Religious freedom trumps Obamacare contraceptive mandate, period.

A Washington Times editorial applauds the D.C. Circuit Court's ruling against the Obamacare HHS mandate, but reminds us that the principle of religious liberty has always been applied far more broadly than the present administration seems to think it should.

Win one for the good guys. Belmont Abbey College, a Catholic institution, and Wheaton College, which is Christian, sued the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) over an Obamacare rule mandating the schools to pay for contraception, contrary to their religious beliefs. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit agreed Tuesday that the administration had gone too far.

The HHS rule said businesses had to provide contraceptive coverage in the health insurance they offered their employees, regardless of their religious beliefs.

Religious employers had an exemption, but HHS decided to apply this only to organizations with a religious purpose, employing and targeting primarily members of the same faith. That left Belmont Abbey and Wheaton, as well as many others that have filed similar suits across the country, with no choice but to pay for items including abortion pills under the threat of $2,000 in fines per employee.

Linas Garsys for The Washington Times

A lower court initially dismissed the colleges’ complaint as premature, especially as the administration promised that a new rule for religious institutions would be implemented in August. The colleges appealed, arguing that the existing rule is the law and they need certainty to plan for the 2014 open enrollment season. The administration claimed it wasn’t going to enforce the rule “in its current form,” so the appellate court seized upon that statement as a “binding commitment.” The judges will “take the government at its word and will hold it to it” while approving a stay on the contraception mandate. HHS will have to file status reports with the appellate court every 60 days until a new rule is promulgated.

A U.S. District judge in New York earlier this month took a similar line in allowing the Archdiocese of New York to proceed in a separate suit on the same issue. “The First Amendment does not require citizens to accept assurances from the government that, if the government later determines it has made a misstep, it will take ameliorative action,” the judge wrote. “There is no, ‘Trust us, changes are coming’ clause in the Constitution.”

The judicial recognition of the importance of religious freedom is a good sign, but the victory is temporary at best. The problem with President Obama’s policy is that it offers a narrow view of the First Amendment as freedom to worship rather than the free exercise of religion. The prospect for religiously affiliated nonprofits just got brighter, which is welcome news to groups like the Little Sisters of the Poor, who also are subject to the mandate and its onerous penalties. Religious publisher Tyndale House also has secured an injunction against the Obamacare mandate even though it is a for-profit concern. Left out of the discussion for now are the privately owned commercial enterprises such as the craft retailer Hobby Lobby whose owners have moral objections to the mandate. Free exercise of religion should not be contingent on an organization’s tax status.

UPDATE: The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals apparently didn't get the memo.

Good news on HHS mandate -- maybe

This sounds like good news on the surface, but we should be wary, considering the Obama Administration's miserable record on religious liberty and the deviousness with which it has sought to impose its will on religious institutions.

Via Christianity Today:

On Tuesday, Wheaton College and Belmont Abbey College won a legal round against the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) contraceptive mandate—not only for themselves, but also for dozens of fellow religious employers that have filed similar suits. 

"We are grateful that the Circuit Court's ruling—which is substantially a victory for Wheaton College—makes it clear that the original judge was wrong to dismiss our case and that we are suffering real harm as a result of the HHS mandate," said Wheaton College president Philip Ryken. 

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the HHS must not enforce the mandate for employer-provided contraceptives as currently outlined in the Affordable Care Act. In addition, the government must make good on a previous promise to establish a new rule regarding enforcement of the mandate for religious employers by March 2013. 

Kyle Duncan, general counsel of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty who argued the case, says this is a significant victory for religious plaintiffs (including schools with similar lawsuits, like Biola University,Liberty University, and Tyndale House Publishers). 

"At least one of the judges kept coming back to the point: This is about the First Amendment. This is about religious freedom," he said. 

But Carl Esbeck, a church-state law expert at the University of Missouri, says the colleges did not get the relief that they wanted—and that the government won the day overall. 

"The result of the three-judge panel's opinion is that the colleges will continue to have to wait … and there's no promise that the new rule will take care of Wheaton or Belmont Abbey," he said. "The only promise is that the existing rule won't be applied." 

The government previously has argued for courts to dismiss religious plaintiffs' cases for being "premature," promising that it would amend the existing rule for religious employers who object to providing contraceptive drugs—especially those believed to be abortifacients—in employee healthcare plans. 

Duncan says this tactic left religious employers at the whim of the government. "[But now] three judges are looking over the government's shoulder," he said. "Finally, the federal government … is subject to the oversight of a court on their promise to fix the mandate." 

HHS officials said they would issue a notice that it was creating new rules in the first quarter of 2013 and would finalize those rules before August 2013. The D.C. Circuit Court ordered the government to file status reports on those rules every 60 days, apparently along with updates on its promise that it "would never enforce [the existing rule] in its current form" against Wheaton, Belmont Abbey, "or those similarly situated as regards contraceptive services" (emphasis in the original.) 

"We take the government at its word and will hold it to it," the court said. 

But this might not be the end of the colleges' cases. Duncan says the ruling is an "important pause in the litigation," requiring plaintiffs to "wait and see" what changes the government makes to the HHS mandate in 2013. 

"We stand ready to resume our pending lawsuit if the federal government fails to respect our rights of religious conscience by providing the exemption we have requested," Ryken said. 

The D.C. ruling comes on the heels of a similar ruling in New York, where a federal judge allowed the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York to proceed with its own HHS lawsuit, ruling that the government's promise of new regulations for religious employers was no reason to dismiss a challenge to the mandate.

"There is no 'trust us, changes are coming' clause in the Constitution," wrote judge Brian Cogan. 

The New York Archdiocese filed suit in May, objecting to the fines it would face under the mandate. According to Reuters, Cogan denied the federal government's motion to dismiss the lawsuit, saying that the archdiocese had sufficiently demonstrated that it "expects to incur nearly $200 million each year in penalties if it is forced to comply with the coverage requirement." 

However, Cogan did dismiss claims from the diocese of Rockville Centre and its Catholic Charities wing. 

Duncan says the D.C. appellate court's decision is "the same flavor" as the New York court's ruling. 

"It's not enough for the government to say, 'Trust us,'" he said. "We don't simply let the government slide by on a problem when you're talking about constitutional rights."

Monstrous evil (and that may be too mild a description)

Marie Freyre, R.I.P.

