A Catholic Leader’s Un-Christian Sentiments Toward the Uninsured
By Michael RuseNovember 17, 2010
How many people in America today are without health insurance? A Harvard study last year put the figure at 46 million, and although there are other estimates, no one disputes that that is the right sort of figure. It is true that an
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How many people in America today are without health insurance? A Harvard study last year put the figure at 46 million, and although there are other estimates, no one disputes that that is the right sort of figure. It is true that an
“What! Me Worry?”
yone can go to a hospital emergency service, but it is also true that not having insurance means that overall one’s health is in greater jeopardy. The same Harvard study estimated that lack of insurance led to 46,000 unnecessary deaths a year—no treatment for high blood pressure, coming in too late with a deadly disease, and so forth.
I give this as background to the news in The New York Times today that the Catholic bishops have just elected Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan of New York City as their leader.
Archbishop Dolan said in a news conference after the vote that he would carry on the forceful opposition of his predecessor, Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, to the recent health-care overhaul because the bishops believed it would permit expanded government financing for abortion.
“My major priority would be to continue with all vigor I can muster what’s already in place,” Archbishop Dolan said. “It’s not like we’re in crisis; it’s not like all of a sudden we need some daring new initiatives. Thank God for the leadership of Cardinal Francis George, things are going well.”
Archbishop Dolan also suggested that he would not countenance other Catholic leaders and organizations when they take public positions that contradict the bishops. That is what happened this year when some groups representing Catholic hospitals and nuns came out in support of the health care overhaul bill, despite the bishops’ staunch opposition.
“We’re pastors and teachers,” Archbishop Dolan said of the bishops’ role, “not just one set of teachers in the Catholic community, but the teachers.”
“It’s not like we’re in crisis; it’s not like all of a sudden we need some daring new initiatives.” Forty-six million people are without health insurance and we are not in crisis. Every day there are woman finding lumps in their breasts and terrified to do anything about them because they don’t have health insurance. Every day there are men finding blood coming from their anuses and terrified to do anything about it because they don’t have health insurance. Finally, the country has passed a bill doing something about this, but we don’t need new initiatives. The bishops felt obliged to oppose the new legislation because there were “unborn babies that were in danger.”
The New Atheists—Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Dan Dennett, Christopher Hitchens, and the others—loathe and detest all forms of religion. Dawkins particularly has picked out the Catholic Church as an institution that tolerates and indeed promotes great evil. I am on record—to the great scorn of the New Atheists—as saying that, although I have absolutely no religious beliefs whatsoever, I think it is possible for someone to be religious and to merit the respect of nonbelievers. I don’t think one is a fool, or deluded, or evil, if one believes in Christianity or one of the other great religions. I think also that there are many Catholics whose boots I am not worthy to lick. The care and love shown to their fellow humans in the name of their faith puts me to shame. But increasingly I think Dawkins is right about Catholicism as an institution. And I haven’t even mentioned what the bishops’ new leader has to say about homosexuals.
