Dereliction of duty: The Catholic Health Association

UPDATE: An amendment to protect the conscience of patients and health care providers was defeated on April 2 by a vote of 56-41. At long last the Catholic Health Association opts to get in the game. Too little, too late?

One thing that can be said for President Obama, he certainly is making it difficult for the American Catholic Left to maintain its charade of being actually Catholic.

From the battle of Notre Dame, to the Bishop’s being exposed for directing millions in congregational contributions to ACORN, to the dirty little realization that 54% of Catholics voted for a pro-infanticide presidential candidate because social justice peddlers assured them he was “the real pro-life candidate”, the fact that the Church in America is lousy with Marxists using Christianity as a tool to con the unwitting and unsuspecting into buying their Leftist anti-Christianity is becoming plain for all to see.

The latest case in point.

In early March the Obama Administration announced its intentions to rescind the Department of Health and Human Services Provider Conscience Rule. In short, this rule, enacted in December 2008, was an attempt to bolster and clarify laws created in the wake of the Roe v. Wade decision. Forecasting the coming perfect storm of a Democrat majority congress; a recklessly disinterested electorate; and the most pro-abortion president-elect in American history hell bent on health care reform about to take office; the outgoing Bush administration issued the Provider Conscience Rule as a last ditch effort to preserve something of the sovereignty of faith-based health care in America.

Not surprisingly numerous organizations are expressing outrage over Obama’s call to rescind the rule. The Catholic Medical Association , the Heritage Foundation , even the more-often-Lefty-than-not United States Council of Catholic Bishops are aggressively mobilizing grassroots opposition to the move, encouraging one and all to make their objections known via websites such as The Catholic Medical Association’s Freedom 2 Care.org and Heritage’s A Doctor’s Right.com. They note with great urgency the period for public commentary on this decision ends April 9. We certainly join them in their invitation for your participation.

And yet, thus far, one key player remains curiously absent in this battle: the Catholic Health Association (CHA). CHA is, according to its website, the nation's largest group of not-for-profit health care sponsors, systems, and facilities. But, despite CHA’s previous support for passage of the Conscience Rule, little to nothing about its rescission appears on their website other than a dismissive three paragraph statement assuring member health care facilities that it’s nothing at all to worry about and that CHA will handle all commentary to HHS, thank you, no need for you little people to bother yourselves about all this.

Strange. Why the relative lack of concern? Why the distinctly different tone? Many seem to believe that Catholic health care– a reality in America since 1727 – is entering the fight for it’s very survival; not an unreasonable presumption given the Obama administration’s aggressive action and rhetoric regarding abortion legislation, embryonic stem cell research, charitable giving, and increased federal power in health care governance. Now this. And yet the leading advocacy arm of the Church’s health care ministry in America pooh-poohs the issue with a brief dismissive statement?

One reason, perhaps, is that CHA is simply too busy with far more important advocacy efforts such as Climate Change, Islamic Perspectives on addressing cultural and religious diversity in physician relationships, and, of course, government run health care.

Alas, the sticky wicket! The Conscience Rule rescission decision was announced literally during President Obama’s sham forum on health reform. Yet, Sister Carol Keehan, president and chief executive officer of CHA who attended the event, mentions not a word of the issue in her review of the forum. There is instead only glowing appraisal of Mr. Obama’s commitment to making Clintonian health care reform the law of the land.

It would seem objecting to Mr. Obama’s aggressive pro-abortion agenda at this juncture would prove injurious to the progress CHA has made in advancing its primary advocacy objective: government run health care.

What does government run health care have to do with Catholicism? As much as climate change, social justice and multi-culturalism; which is to say, nothing. In fact, each of these courses necessarily lead to the antithesis of compassion and the protection of the dignity and well-being of each individual created in the image and likeness of God: the stated mission of Catholic health care.

It is the unstated mission of CHA and other Catholic Left organizations, however, which are at last coming to light.

So long as there remained in Washington a Conservative foothold ensuring authentic Judeo-Christian values were at play in the brawl of policy-making, the Catholic Left could safely indulge in its social justice fantasies and Marxist vagaries, knowing it would never be held publicly accountable for reconciling its rhetoric with Church doctrine and the teachings of Christ. But that foothold has broken loose. The fantasies and vagaries are being signed into law. It is time for the Catholic Left to reveal where its true allegiances lie.

And at this crucial moment, in the very battle one would presume it was created to lead, the Catholic Health Association has courageously opted to avoid the issue altogether. Most revealing indeed.


Cheers,

Charlie