RSS
Home
Catholic Ethics and the Healthcare Debate
Print
Email
RSS
Subscribe
.jpg)
AP Photo/Pier Paolo Cito
The Vatican has announced that Pope Benedict’s much-anticipated encyclical, “Caritas in veritate” (Charity in Truth) will be presented on Tuesday, July 7 at 11:30 a.m. local time. Many have predicted that it will be a critical look at capitalism and globalization in the wake of a worldwide economic meltdown. The timing of its release corresponds with the opening of the G8 summit and President Obama’s visit to the Vatican.
While it’s difficult to know just how severe the pope’s criticism will be, or how specific, certain passages have already been released in the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, including the encyclical’s assertion that "a deficit of ethics in the economic structures” is to blame for the current fiscal crisis. According to these reports, Benedict will state that “true development is impossible without honest men, without financial operators and politicians who strongly feel in their own consciences the call to [serve] the common good.” This echoes a 1985 article published by the Acton Institute as “Market Economy and Ethics," in which then-Cardinal Ratzinger stated “…the market rules function only when a moral consensus exists and sustains them….An economic policy that is ordered not only to the good of the group …but to the common good of the family of man demands a maximum of ethical discipline and thus a maximum of religious strength.”
How can American Catholics apply these messages? In this author’s opinion, there is no better place to start than with the current debate over healthcare reform. While the politicians and insurance companies clash over issues of profits and power, it is the weakest in our nation, those who are sick and lack access to proper care and medicine, who continue to suffer. According to the National Coalition on Healthcare:
- A recent study by Harvard University researchers found that 50 percent of all bankruptcy filings were partly the result of medical expenses. Every 30 seconds in the United States someone files for bankruptcy in the aftermath of a serious health problem.
- About 1.5 million families lose their homes to foreclosure every year due to unaffordable medical costs.
- A survey of Iowa consumers found that in order to cope with rising health insurance costs, 44 percent said that they have cut back on food and heating expenses.
- Retiring elderly couples will need $250,000 in savings just to pay for the most basic medical coverage.
And currently, Congress is considering a Breast Cancer Patient Protection Act, which would end the practice of so-called "drive-through" mastectomies when women are forced out of the hospital only hours after invasive breast cancer surgery.
While fixing the broken healthcare system is of course complex, Americans might want to remember (and remind their politicians) that the problem is not about political parties or companies’ bottom lines, but about all of us as a society…about “the common good of the family of man.”
As John L. Allen, Jr. says in the National Catholic Reporter, “To be sure, all modern popes have defended the right to private property, condemned communism and socialism, and embraced a principle of ‘subsidiarity’ limiting the power of the state. Yet there's also deep skepticism that the invisible hand of a market economy will necessarily be benign, and a clear accent on the common good over individual profit.” When Pope Benedict releases his encyclical next week examining the ethical components necessary to a healthy global economy, it will be useful for American Catholics to consider how these ethics can be applied to the biggest dilemma currently facing our nation. How strong is our “family of man” when women are sent home hours after having a breast removed, families must choose between heat and medicine, and 40 million people lack the insurance they need to have proper medical care?
Related Articles:
Add a Comment
