By Bishop James Conley
Jesus Christ was best known as a teacher and a healer. This is why the Catholic Church has been involved in education and health care since apostolic times. In fact, the Catholic Church established the first universities and the first hospitals in the western world. I’ve written a lot about Catholic education over the years, but this week I’d like to share with you the “good news” about Catholic health care ministries, and what is being done to protect and strengthen them, particularly in the Catholic Diocese of Lincoln.
As I mentioned above, Catholic health care ministry is rooted in the healing ministry of Jesus Christ, who modeled compassion for the sick and healed many to demonstrate the powerful love of God. As early as 370 AD, Catholic dioceses and monasteries began to organize buildings and services for care of the sick. Starting in the early 1800s, orders of women religious, such as the Daughters of Charity and the Sisters of Mercy, brought their legacy of caring for the sick to the United States. And after the Civil War, Catholic health care ministries grew rapidly across the country.
Here in the Diocese of Lincoln, we have two important Catholic health care ministries, Madonna Rehabilitation Hospitals, for which the Diocese of Lincoln is sponsor, and CHI-Saint Elizabeth Hospital, the Heart Hospital and CHI Health St. Mary’s in Nebraska City. Catholic health care ministries are not merely nonprofit organizations but works of the Church. St. Elizabeth’s hospital is indebted to the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration and Madonna to the Yankton Benedictine Sisters. The health care they provide to all is offered in the name of the Church and so they are called to be authentic witnesses to the life and love of Jesus Christ. These Catholic health care ministries in our diocese answer that call every day.
Catholic health care ministries are a large part of the U.S. health care sector. Catholic hospitals make up 10% of all hospitals and take care of roughly 15% of all patients admitted into hospitals. Catholic health care ministries have managed to survive and even grow in the early years of the 21st century. But Catholic health care ministries are facing many challenges.
First, there are many financial pressures in modern health care, from new technology to health insurance, as well as the rising costs of drugs and salaries. Catholic health care ministries now depend mostly on the lay faithful, both Catholic and non-Catholic, to provide hands-on care and mission driven leadership. Third, and unfortunately, powerful advocates have been using health care to advance a very secular agenda. For example, immediately after the 1973 Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, abortion advocates began to demand that all health care providers offer abortion services and that all health care insurance pay for them. Such demands have spread over the years to everything from contraceptives to sex reassignment surgeries. Many of these battles take place far away, on talk shows, in courtrooms or in Washington, D.C. But like smoke from distant wildfires, these ideas and pressures impact our local area.
I often ask myself in prayer, how can I, as the Bishop of the Diocese of Lincoln, be a good and responsible shepherd over Catholic health care in this current environment? I am not qualified to tell health care professionals how to do their jobs. Health care structures and programs are highly complex and must be addressed by boards of directors, administrative leaders, and staff. My episcopal duties call for me to serve as a pastor, priest, and teacher over the various ministries in the Diocese of Lincoln, including our health care ministries.
As a pastor, I strive to coordinate Catholic health care with other ministries of healing and education within the diocese. As a priest, I oversee the celebration of the sacraments and support pastoral care for those who are sick and in need of healing. And as a teacher, I help Catholic health care ministries to apply and uphold the teachings of the Catholic Church, from the bedside to the boardroom, and from the beginning to the end of human life. The teachings of the Church on the dignity of human life, health, and fertility are profound and life-giving. But they can be misunderstood and even contested at times.
I have some excellent resources to assist me in my work. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) provides a document called “The Pastoral Role of the Diocesan Bishop in Catholic Health care Ministry.” In addition to this, since 1971 the USCCB has published an important resource for bishops and Catholic health care ministries called “The Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Healthcare Services.” The Ethical and Religious Directives distill centuries of the Church’s moral teachings and principles into short statements and explanations that apply to modern health care delivery.
Finally, I am assisted by an excellent organization called the National Catholic Bioethics Center (NCBC). The NCBC was founded in 1972 to be a resource for the Church, and in a particular way for bishops and Catholic health care institutions, in responding to many challenging bioethical issues, from artificial reproduction to assisted suicide, and many issues in between.
The NCBC offers an assessment program called the Catholic Identity and Ethics Review (CIER). The Catholic Identity and Ethics Review helps to measure how Catholic health care ministries are upholding the standards of the Ethical and Religious Directives and expressing their Catholic identity. The NCBC works closely with Catholic health care ministries to review objective measures of performance as well as the resources required to support fidelity to Church teachings, such as policies and educational materials.
In 2024, the NCBC reviewed Madonna Rehabilitation Hospitals here in Lincoln and Omaha. Dr. John Brehany, who leads NCBC’s CIER program, told Madonna leaders, and me, that he was truly impressed by the many ways that Madonna fulfills its mission and lives its Catholic identity in an exemplary manner. As a bishop, I have found the Catholic Identity and Ethics Review to be an extremely helpful resource.
Catholic health care ministries are a treasure that have been built up and handed on for centuries. As a local Church, we need to protect and strengthen these treasures so that we can witness to the healing love of God in our own times and hand on this resource for future generations.
