustine :) are wrong.
About abortion – I think it’s both women’s health care and the killing of a living being. I don’t think most people (or the state) would call it murder, though, because if that were so, the perpetrators would be arrested and prosecuted. Maybe this is because not everyone agrees on the definition of personhood, on whether a fetus is a person, or at what stage they may become a person, though of course the Church has said that happens at conception.
Ken. –
The Vatican has never rejected the just war theory of St. Augustine. We are not required to be pacifists. (I personally wish I could be, but I can’t.) On the other hand JP II said somewhere that it is always immoral to kill an innocent person.
JP ‘s view is simply not consistent with the time-honored teaching of Augustine. The lesson to be drawn here is that popes sometimes contradict prior Church teachings. Is this a quandary? Yes. It also implies that sometimes we have to disagree with a teaching of the Church. No fair claiming that we are “forced ” to do something “wrong”. When the Vatican leads us in two directions at once, we need to consider which teaching is more like the teachings of Christ — and why.
Jimmy – I agree with you that we Catholics have not done a good enough job providing compelling reasons why a woman should not get an abortion. Indeed, that is our fault and we need to keep trying – and praying.
However I do not agree with your seeming contention that publically-funded abortion is “just one more thing” we all pay for via taxes (for the common good); abortion is not on the same moral plane as war ( to use your example).
I think it is more important than that.