If you have any questions about the kind of unspeakable evil that can be committed in the name of "protection" and "welfare" by a callous, out-of-control, bureaucratic nanny state, you need to read this heartbreaking story published Tuesday in the Tampa Bay Times.

Even after Marie Freyre died alone in a nursing home 250 miles from the family in North Tampa that loved her, Marie's mother had to fight to bring her home.

In March 2011, state child protection investigators took 14-year-old Marie from her mother, Doris Freyre, claiming Doris' own disabilities made it almost impossible for her to care for Marie, who suffered from seizures and severe cerebral palsy. But a Tampa judge signed an order that Marie be returned to her mother, with in-home nursing care around the clock.

Florida health care administrators refused to pay for it, although in-home care can be demonstrably cheaper than care in an institution. Child welfare workers ignored the order completely.

Two months later, Marie was strapped into an ambulance for a five-hour trip to a Miami Gardens nursing home, as her mother begged futilely to go with her.

Marie died 12 hours after she arrived.

"Since the state of Florida took custody of my daughter, I would like the state of Florida to bring me back my daughter," Freyre, 59, said at a May 9 court hearing, 12 days after her daughter died.

"They kidnapped my daughter. She was murdered," said Freyre. "And I want my daughter back."

Want more details? Grab a box of Kleenex before reading further.

Doris Freyre — who worked at a family store in Puerto Rico before becoming disabled herself— cared for her daughter well for 14 years, and Marie had suffered no seizures in recent years, records show.

"Doris spent every day of 14 years of her life giving everything she had to Marie, guaranteeing that Marie lived as healthy and wonderful a life as God allowed her," said the family's Tampa lawyer, Peter Brudny.

But in March 2011, one of the family's in-home nurses reported several concerns about Doris Freyre's parenting of Marie to the Department of Children and Families, setting in motion a disastrous chain of events. Hillsborough Circuit Judge Vivian Corvo began a hearing on the case on March 30, 2011, by praising Freyre for her care of her daughter.

Corvo wanted to help Freyre — not punish her. The greatest challenge was Freyre's own health: Freyre suffers from six herniated discs, as well as carpal tunnel syndrome in her wrists.

"The doctor told me to do surgery," Freyre said in court. "I told him no, because I have to take care of my daughter."

Freyre had asked the Agency for Health Care Administration to provide her with 24-hour nursing aides. As it stood, Freyre had a gap between midnight and 7 a.m. where she needed help to reposition Marie and change her diapers. "It's not easy," Freyre told the judge. "I'm human."

But AHCA administrators refused to pay for the additional hours. Corvo wanted to know why. "This is a nonverbal child, with all of these issues," the judge said. "Why would this mother not qualify for 24-hour care?"

From the beginning, state child protection administrators wanted to send Marie to a nursing home. Freyre's attorney suggested such a move could kill her.

"With this type of child, when you institutionalize them," attorney Steve Zucker said, "they never do well. And I'm very concerned."

"Can the (state) do better than this?" he asked the judge.

At the end of the hearing, Corvo required child welfare administrators to do better. She wrote an order that Marie be returned to her mother, with additional nursing care through the night.

It was an order the state simply ignored.

Records show state child welfare workers disregarded Corvo's order that Hillsborough Kids, which was under contract with the DCF, pay for the extra nursing hours while caseworkers looked into additional dollars from Medicaid.

Two weeks later, the state Attorney General's Office and Hillsborough Kids appeared before a different judge, Emily Peacock. AHCA, which runs Medicaid, had refused again to pay for 24-hour care, a lawyer said. With no permanent solution in sight, the state said, a nursing home was the only option.

"The best placement for the child right now is a … nursing home where she can get that 24-hour supervision and care that she needs," said Angeline Attila, an assistant attorney general.

The new judge, who never asked why the state ignored a prior judge's order, agreed — though she granted Freyre the right to visit with her daughter all she wanted. But even that kindness proved meaningless.

A DCF review of Marie's death said the only nursing home willing to take her was Florida Club Care Center in Miami Gardens.

At first, the state Attorney General's Office, which was representing Hillsborough Kids, asked that the long trip be delayed so lawyers could seek permission from a judge to move Marie.

But they were under significant pressure to get Marie out of Tampa General Hospital, where she was placed after child protection workers took her into state care. Records show the hospital complained bitterly that it was losing money on her care. A hospital social worker, records say, "was adamant about the child leaving the hospital today."

So, at 11:30 a.m. April 25, 2011, workers at Tampa General Hospital loaded the teen onto a stretcher in a private ambulance — as her mother and grandfather begged them to stop. Even as caseworkers were packing Marie's belongings, her grandfather was frantically filing hand-written emergency motions in court to delay the trip, Brudny said.

Doris Freyre, case notes say, "stated that no one knows my child like me," and that Marie's dislocated hip would cause her great pain if she were strapped to a stretcher for hours. She added: "If something happens to my daughter I am holding all of you responsible for it."

Freyre had no car — and the private ambulance refused to allow her to join Marie — so Marie made the trip to Miami-Dade County alone.

Records show the two ambulance workers refused to take Marie's seizure drugs with them; under the company's policy, they were not allowed to administer medications in any case. According to a report detailing Tampa General Hospital's care of Marie, the hospital neglected to ensure she was properly hydrated before she left. During her five-hour ambulance ride, she was given no water or food.

A September 2011 investigation by AHCA of how Tampa General discharged Marie to the nursing home faulted the hospital for a number of violations, including failing to ensure the child had enough fluids and was properly medicated. The hospital's lack of "concern" for Marie, the report said, left her "in danger."

The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services placed the hospital under the status of "Immediate Jeopardy" following the review, the highest penalty under federal health regulations, said an AHCA spokeswoman. The following October, the federal agency removed the designation after Tampa General implemented a corrective action plan. AHCA also is seeking to fine the hospital $5,000 in the case, and a hearing is scheduled for Jan. 14.

Marie arrived in Miami Gardens the way she left Tampa: screaming. AHCA records for the next 12 hours mention only four notations in the nursing home file, and two of them document Marie "screaming."

By 5:40 a.m. April 27, 2011, Marie was described as having "labored" breathing. Five minutes later, she was unresponsive. The AHCA investigation concluded she had been given none of her life-sustaining anti-seizure drugs, required three times each day.

Marie was pronounced dead at 6:54 a.m. Cause of death: heart attack.

