Washington D.C., Jun 28, 2018 / 12:08 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Catholic health care must remain Catholic, even in instances of collaborations or mergers with non-Catholic institutions, say new directives from the U.S. bishops.
The sixth edition of the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services was “overwhelmingly accepted” by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) at their spring meeting in Fort Lauderdale, said Bishop Robert McManus of Worcester, who chairs the USCCB’s subcommittee on health care, which was responsible for compiling the new directives.
Overall, the directives deal with a myriad of issues, including health care at the beginning and end of life, as well as pastoral and spiritual responsibilities of Catholic health care institutions to their patients.
The new edition includes multiple updates to the sixth section of the directives, which deal with collaborative arrangements with other health care organizations and providers, whether those are Catholic or secular.
The new and updated directives are a result of four years of study and consultation with the Vatican and with the National Catholic Bioethics Center, McManus told CNA.
They clarify, among other things, that Catholic health care institutions must maintain their Catholic identity and provide care consistent with Church teaching even in instances when they collaborate or merge with other healthcare institutions.
“The rule of thumb is a Catholic hospital in partnership with a non-Catholic hospital cannot formally cooperate with doing evil,” Bishop McManus said. Formal “cooperation (with evil) is always eliminated, it cannot be done.”
The directives state that formal cooperation with evil happens “not only when the cooperator shares the intention of the wrongdoer, but also when the cooperator directly participates in the immoral act….(and) may take various forms, such as authorizing wrongdoing, approving it, prescribing it, actively defending it, or giving specific direction about carrying it out. Formal cooperation, in whatever form, is always morally wrong.”
Material cooperation, on the other hand, occurs when “the one cooperating neither shares the wrongdoer’s intention in performing the immoral act nor cooperates by directly participating in the act as a means to some other end, but rather contributes to the immoral activity in a way that is causally related but not essential to the immoral act itself. While some instances of material cooperation are morally wrong, others are morally justified,” the directives state.
Material cooperation is never justified in actions that are “intrinsically immoral, such as abortion, euthanasia, assisted suicide, and direct sterilization,” the directives state. Other situations of material cooperation may be more morally complex.
According to the bishops: “Reliable theological experts should be consulted in interpreting and applying the principles governing cooperation.”
Another important consideration in situations of collaborations and mergers is the principle of scandal, McManus said.
“Theological scandal, strictly speaking, means that I cannot do or say something that might cause someone else to enter into sin,” he said.
“So even if there is cooperation that has been justified by (as) material cooperation, if that might cause scandal, even after attempts to explain why a Catholic and non-Catholic institution are partnering, if there is the reality of scandal, that has to be avoided,” he said.
The directives also clarify the role of a bishop in overseeing collaborations of Catholic and non-Catholic institutions.
Joe Zalot, a staff ethicist with the National Catholic Bioethics Center, told CNA that these directives are necessary because health care collaborations are increasingly common, and can create complex situations when determining who has authority over these entities.
“Basically what’s happened is that many of the Catholic hospitals, historically they were founded and run by religious orders, particularly women’s religious orders, and as those orders are literally and figuratively dying out, there were not enough sisters to administer them,” Zalot said.
As a result, some Catholic health care institutions are now overseen by what are called juridic persons in canon law, which are legal entities recognized by the Vatican. Because these juridic persons exist within a diocese, or in some cases multiple dioceses, the local bishop or bishops share responsibility in ensuring the Catholic identity of these entities, Zalot said.
“What these directives are doing is recognizing that fact and trying to define the role of the bishop in terms of Catholic health care entities in his diocese. Essentially the bishop has oversight of what happens in his diocese,” Zalot said.
“What the bishops are saying is not new. What they’re doing is clarifying the role of the bishop in terms of Catholic entities in (their) dioceses,” he added.
Zalot said that for the most part, these directives usually do not pose problems for Catholic institutions that seek collaboration with non-Catholic ones.
“What (the bishops) are concerned with is ensuring the identity of the Catholic institution remains, even within these mergers. And actually it does happen, we see it, there’s hospitals that have been merged into or bought by a secular institution. But one of the elements of the contract or the purchase agreement is that these institutions remain Catholic,” he said.
“And as far as I know, most secular institutions don’t have a problem with that,” he added. The directives just help to ensure that “what is happening in a Catholic healthcare institution actually is Catholic, and you’re providing care consistent with the teachings of the Church.”
While discussing the revision of the directives at the general assembly in Fort Lauderdale, Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore noted that three of the five Catholic hospitals in Baltimore are already in collaborative arrangements, and that the new revision “doesn’t answer every question, but it does offer helpful guidance.”
Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington said the revision “walks a very clear path through many complex issues,” preserving the theological principle of the autonomy of individual dioceses in pastoral ministry. It “makes clear there should be collaboration between dioceses, without taking away the autonomy of the individual bishop.”
The USCCB voted to approve the revised Ethical and Religious Directives June 14, by a vote of 183 to 2, with 2 abstentions.
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Honor to this President for standing up for Palestinian rights and for warning our nation against the inordinate influence of Israel.
May God grant salvation to President Jimmy Carter.
Yes, let’s pray for his soul. But let’s not forget that Carter—in addition to being pro-abortion, pro-“gay marriage”, and slanderous towards pro-lifers—praised Castro and Cuba, China, Tito (“a man who believes in human rights”), Kim Il Sung, Yasser Arafat, and the PLO, Mengistu, Cédras, Assad, and Hamas. Jimmy was most inept (whereas Joe is mostly corrupt), but he was also a sanctimonious embarrassment far more often than his hagiographers (that is, the legacy media) will ever admit. For more, see my July 2009 post at Insight Scoop.
