So a Catholic cardinal, Francis Cardinal George, is saying that rather than accede to demands to allow birth control from their insurance companies, that they will shut down hospitals, universities, charities, and other social services rather than go along.
Okay, I just want to assume for the moment that this is true and they’ll do all of this “within two years” which I believe is the timeline he gives. What then?
Catholic charities do a lot of good work. Are they doing so much and such good work that this would be a devastating blow? Minor? Moderate? It has always seemed, and I’m willing to be told I’m completely wrong, that there are more charities than dollars.
They threatened (and I believe went through with the threat) to leave the adoption arena if they had to adopt to same-sex couples. What has been the impact there?
I guess the biggest, overarching question is this: Who would this ultimately end up hurting the most? The average US citizen? The RCC in America? The poorest of the poor?
You can talk about what you think of the promise or threat, but my main interest is what would happen then.
Nine states already require contraception coverage without a religious exemption, and have done so for a decade or more. The Cardinals claim that such regulations force the Church to close down hospitals and Universities appears to be false.
So a friend of mine worked for a Catholic charity.
She needed an operation. An expensive operation. An expensive operation. An operation that was spendy enough to change the rates for this particular charity.
Insurance company declined. She appealed. Decision went to the charity (insurance co said you want it covered we will cover it, but your rate will go up). Now because the charity was part of the RCC they pulled the religion card (her state allows religious groups to say no to any procedure based on religious grounds).
Bottom line they said no and she did not get the operation paid by them.
IMHO the RCC is evil.
Fuck 'em. If it’s more important to the Catholic Church of the John Paul II era to eliminate their secular social services rather than to render unto Caesar, then they should feel free to do so.
“Catholic” Charities get 62% of their budget from the government (link to PDF file). If they want to be a Catholic organization, and uphold the teachings of the church in all areas, maybe they shouldn’t be getting well over half of their budget from the taxpayers (who include Catholics and non-Catholics alike).
Hospitals will re-open with new management. Campuses will re-open with new management. People will donate to other organizations if the RCC stops providing charitable services.
The Catholic-affiliated hospitals are like a rash in Chicago, but there are still others to take their patients. The hospitals that serve the most uninsured and Medicare patients - Jackson Park and Stroger - are not Catholic affiliated. The biggest Catholic system is Resurrection, and while they do have some “poor folks” hospitals (St. Mary’s and St. Elizabeth’s and St. Joseph’s spring to mind), they have far more “posh folks” hospitals.
Resurrection has (along with Advocate, whom I do not believe is Catholic, but I could be wrong about that) gobbled up much of the hospital/medical center business in the area. They’re hell to work for, they chronically understaff to unsafe levels, they restrict education and procedures and don’t allow their nurses to even tell their patients about the procedures they’re restricting, and since it’s their hell, I hope they burn in it.
As Tom Tildrum says, hospitals may not close in Illinois without approval, but the thought that the Catholic run hospitals may decide to sell themselves to non-Catholics and get out of the business is the best news I’ve heard all day. I mean, I don’t believe it will actually happen, but just the thought makes me smile.
They can try. At least some nominally Catholic institutions are funded (and so really controlled) by other foundations and so on. If the Catholics want to get out of the hospital business, there would be some excitement but in a few weeks the doors would be open under new management.
After all, the Catholic Church cannot even find the money to keep its schools open. It seems obvious that they are not tossing out free money to hospitals.
As Fred “Slacktivist” Clark says, we all feel a good bit more brave and heroic if we can imagine that we’re valiantly fighting off attacks from imaginary monsters.
He may be a nutcase with “Cardinal” as his middle name, but he’s still a nutcase.
That was only in Illinois, and local chapters of Catholic Charities have been deciding whether or not to withdraw from providing adoption services on their own. Similar federal legislation is pending.
Worrying that he already knows his successor is a pederast, isn’t it?
It is a technique popular with the desperate. Ultimatums work because usually someone is willing to back off rather than let the whole festering boil be lanced.
It’s been popular for quite some time. I guess it’s perceived as a step up from straightforward extortion (“give me what I want or I’ll kill your family”) in that the blame can be shifted (“if you don’t give me what I want, I’ll have no choice but to kill your family and it’ll be your fault”).