Two weeks later, on May 9, 2011, Doris Freyre appeared one last time before a judge in Tampa — Peacock, who declared herself "terribly sorry" for Freyre's loss.

"I don't accept your excuse," the mother replied. Freyre said she was in court to get her daughter's body back from the Miami-Dade Medical Examiner's Office. With no trust left for state officials, Freyre was seeking a private autopsy.

"It's the mother's position that the (state) had the child removed without proper authorization," said her attorney, Laguerra Champagne. "She objected to the child being physically removed from Hillsborough County and transported to Miami. No court hearing was held and, unfortunately, we're here today, dealing with a dead child instead of a living child."

Attila, the prosecutor who, weeks earlier, had fought so hard to get Marie to the nursing home, no longer wanted to discuss the matter. She told Peacock that a child welfare judge had no "jurisdiction" over a dead child and prosecutors would file a court motion saying so.

"Not to seem insensitive; I understand the mother is quite frustrated and I understand that she's grieving," Attila said, "but the information that she's providing to the court is moot at this point in time."

Despite Attila's protestations, Freyre had the last word.

"I had her for 14 years — cared (for) and loved her," Freyre said. "And you have her … in prison, in the hospital, without going out in the sun, without being with other people, in prison.

"Then, in (12) hours, you took her down to Miami and she died," Freyre added. "And I want the truth of this to come out. I want justice."

Oh, and then there's this little post-script:

Marie's body remained in storage for nine months while the medical examiner's office completed its autopsy, and Freyre held a memorial with no body.

Words fail me, so I'll let Mark Shea take it from here.

Monstrous evil was done here by faceless bureaucrats who preferred that a mother be torn from her child and that child die rather than their bean counting be interefered with. Monstrous evil. In a civilized country, this gravely wronged mother would be awarded hundreds of millions in damages and the bureaucrats who ordered this selfish cruelty would be jailed for the rest of their natural lives. If you are a lawyer living in Florida, I hope you contact this mother and, together with her, embark on extracting from the state in justice many times the pittance it would not pay out in mercy. A bureaucracy has no soul and deserves no mercy from God or man when it fails this egregiously. May the monsters who made this choice find mercy from God for their miserable souls. May the budget and the system find only pitiless retribution. And may this mother find solace from Christ crucified and her daughter find eternal light and peace in his embrace. Mother Mary, pray for every human being involved in this tragedy.

Elizabeth Scalia adds:

I hope this mother owns Florida when this is over.

Indeed, but even that would not be sufficient compensation for the life of her beloved daughter.

Kyrie Eleison.

British National Health Service: Pathway to death

Once again, we need only look across the pond to see the dangers of government-run "health care."

Shocking news from England today has top NHS officials indicating doctors acting in the government-run health program annually kill as many as 130,000 patients prematurely because of overcrowding at hospitals, medical clinics and nursing homes.

Professor Patrick Pullicino indicated doctors are turning to a so-called “death pathway” protocol that is essentially active euthanasia of patients, according to a London Daily Mail news report. Pullicino, a consultant neurologist for East Kent Hospitals and Professor of Clinical Neurosciences at the University of Kent, made his remarks in a speech before the Royal Society of Medicine in London.

He claimed there was often a lack of clear evidence for initiating the Liverpool Care Pathway, a method of looking after terminally ill patients that is used in hospitals across the country. It is designed to come into force when doctors believe it is impossible for a patient to recover and death is imminent. 

It can include withdrawal of treatment – including the provision of water and nourishment by tube – and on average brings a patient to death in 33 hours. There are around 450,000 deaths in Britain each year of people who are in hospital or under NHS care. Around 29 per cent – 130,000 – are of patients who were on the LCP. 

Professor Pullicino claimed that far too often elderly patients who could live longer are placed on the LCP and it had now become an ‘assisted death pathway rather than a care pathway’. He cited ‘pressure on beds and difficulty with nursing confused or difficult-to-manage elderly patients’ as factors.

Pullicino admitted patients are too quickly put on the pathway who need basic medical treatment and have long lifespans ahead of them. He said he personally intervened to take a patient off the LCP who went on to be successfully treated and told the paper it is “palpably false” that all patients subjected to euthanasia have a grim medical prognosis.

In the example he revealed a 71-year-old who was admitted to hospital suffering from pneumonia and epilepsy was put on the LCP by a covering doctor on a weekend shift. 

Professor Pullicino said he had returned to work after a weekend to find the patient unresponsive and his family upset because they had not agreed to place him on the LCP. 

‘I removed the patient from the LCP despite significant resistance,’ he said. 

‘His seizures came under control and four weeks later he was discharged home to his family,’ he said.

The revelations are not new, as NHS has long been a focus of criticism from pro-life advocates for euthanasia and rationing medical care or basic needs like food and water.

A May 2011 story in the Daily Mail  showed how patients were being starved and dehydrated to death.

Doctors are prescribing drinking water for neglected elderly patients to stop them dying of thirst in hospital. The measure – to remind nurses of the most basic necessity – is revealed in a damning report on pensioner care in NHS wards. Some trusts are neglecting the elderly on such a fundamental level their wards could face closure orders. 

The snapshot study, triggered by a Mail campaign, found staff routinely ignored patients’ calls for help and forgot to check that they had had enough to eat and drink. 

Dehydration contributes to the death of more than 800 hospital patients every year.Another 300 die malnourished. The latest report – by the Care Quality Commission – found patients frequently complained they were spoken to in a ‘condescending and dismissive’ manner.

The watchdog said three of 12 NHS trusts visited in the past three months were failing to meet the most basic standards required by law.

A July 2011 report in The Independent revealed how hip replacements, cataract surgery and tonsil removal are among the many operations that two-thirds of health trusts in England are now putting on a “non-urgent” list in an attempt to help save the government-run health care program $20 billion over the next four years. The newspaper revealed one third of health trusts have already expanded the list of rationed procedures in the last 12 months and others are expected to follow suit.

Some of the examples of rationed surgical procedures include limiting hip replacements to those experiencing severe pain, cataract operations are on hold for those whose eyesight problems don’t yet affect their ability to perform on the job, and patients with varicose veins will only be allowed operations if they are experiencing pain or internal bleeding.

American bioethicist Wesley J. Smith, bemoaned the news, saying, “The UK’s National Health Service continues its collapse. And it is only going to get worse, considering the trajectory.  Imagine the screaming here if HMOs did any of that.”


