Health Care and Church teaching

They say the best place to keep an appointment with the devil is at a crossroads. We are again drawing near another political crossroads on health care. If we cannot move past our own diabolical short-sightedness and partisan tendencies this time, we will miss a historic opportunity to put our health care system on a path toward sustainability, fairness and common decency. It could be decades before the chance comes around again.

We cannot afford to wait to reform our system. It is costing us too much as individuals and as a society. The current system regularly turns medical misfortune into personal tragedy and economic ruin; it also weighs down U.S. industry, hindering American manufacturing in an increasingly competitive global marketplace. It also drains fiscal resources at the local, state and federal levels that could be better invested in preventive care, better education for our children or shoring up our crumbling infrastructure.

Certain folks at America magazine desire haste with respect to health legislation. Need they be reminded of the Latin saying "Festina lente"(make haste slowly)? Or the even more proverbial haste makes waste? There are many mistakes in this editorial both factually and with respect to Catholic teaching. First there is no health care crisis per se. The U.S. has the best health care in the world! There is need of health insurance reform! Secondly there is the notion that centralized government is the only answer to respond to the needs of the common good. In that regard the folks at America gloss over a cardinal principle of Catholic social teaching: subsidiarity, which to paraphrase states a social issue should be treated at the lowest level possible. Given the track record of socialized medicine and the gross mismangement of medicare you would think that the folks at America would pause before urging quick passage of what would be yet another Federal program which we cannot pay for. The counsel of Bishop Samuel Aquila, the Bishop of Fargo, ND should be heeded: "As a society seeks to bring about any good such as health care, there are many organic and intermediate groups which cooperate together to reach the desired goal. There is a danger in being persuaded to think that the national government is the sole instrument of the common good. Rather, according to the classic principle of subsidiarity in Catholic social thought, many different communities within society share this responsibility. These various strands of community life within society build up a strong and cohesive social fabric that is the hallmark of a true communion of persons. States, towns, fraternal organizations, businesses, cooperatives, parishes and especially the family have not only legitimate freedom to provide the goods they are rightly capable of supplying, but often times do so with far greater efficiency, less bureaucracy and, most importantly, with personalized care and love. " See http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=9100 for the full text of Bishop Aquila's pastoral letter.

Before the rise of Socialized Education in this nation - People use to follow the Biblical mandate of:

“These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.” and

“Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.”

Before Socialized Retirement in this nation - People use to follow the Biblical mandate of:

“Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you.” and

“But if a widow has children or grandchildren, these should learn first of all to put their religion into practice by caring for their own family and so repaying their parents and grandparents, for this is pleasing to God.”

Before Socialized benevolence in this nation - People use to:

“if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully.” and

“Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”

What the Church has forgotten, in its plunge into Secular Humanism, is this:

“If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.”

Governments don’t love...People do.

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