CATHOLIC HOSPITALS IN NAME ONLY?

It was with great interest that I read the following story.

The Board of Directors of several Catholic psychiatric hospitals in Belgium has decided to start performing euthanasia.  However, the Brothers of Charity who actually operate the hospitals and provide immediate care to patients have said that the policy change is unacceptable and will not be implemented.

The Brothers of Charity operate 15 psychiatric hospitals with over 5,000 patients.  The Superior General has informed the Board of Directors that the Order cannot accept the decision to allow euthanasia because “it is going totally against our charism of charity”.

Only a few of the Brothers of Charity are involved on the Board of Directors governing the Belgium hospitals.  The majority of members are lay people.  The Superior General has charged that “a spirit of secularization is poisoning the Board”.

Raf De Ryce, chairman of the Board overseeing the psychiatric institutions, contended that the new policy was not a major change.  “It is not that we used to be against euthanasia and now suddenly are for it. This is consistent with our existing criteria,” he said. “We are making both possible routes for our patients: both a pro-life perspective and euthanasia.”  De Ryce said the inviolability of life is “an important foundation” but for the board it is not an absolute.

However, the Brothers of Charity contend that the Catholic hospitals’ previous policy was clear about opposition to euthanasia. “When someone asked for euthanasia, the question was taken seriously; everything was done to help the patient to change his vision of things,” the Superior General said. If the situation remained unchanged, the patient was transferred.  “This transfer was done with respect, but always convinced that a signal was given to society that inside our institutes no euthanasia was possible,” he said. “This was very important.”

I believe we are seeing the battle lines which will be drawn in the near future as regards Catholic medical institutions eventual support for euthanasia which is gaining more and more acceptance among the Catholic laity and Christians in general.

Certainly, official Church teaching condemns euthanasia. At present, the Roman Catholic Church is the largest single funder opposed to euthanasia. It invests more money in its fight against euthanasia than all the combined resources of right to die societies around the world many times over.

Of the other Christian churches, the Episcopalian (Anglican) Unitarian, Methodist, Presbyterian and Quaker movements are amongst the most liberal, allowing at least individual decision making in cases of active euthanasia. Hindu and Sikh Dharma may also leave it to individual conscience.

Nowadays, however, few Christian denominations prohibit passive euthanasia, or refusal of treatment decisions. Those that do tend to oppose it include conservative Evangelicals, Islam, and the Mormon Church.

Opinion polls consistently show that a majority of people professing all variety of faiths support a change in the law for voluntary euthanasia. Even among Roman Catholics, more people support euthanasia than oppose it (a recent poll showed over 50% support, in spite of the Church's opposition).

Many Religious Orders in the United States invite (in some cases require) their members to consider a living will or medical directive of some kind.

One must read the signs of the times.

Sister Mary Jean Ryan, one of the last CEO's in the Church from a Religious Community, has retired from her post as the head of SSM Health Care, a group of charitable Catholic hospitals. In 1970, virtually every Catholic hospital in the United States was overseen by clergy or religious. Today, that number is down to 8.

As lay business people take up the mantle of leadership, the question remains if these institutions will continue in their tradition of Catholic medico-moral teaching, or if they too will succumb to the seductive prevailing culture of profits that has made multi-millionaires out of hospital executives. In 2008, Catholic hospitals generated revenues of $30 billion dollars, but had expenses of $85 billion which includes nearly $6 billion in charity--a shortfall of $55 billion dollars.

What remains to be seen is whether the quality of care be the same under lay leadership as it was under Religious leadership? Will the Church's emphasis on the sanctity of life always be upheld over profits? Will the hospitals eventually become so secularized as to be "Catholic" only in name?  

We shall see if the same spirit of secularization is poisoning once-Catholic hospitals in our country.

And we shall see this, I am afraid, sooner than later.