“The continuing collapse of the NHS is not only an indictment of single payer health care: It is a warning to the U.S. about centralized control of health care,” he said. “The continuing collapse of the NHS is not only an indictment of single payer health care: It is a warning to the U.S. about centralized control of health care.”

“Adding injury to injury, how easy it is for the bureaucrats to lard on the goodies on the private insurance companies’ dimes–as is already happening.  What makes us think that a too strained and bureaucratically suffocated private sector won’t eventually end up in a collapse–further harming the economy–and unable to provide for patients properly?” he said. “Once that happens (with malice aforethought?) Obamacarian class warriors will give a war whoop of triumph for having destroyed the dreaded private sector–and force us into single payer.  See, “NHS Meltdown” posts.  Lose. Lose. Lose.”

More good news: CHA opposes healthcare mandate

WASHINGTON, June 15, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In a reversal that deals a significant blow to the HHS contraception mandate, the major Catholic hospital association that once provided crucial political steam for President Obama’s health care legislation has now backed off supporting the mandate, saying that the president’s “accommodation” of religious groups is inadequate.

The Catholic Health Association (CHA) on Friday issued a letter to an official with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services under the Health and Human Services (HHS) Department, stating that the government’s proposed rule forcing religious employers to provide birth control insurance to employees left them “deeply concerned.”

CHA noted that it was changing its initial position welcoming the White House’s “accommodation” to religious groups in February, whereby President Obama claimed insurance companies would offer the birth control for free, rather than having religious institutions directly pay for it.

“While this new development seemed at the time to be a good first step, our examination and study of the proposal as outlined then and in the ANPRM has not relieved our initial concerns,” wrote CHA president Sr. Carol Keehan and two members of the board.

“Accordingly, for the reasons set forth below, we continue to believe that it is imperative for the Administration to abandon the narrow definition of ‘religious employer’ and instead use an expanded definition to exempt from the contraceptive mandate not only churches, but also Catholic hospitals, health care organizations and other ministries of the Church.”

If the exemption is not expanded, they said, then the administration must pay directly for such coverage.

CHA was an early supporter of the federal health care legislation, pledging to support the administration’s proposal as early as July 2009. The group continued to support the measure even as Catholic bishops issued strong warnings over the bill’s potential to expand abortion, leading then-USCCB president Cardinal Francis George to chastise CHA as causing “confusion and a wound to Catholic unity” on the issue.

After the insurance mandate was announced last August, CHA pushed unsuccessfully for a compromise before stating opposition to the rule. However, the group’s position quickly reversed after the February “accommodation”: CHA almost immediately stated its renewed support even as U.S. bishops moved from caution to condemnation.

According to one calculation, if the mandate is not reversed or modified, it has the potential to shutter the 12.6 percent of American hospitals that are Catholic - an option Cardinal George in February emphasized as not far-fetched.

Glendon: Why the bishops are suing the U.S. government

Harvard law professor and former U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican Mary Ann Glendon, a woman of unquestioned integrity, explains what is at stake in the Catholic Church's legal battle against the Obama Administration's nefariously conceived healthcare mandate.

This week Catholic bishops are heading to federal courts across the country to defend religious liberty. On Monday they filed 12 lawsuits on behalf of a diverse group of 43 Catholic entities that are challenging the Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) sterilization, abortifacient and birth-control insurance mandate.

Like most Americans, the bishops have long taken for granted the religious freedom that has enabled this nation's diverse religions to flourish in relative harmony. But over the past year they have become increasingly concerned about the erosion of conscience protections for church-related individuals and institutions. Their top-rated program for assistance to human trafficking victims was denied funding for refusing to provide "the full range of reproductive services," including abortion. For a time, Catholic Relief Services faced a similar threat to its international relief programs. The bishops fear religious liberty is becoming a second-class right.

Along with leaders of other faiths who have conscientious objections to all or part of the mandate, they hoped to persuade the government to bring its regulations into line with the First Amendment, and with federal laws such as the Religious Freedom Restoration Act that provide exemptions to protect the conscience rights of religious institutions and individuals.

On Jan. 20, however, HHS announced it would not revise the mandate or expand its tight exemption, which covers only religious organizations that mainly hire and serve their co-religionists. Instead, the mandated coverage will continue to apply to hospitals, schools and social service providers run by groups whose religious beliefs require them to serve everyone in need.

Continued attempts to solve the problem by negotiation produced only an announcement by the Obama administration in February that insurance providers would pay for the contested services. Since many Catholic entities are self-insured and the others pay the premiums, the bishops' concerns were not alleviated.

The main goal of the mandate is not, as HHS claimed, to protect women's health. It is rather a move to conscript religious organizations into a political agenda, forcing them to facilitate and fund services that violate their beliefs, within their own institutions.

The media have implied all along that the dispute is mainly of concern to a Catholic minority with peculiar views about human sexuality. But religious leaders of all faiths have been quick to see that what is involved is a flagrant violation of religious freedom. That's why former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a Baptist minister, declared, "We're all Catholics now."

More is at stake here than the mission of all churches, including the Catholic Church, to provide social services like health care and education to everyone regardless of creed, and to do so without compromising their beliefs. At the deepest level, we are witnessing an attack on the institutions of civil society that are essential to limited government and are important buffers between the citizen and the all-powerful state.

If religious providers of education, health care and social services are closed down or forced to become tools of administration policy, the government consolidates a monopoly over those essential services. As Cardinal Timothy Dolan, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, put it, we are witnessing an effort to reduce religion to a private activity. "Never before," he said, "have we faced this kind of challenge to our ability to engage in the public square as people of faith."

With this week's lawsuits, the bishops join a growing army of other plaintiffs around the country, Catholic and non-Catholic, who are asking the courts to repel an unprecedented governmental assault on the ability of religious persons and groups to practice their religion without being forced to violate their deepest moral convictions.

Religious freedom is subject to necessary limitations in the interests of public health and safety. The HHS regulations do not fall into that category. The world has gotten along fine without this mandate—the services in question are widely and cheaply available, and most employers will provide coverage for them.

But if the regulations are not reversed, they threaten to demote religious liberty from its prominent place among this country's most cherished freedoms. That is why Cardinal Dolan told CBS's "Face the Nation" on April 8: "We didn't ask for this fight, but we won't back away from it."

