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The following is excerpted from the National Review.
Last week FiveThirtyEight — an influential website known primarily for its sober-minded statistical analysis — published a remarkable attack on Catholic hospitals. It purported to expose how many American communities are dependent on Catholic care and how “bishops” shape their health-care choices. Here’s a key paragraph:
In a growing number of communities around the country, especially in rural areas, patients and physicians have access to just one hospital. And in more and more places, that hospital is Catholic. That sounds innocuous — a hospital is a hospital, after all. But Catholic hospitals are bound by a range of restrictions on care that are determined by religious authorities, with very little input from medical staff. Increasingly, where a patient lives can determine whether Catholic doctrine, and how the local bishop interprets that doctrine, will decide what kind of care she can get.
Today, it published a second piece taking aim at Catholic care, this time decrying the fact that insurers often send patients to Catholic health-care providers without providing sufficient warnings about restrictions on contraception.
The pieces, taken together, paint a fascinating picture of an all-too-common progressive attitude toward Christian service. It’s an attitude I’ve seen time and again in health care, in youth programs, on campus, and everywhere else Christian institutions work with and serve the general public.
It goes something like this: Dear Christians, thank you for feeding, housing, and caring for the poor, but unless you do it in the manner we prefer, advancing the worldview we prefer — even to the point of adopting the personnel policies we demand — we will use all the power of law and public shame to bring you into compliance. We’ll pass laws that violate your conscience. We’ll call you bigots or misogynists when you resist. And all the while, the fact that you actually do serve and sustain (physically and spiritually) millions of Americans will be lost and ignored.
To read the full article on National Review, click here.