Upon Carter’s election, the astute and long-time Singapore President Lee Qwan Yew wrote (of world leaders) in his own autobiography, “we knew we would just have to put up with him for four years.”
And, on the domestic scene, we recall that it was President Carter who gave us the cabinet-level position U.S. Department of Education, surely as a reward to the teachers’ unions that helped him get elected (formed on May 4, 1980, as a result of the Department of Education Organization Act–Public Law 96-88–of October 1979; President Jimmy Carter signed the bill into law.) The gift that keeps on giving.
Educationally speaking, Shakespeare gives us a clue: “The fault is not in our ‘stars,’ but in ourselves” (“Julius Caesar”). That is, the fault is not in those who are elected but in those who elect them. The corporate Peter Principle transferred to the gummint.
Yes, the establishment of the Department of Education was foolish. Yet, who kept it going, despite, as I recall, promises to the contrary? Oh, yeah, his successor, that “great conservative” Ronald Reagan.
Bravo! Sick to death of the hagiographies popping up everywhere.
Not that Pres. Carter endorsed this policy, but something to keep in mind from the late, great Huey Long:
“I don’t know much about Hitler. Except that last thing, about the Jews. There has never been a country that put its heel down on the Jews that ever lived afterwards.”
— Huey Long
For all his faults, Huey had some wise insights. May he & Jimmy Carter rest in peace.
Palestine must earn nationhood. Terrorism must never be rewarded. For over three quarters of a century, the only thing that Palestinians have excelled in is their ability to inflict incalculable suffering on a global scale, not only on others, but also on themselves.
It will only be by a direct intervention from God Himself that the hearts and minds of radical Islam will be converted.
It is for this we must pray.
Aside from rationalizing numerous acts of Islamic terrorism, possibly to downplay and make his years of cowardice not seem so bad while president, the post-president, “great humanitarian,” Carter met with leaders of the terrorist group Hamas. He embraced Nasser al-Shaer, the man who ran the Palestinian education system, brainwashing children into believing Jews are the descendants of pigs and dogs. He laid a wreath at the grave of Yasser Arafat, the most notorious terrorist thug of the 20th century.
Oh I forgot. Francis seems to indicate the Islamic world can’t do much that is morally wrong. He once reminded us that beheading children was the equivalent of domestic abuse, which he assumed was done by Catholic men since he read it in an Italian newspaper.
Freemasons defend the reputation of fellow members. Not suggesting that is what Bergoglio is doing at all, what so ever.
Thanks for your counter-witness, Carl. I confess my (naive) views of Carter have hitherto been based on the so-called mainstream media.
If Carter was mainly inept, what does that make Francis with his (supposed) assessment of him?
I volunteered in Jimmy Carter’s campaign & he was the first president I ever voted for . (And the last Democrat.) He really was a decent & faithful man in many ways but a very incompetent president.
In the beginning we believed he was a solid Christian believer but over time he veered off in some strange directions. God rest his soul.
Good question. I think there are a few factors involved. First, Pope Francis had to say something nice; it would be uncharitable to do otherwise. Secondly, Francis (I’m guessing) knows very little about Carter’s faith, life, policies, etc. Some of that is to be expected, as the Pope isn’t supposed to be an expert on all previous and current world leaders. But, thirdly, his remarks (praising “the deep faith” of Carter) just follow the standard, mainstream line, which is par for this pope and his inner circle. Fourth, I think that Francis is so keen on politics and political gestures that he probably believes Carter was a good president of deep faith. After all, that’s what the media legacy is trying to feed us here, even though the record says otherwise. Fifth, I think both men, in real ways, are 1970s liberals who have “evolved” on certain stances. Carter (as noted already) ended up embracing a hazy form of liberal Protestantism—or, better, of Protestantized liberalism—and jettisoned core moral beliefs, which in turn meant dismissing any sort of traditional, biblical Christian anthropology.
The bottom line, for me, is that Carter was mostly a disaster as POTUS and while he did some good things afterwards, he was a pro-tyrannical, pro-abortion, pro-“gay marriage”, post-1970s liberal whose Christianity was thin at best.
Carter’s was a failed presidency and American voters rejected him and his policies. I find it amusing and laughable how the leftists (inclusing Bergoglio) are tripping over themselves to canonize this man. Some of us are not fooled by the posturing. The guy was book smart but had the leadership skills of an idiot.
Carter was not a good President. I voted against him twice. He let the Iranian Shiite fanatics push him around, that said, he did become a decent ex President with the Habitat for Humanity business. I recall seeing a picture of him years ago, after he left the White House, wearing a tool belt and hammering nails at a construction site. I thought that was nice that he found some task that he can accomplish.
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Agreed on his presidency. It was, overall, a train wreck. Carter was a nice guy, and that meant that he did some nice and good things. But “nice” isn’t the same as principled or strong, and Carter (in my estimation) was neither of those.
Jimmy Carter’s single greatest accomplishment was in giving the United States of America eight years of Reagan.
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I took your recommendation, Carl, and read your 2009 article. I believe I am now sufficiently inocculated against the current media and papal hagiography.
I do think Habitat for Humanity does good work.
Respectful farewell to Jimmy Carter. RIP.