British conference to focus on Christian roots of nursing

Health care in Great Britain has been nationalized since 1948 and, as one might expect, its quality has gradually deteriorated. The state is not an appropriate agent of compassion and health care in the United States will inevitably suffer the same fate absent some form of judicial or legislative relief from the unpopular monstrosity known as Obamacare. Slowly but surely, the Brits seem to be realizing that much has been lost since the government hijacked the healing business. A nurses' conference this week will hear a plea to get back to a few basic principles necessary for compassionate care.

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) Conference is to be told today that new nurses should be judged on their compassion not just their skills.

Sir Keith Pearson, the NHS Confederation chairman, is due to address the Royal College of Nursing's (RCN) annual conference in Harrogate.

He is one of the authors of a critical report into standards of care for older people and is expected to call for big changes in the way staff are recruited.

‘The Commission on Improving Dignity In Care for Older People’ has already made a series of recommendations to improve standards in hospitals and care homes in England.

It was set up following a series of critical reports into elderly care that highlighted some cases where care by front-line staff - including nurses - had failed.

The call for a culture change in nursing is most welcome. This fresh emphasis on rediscovering compassion in nursing is essential but nursing also needs to rediscover the spiritual roots that gave it compassion in the first place.

Modern nursing was born in the nineteenth-century, in no small measure due to the work of Christians like Elizabeth Fry and Florence Nightingale.

Their revolution in the practice of nursing also included making it a more socially acceptable pursuit for women.

Their response to the Christian call to care for the sick and educate neglected children provided the templates for modern daily hospital nursing. Florence Nightingale (pictured above) also encouraged better hygiene, improved standards and night-nursing, as well as founding the first nursing school.

Nurses gained professional status at the end of the century, largely thanks to the work of another Christian nurse, Ethel Bedford Fenwick, with the majority of nurses being inspired to serve by Christian ethics.

Many missionary nurses such as Mother Teresa and Emma Cushman have worked tirelessly, bringing hygiene and Western medicine to the four corners of the globe.

All of these nurses found their personal motivation in the teaching and example of Jesus Christ. It grew out of their own passionate personal commitment to him.

You can't create compassion in a vacuum. It has to be motivated by a worldview which supports it and many modern nurses do not have such a worldview and so lack the passionate commitment to sacrificial care that pioneers like Fry and Nightingale possessed in such measure.

Nursing needs to rediscover its Christian roots or the present crisis in care will continue.

You can't make this stuff up, Part MMXXXVIXIII

The Obama Administration may well go down in history as the biggest collection of idiots, ignoramuses, and incompetents ever assembled to run a government. As Exhibit A, I offer one Kathleen Sebelius, the exceptionally unexceptional Secretary of Health and Human Services. She is the brilliant mind behind the infamous "contraceptive mandate" which forces the Catholic Church and other religious entities to cover employee "health care" services they find morally objectionable. From the video of her recent testimony before the House Education and Workforce Committee, only one of two conclusions can be reached.



Either (a) she is, indeed, the perfect illustration of the idiocy, ignorance, and incompetence of the Obama Administration, or (b) she is an intentionally deceitful, dishonest, and dissembling hack for a president who has not, and will not, give any serious consideration to the implications his actions have on the fundamental right of religious liberty guaranteed by the Constitution he has sworn to preserve, protect, and defend.

Watch the video and decide for yourself.

The cruel charade of centralized health care

Centralized health care is cruelty masquerading as compassion, with social divisiveness being the inevitable result. As Ramesh Ponnuru's analysis of Dahlia Lithwick's distorted account of yesterday's arguments before the Supreme Court illustrates, the blind defenders of centralization will grasp at whatever straw necessary to make government control of people's lives look like charity. If the Court exercises judicial sanity, however, the monstrosity that is Obamacare will be eliminated from the national conversation before it becomes a destructive issue in what promises already to be a volatile presidential campaign this fall.

We need only to look at the British National Health Service (NHS) to see the dark road ahead if the government is given the green light to continue consolidating its power in that area so broadly defined as "health care." Across the pond, there is a battle brewing between the obese and the elderly.

Even the most sentimental champions of the NHS recognise its dark side. Given that its Chief Executive Sir David Nicholson has demanded a £20 billion efficiency saving if the NHS is to survive, and that demographic changes mean millions more elderly people will rely on its services (and space), the NHS can only do one thing: ration.

If rationing is acceptable, though, scapegoating is not. And too much evidence points to the elderly being the scapegoats in the battle to save the NHS. As the Telegraph reports today, elderly patients are being denied the best cancer care. The figures are alarming: lack of treatment is contributing to 14,000 deaths a year among the over-75s.

Men and women are dying prematurely each year because their diseases are diagnosed later and less likely to be operated on.

Already the elderly are short-changed when it comes to nurses' time. Nurses in hospitals plead to being too busy to look after their charges decently, and so elderly patients frequently suffer dehydration, malnutrition and a lack of hygiene.

This treatment is cruel and unfair: age comes to us all, and is not the result of lifestyle choices. There are plenty of conditions, though, that are the direct result of bad habits, poor diet, and the wrong choices. These conditions range from obesity and diabetes to smoking-related diseases like emphesema. If a 20-stone, 30-something woman comes into hospital with a bad diabetic attack, does she deserve to be at the front of the queue or the back? She has chosen to stuff her face with Mars bars and Coke, and is now suffering the consequences of her choice. She cannot claim ignorance of the dangers of her diet: the Government has carpet-bombed us with health advice, from schools to GP practices. 

Class no longer regulates access to healthy living: everyone who can watch the telly, let alone read the magazines, knows that a high-fat diet will make you look bad and feel worse.

Does the obese 30-something lay claim to NHS services and a hospital bed when this means thousands of others will have to do without?

The septuagenarian who develops breast cancer has done nothing wrong – except grow old. The NHS has to consider that there are deserving cases and undeserving ones. Age should not be a barrier to optimum care; but bad habits should be.

It should come as no surprise that, in a government-run health system, the elderly are the ones most often neglected. The problem for the Brits, however, is that the debate is shifting away from who is neglected to who should be neglected when services have to be rationed. This is dangerous ground, warns Wesley J. Smith.

Here’s the moral of the story: Centralized health care turns us, snarling, against each other, grabbing for our own piece of the carcass, ready to exclude others to feed ourselves. As in this terribly uncharitable rant, it breeds hate and disdain for anyone who can be identified as the “other” supposedly taking more than their due. Take heed!

