Everyone is concerned with the current health care debate, and well we should be. Which is why I was perplexed to hear a T.V. Commentator recently ask “What right has the Catholic Church have to get involved in the health care debate?”
The Church has an extraordinary experience to bring to the health care debate.
With six-hundred-and-twenty-four Catholic hospitals, four-hundred-and-ninety-nine Catholic Long-Term Care Nursing Facilities, one-hundred-and-forty-four Home Health Agencies, and forty-one Hospice Organizations, the Church is intimately involved in the health care debate.
With her commitment to the divinely revealed truth about sickness and health, compassion and service, the Church is intimately involved in the health care debate.
As the first to bring health care to so many in our country, including the immigrant, the poor, and the disenfranchised; the Church is intimately involved in the healthcare debate.
The health care question is too important to be treated as but the latest sectarian political crisis. There are real people who are too poor to get good quality medical care who live within the boundaries of our parish. There are doctors and other medical professionals who worship with us everyday who tell me stories of the gross inequities and inefficiencies of the present system. Everyone agrees that there is much to be done.
Everyone should also agree that the Church has much to contribute to the debate. That is why I’d like to recommend a new website developed by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops at http://www.usccb.org/healthcare/facts.shtml.
There you can read commentaries on Health Care Reform and a Dispute About Dying, Getting Health Care Reform Morally Right, and Walking the Walk Amidst the Health Care Talk. There are also a collection of letters from Bishops, facts and statistics, news releases, action alerts, and a video produced by the USCCB to explain the Church’s position on health care reform.
The Church is neither Republican nor Democrat, but she is an important voice to be heard in the healthcare debate. As you carefully consider all the issues, I recommend this important resource on Health care Reform.