The cruelest irony of the cruel charade of centralized "health care" is that it both treats human beings as less than human and inevitably forces them to behave in like manner.

Bad journalism, bad religion: a bad combination

Here's a story that appeared in the U.K. Telegraph over the weekend that should raise a few eyebrows.

Alzheimer's sufferer Dorothy Griffiths, 87, was found sitting down after staff heard a bang and a carer went to the office for help to lift her.

But agency nurse Abdul Bhutto, who was in charge, said they would have to wait.

Carer Zoe Shaw told the Sheffield hearing: "It took between five and ten minutes because he was praying upstairs in the office on his prayer mat. A staff member told me we had to wait for him to finish."

An ambulance was not called for nearly four hours after Mrs Griffiths fell from bed and cut her head and suffered a gash to her hip at the privately-run Valley Park Nursing Home in Wombwell, near Barnsley.

She died later in hospital. Mr Bhutto failed to appear at the inquest and a summons had to be issued for him to attend the resumed hearing later in the year.

Assistant deputy coroner Donald Coutts-Wood said he had contacted him during a recess and he denied being the duty nurse that night and said he had been there on a course.

Mrs Griffiths, the widow of former Barnsley footballer Steve Griffiths, who used to live in Wombwell, had been a resident at the home since 2009 and died last November.

She was put to bed at 9.45pm on October 24 and checked checked every two hours, according to Zoe Shaw.

The old lady was using the toilet at 4am and Mrs Shaw went to an office to fill in paperwork.

She said Mrs Griffiths was not prone to falls and was not considered "at risk".

She and another carer found her on the floor and Mrs Shaw went to get help from Mr Bhutto. He was the most senior nurse on night duty at the home, run by the Mimosa Healthcare Group, because the senior carer was unable to work havning been on duty for six of the previous seven nights.

When Mr Bhutto arrived he checked the pensioner's limbs, took her blood presssure and pulse while she was still on the floor and told the carers to put her back into bed.

But instead Mrs Shaw, worried that she might fall again, washed the old lady, dressed her and took her to the office while she carried on filling forms.

At about 5.45am she took her to the lounge and said she was "talking fine" and walking around.

But at breakfast-time when the residents were being offered a cup of tea Mrs Griffiths was found unresponsive and an ambulance was called at about 7.30am.

Mrs Shaw, who broke down and wept in the witness box, said she would have called an ambulance immediately after the fall but had only since discovered that staff could override a nurses' decision.

Speaking after the inquest was adjourned Dorothy's daughter Jean David, 61, said: "We are quite upset that Mr Bhutto hadn't appeared and we are having to come here again particularly as my brother is having to come up from Staffordshire. We would like it to have been done and dusted but we can't leave it without his evidence."

As an aside, it should be noted that this article is not very well-written. American journalism, as anyone brave enough to endure the agony of browsing a daily newspaper knows, is in a truly sorry state these days. If this article, however, is an illustration of what the British reading public experiences every day, our cousins across the pond are in far worse shape.

I will concede that I have not been employed in print media since the mid-1980's, but do news publications no longer hire copy editors? How could a sentence like, "She was put to bed at 9.45pm on October 24 and checked checked every two hours, according to Zoe Shaw," even get past a low level proof-reader?

After the disturbing account of the Muslim nurse refusing to help the patient until he finished with his prayer time (more about that shortly), the chronology of events becomes muddled and confusing. The patient in question, a woman of some prominence as the widow of a former "footballer" (soccer player), is said to have "died later in hospital," apparently as a result of a series of events which began at "9:45 pm on October 24."

Later in the article, however, the patient is said to have "died last November." The specific date of her death is not mentioned, but it would have been at least a week after the events in question.

Suffice it to say, from a strictly journalistic perspective, this article could use some improvement. The main controversy, however, seems pretty apparent. A Muslim nurse laid aside his responsibilities to a patient in an emergency situation so as not to interrupt his time on the prayer mat. This is disturbing on many levels, not the least of which being that it demonstrates a legalistic devotion to religious ritual as an end in itself, rather than a means to a greater end.

When challenged by the legalistic religious leaders of his day for a supposed transgression of the Sabbath law (cf. Matthew 12:1-8), Jesus quoted from the prophet Hosea, "For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings" (Hosea 6:6).

The one true God who has revealed himself in Jesus Christ would never demand of his followers that they finish their quiet time while a neighbor is crying out for help. Indeed, no prayer rising up before the throne of grace is more pleasing than the one put into practice by extending mercy and compassion to those who are suffering.

USCCB releases new statement on religious freedom

United for Religious Freedom


A Statement of the Administrative Committee Of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops


March 14, 2012

The Administrative Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, gathered for its March 2012 meeting, is strongly unified and intensely focused in its opposition to the various threats to religious freedom in our day. In our role as Bishops, we approach this question prayerfully and as pastors—concerned not only with the protection of the Church’s own institutions, but with the care of the souls of the individual faithful, and with the common good.

To address the broader range of religious liberty issues, we look forward to the upcoming publication of “A Statement on Religious Liberty,” a document of the Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty. This document reflects on the history of religious liberty in our great Nation; surveys the current range of threats to this foundational principle; and states clearly the resolve of the Bishops to act strongly, in concert with our fellow citizens, in its defense.

One particular religious freedom issue demands our immediate attention: the now finalized rule of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that would force virtually all private health plans nationwide to provide coverage of sterilization and contraception—including abortifacient drugs—subject to an exemption for “religious employers” that is arbitrarily narrow, and to an unspecified and dubious future “accommodation” for other religious organizations that are denied the exemption.

We begin, first, with thanks to all who have stood firmly with us in our vigorous opposition to this unjust and illegal mandate: to our brother bishops; to our clergy and religious; to our Catholic faithful; to the wonderful array of Catholic groups and institutions that enliven our civil society; to our ecumenical and interfaith allies; to women and men of all religions (or none at all); to legal scholars; and to civic leaders. It is your enthusiastic unity in defense of religious freedom that has made such a dramatic and positive impact in this historic public debate. With your continued help, we will not be divided, and we will continue forward as one.

Second, we wish to clarify what this debate is—and is not—about. This is not about access to contraception, which is ubiquitous and inexpensive, even when it is not provided by the Church’s hand and with the Church’s funds. This is not about the religious freedom of Catholics only, but also of those who recognize that their cherished beliefs may be next on the block. This is not about the Bishops’ somehow “banning contraception,” when the U.S. Supreme Court took that issue off the table two generations ago. Indeed, this is not about the Church wanting to force anybody to do anything; it is instead about the federal government forcing the Church—consisting of its faithful and all but a few of its institutions—to act against Church teachings. This is not a matter of opposition to universal health care, which has been a concern of the Bishops’ Conference since 1919, virtually at its founding. This is not a fight we want or asked for, but one forced upon us by government on its own timing. Finally, this is not a Republican or Democratic, a conservative or liberal issue; it is an American issue.

So what is it about?

An unwarranted government definition of religion. The mandate includes an extremely narrow definition of what HHS deems a “religious employer” deserving exemption—employers who, among other things, must hire and serve primarily those of their own faith. We are deeply concerned about this new definition of who we are as people of faith and what constitutes our ministry. The introduction of this unprecedented defining of faith communities and their ministries has precipitated this struggle for religious freedom. Government has no place defining religion and religious ministry. HHS thus creates and enforces a new distinction—alien both to our Catholic tradition and to federal law—between our houses of worship and our great ministries of service to our neighbors, namely, the poor, the homeless, the sick, the students in our schools and universities, and others in need, of any faith community or none. Cf. Deus Caritas Est, Nos. 20-33. We are commanded both to love and to serve the Lord; laws that protect our freedom to comply with one of these commands but not the other are nothing to celebrate. Indeed, they must be rejected, for they create a “second class” of citizenship within our religious community. And if this definition is allowed to stand, it will spread throughout federal law, weakening its healthy tradition of generous respect for religious freedom and diversity. All—not just some—of our religious institutions share equally in the very same God-given, legally-recognized right not “to be forced to act in a manner contrary to [their] own beliefs.” Dignitatis Humanae, No. 2.

A mandate to act against our teachings. The exemption is not merely a government foray into internal Church governance, where government has no legal competence or authority—disturbing though that may be. This error in theory has grave consequences in principle and practice. Those deemed by HHS not to be “religious employers” will be forced by government to violate their own teachings within their very own institutions. This is not only an injustice in itself, but it also undermines the effective proclamation of those teachings to the faithful and to the world. For decades, the Bishops have led the fight against such government incursions on conscience, particularly in the area of health care. Far from making us waver in this longstanding commitment, the unprecedented magnitude of this latest threat has only strengthened our resolve to maintain that consistent view.

A violation of personal civil rights. The HHS mandate creates still a third class, those with no conscience protection at all: individuals who, in their daily lives, strive constantly to act in accordance with their faith and moral values. They, too, face a government mandate to aid in providing “services” contrary to those values—whether in their sponsoring of, and payment for, insurance as employers; their payment of insurance premiums as employees; or as insurers themselves—without even the semblance of an exemption. This, too, is unprecedented in federal law, which has long been generous in protecting the rights of individuals not to act against their religious beliefs or moral convictions. We have consistently supported these rights, particularly in the area of protecting the dignity of all human life, and we continue to do so.

Third, we want to indicate our next steps. We will continue our vigorous efforts at education and public advocacy on the principles of religious liberty and their application in this case (and others). We will continue to accept any invitation to dialogue with the Executive Branch to protect the religious freedom that is rightly ours. We will continue to pursue legislation to restore the same level of religious freedom we have enjoyed until just recently. And we will continue to explore our options for relief from the courts, under the U.S. Constitution and other federal laws that protect religious freedom. All of these efforts will proceed concurrently, and in a manner that is mutually reinforcing.

Most importantly of all, we call upon the Catholic faithful, and all people of faith, throughout our country to join us in prayer and penance for our leaders and for the complete protection of our First Freedom—religious liberty—which is not only protected in the laws and customs of our great nation, but rooted in the teachings of our great Tradition. Prayer is the ultimate source of our strength—for without God, we can do nothing; but with God, all things are possible.

Downloadable .pdf file here.

Welcome to the brave new world of 21st century "medicine"

If this doesn't disgust you, you have no heart and probably no soul.

If you want to see where our culture may next go off the rails, read professional journals. There, in often eye-crossing and passive arcane prose of the medical intelligentsia, you will discover an astonishing level of antipathy to the sanctity of human life — to the point now that some advocate killing the profoundly disabled for their organs.

Case in point: “What Makes Killing Wrong?” an article published in the January 19, 2012 edition of the Journal of Medical Ethics. The authors argue that death and total disability are morally indistinguishable, and therefore harvesting organs from living disabled patients is not morally wrong. Bioethicists Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, of Duke University, and Franklin G. Miller, from the National Institutes of Health’s Department of Bioethics (which should really get the alarm bells ringing!) arrive at their shocking (for most of us) conclusion by claiming that murdering the hypothetical “Betty” isn’t wrong because it kills her, but rather, because it “makes her unable to do anything, including walking, talking, and even thinking and feeling.”

How do they get from deconstructing the definition of death to harvesting the disabled? First, they change the scenario so that Betty is not killed but severely brain damaged to the point that she is “totally disabled.” But their definition of that term encompasses hundreds of thousands of living Americans who are our mothers, fathers, children, aunts and siblings, uncles, friends and cousins — people with profound disabilities like that experienced by Terri Schiavo and my late Uncle Bruno as he lived through the late stages of his Alzheimer’s disease:

Betty has mental states, at least intermittently and temporarily, so she is not dead by any standard or plausible criterion. Still, she is universally disabled because she has no control over anything that goes on in her body or mind.

Since Betty “is no worse off being dead than totally disabled,” they opine, it is no worse “to kill Betty than to totally disable her.” Not only that, but according to the authors, “there is nothing bad about death or killing other than disability or disabling,” and since she is already so debilitated, then nothing wrong is done by harvesting her organs and thus ending her biological existence. And thus, in the space of not quite five pages, killing the innocent ceases to be wrong and the intrinsic dignity of human life is thrown out the window, transforming vulnerable human beings into objectified and exploitable human resources

If you can stomach it, read the whole article by Wesley J. Smith, documented by links to six articles advocating this barbaric practice.

A cause greater than any difference that would divide us

Elizabeth Scalia dissects the nefarious philosophy behind the Obama Administration's assault on religious freedom and the culture of life.

There is an odd “we are nothing” philosophy behind this HHS decision and the Secretary who made it, and the President who supports it—a chilling promise of emptiness where tomorrow should be. Humanity, cajoled away from fertility and trained in sterility, is being weaned from those thoughts that travel beyond the present moment; we are self-interested beyond reason, and thus profoundly bored; condom-strangled, tube-snipped, and detached from the essential materials of reproduction either through artificial means or artificial equivalencies, our vision of the future is as limited as a pay-telescope’s viewer: tick, tick, tick and then a resolute click!, and it is gone.

With the administration’s decision, the covert culture of death has finally made a truly overt move against the culture of life. On one side, there is cheering. “Women’s groups” are happy. Anti-religionists, particularly those with an animus toward the Catholic church, are nearly delirious. On the other side, there is a grimness that is interesting in its unity, particularly as it is playing out in Catholic media. The furor of more conservative Catholics is unremarkable, but the reactions of the so-called “progressive” church may surprise some for the intensity of their disappointment. At the National Catholic Reporter Michael Sean Winters—furious on behalf of those Catholics who “took some punches” for the sake of President Obama—declares he cannot, in good conscience, cast another vote Obamaward. He now suggests that the bishops chain themselves to the White House fence in order to bring attention to the direct assault this administration is making against the church’s constitutional right to its own conscience—its right to be what it is.

Some, just as disappointed, but looking for a way to continue supporting Obama, are calling the decision “botched,” as though the thing simply wasn’t sufficiently thought-through. Others are hoping that one state’s exemption rules might somehow be adapted to Obamacare, so consciences might be assuaged by November. On NPR, Cokie Roberts expresses concern that Obama may have “created problems” for himself and his re-election.

But HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and President Obama “botched” nothing. The decision put forth is a purposeful one, transparently provocative. If the administration had simply wanted to provide free contraception and sterilization to those who want it, they could have inserted that notion into any one of a number of spending or entitlement bills. Had they meant to demonstrate respect for conscience–and according to Archbishop Timothy Dolan the president said he “considered the protection of conscience sacred”–the administration could have taken the advice of others and looked closely at how Hawaii managed conscience exemptions under their law.

There are questions as to whether HHS has authority to issue exemptions to Obamacare, although quite a few have been issued for reasons other than conscience. There appear to be no questions in the president’s mind, or in Secretary Sebelius’, that they have the authority to intrude on freedom of religion. With this ruling they insist that church-affiliated institutions either act against their own belief or so narrow the scope of their community service as to be removed from the public square; either way, the government is deliberately affecting the free exercise of religion. Considering some Catholic schools, hospitals and charities were serving their communities before the secular governments even thought to follow suit, that is a damnable, and damning, legacy for a president who once taught constitutional law.

There is, however, a silver lining in this cloud. The reality of an Administration bent on imposing its ungodly will on all things religious has brought together Catholic factions which have long seemed to have irreconcilable differences.

To be sure, this situation is cause for concern, but there are some bright spots in all of this. Although the mainstream press has reported very little about this event—a close examination might prove uncomfortable for their own worldviews—the unified public expression of righteous defiance by the U.S. bishops is a powerful development.

Just as importantly, the laity—divided for decades on issues ranging from felt-banners to dress to dogma—has found a line in the sand upon which they can come together; “conservative” Catholics are reassured to see their more “progressive” brethren defending the church’s right to be who and what she is; more “progressive” Catholics may be coming to realize that—as relentlessly single-minded as some of their opponents could be—had they not held the line all these years, much could be crumbling at this moment.

Now is the time for all good Catholics to come to the aid of providers—the schools, hospitals, charities, and soup kitchens who serve communities in need without asking affiliations. And, in coming together, perhaps now is the time to ponder their long-held presumptions, each about the other, and broaden our own outreach as well.

If nothing else, in declaring war against our consciences, the Obama administration has given American Catholics a great gift of clarification; a fractious family we may be, but—as the saying goes—we are church. And we have the right to be who we are.

When the culture of death first began its slow march, during the sexual revolution of the 1960's, abortion advocates devised a strategy of "divide and conquer," vilifying the Catholic Church and enlisting the support of liberal Protestant denominations and other "progressive" religious groups. The heirs of that Faustian bargain continue to pontificate their shrill gospel of "if it feels good, do it" to an ever-shrinking audience of drones but the opponent they so feared has neither been divided nor conquered. Somewhere on the battlefield, Catholics and evangelicals found each other and discovered their common commitment to the dignity and value of human life was of enormously greater importance than the petty dogmas which had so long kept them at arms length.

Freedom of conscience and freedom of religion are values not unlike the sanctity of life. Indeed, they are part and parcel to the dignity of every human being. What we are beginning to see with horrifying clarity is that the erosion of the right to life inevitably leads to the erosion of freedom as a whole. Once again, evangelicals, Protestants, Anglicans, Orthodox, and persons of myriad other traditions are called to stand with their Catholic brethren, united in a common cause far greater than any difference that would divide us.

Saint Michael the Archangel,
defend us in battle;
be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil.
May God rebuke him, we humbly pray:
and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly host,
by the power of God,
thrust into hell Satan and all the evil spirits
who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls.
Amen

Poem: What a person with Alzheimer's would say

Frank Broyles, former football coach and athletics director at the University of Arkansas, experienced the devastating effects of Alzheimer's firsthand after his wife was diagnosed with the disease. Drawing from both his experiences as a coach and a caregiver, he wrote Coach Broyles' Playbook for Alzheimer's Caregivers as a resource to help others facing similar situations with their loved ones. At the end of the book is this poem, penned by an unknown author, which expresses for Alzheimer's patients what they cannot express themselves. In light of the recent unpleasantness, it is particularly appropriate to post it at this time.

Do not ask me to remember.  

Don't try to make me understand. 

Let me rest and know you're with me. 

Kiss my cheek and hold my hand.

I'm confused beyond your concept. 

I am sad and sick and lost. 

All I know is that I need you 

To be with me at all cost. 

Do not lose your patience with me. 

Do not scold or curse or cry. 

I can't help the way I'm acting, 

Can't be different though I try. 

Just remember that I need you, 

That the best of me is gone. 

Please don't fail to stand beside me, 

Love me til my life is done.

On marriage, Pat Robertson jumps the shark

Pat Robertson has always been a bit of a flake. He has a rap sheet of theological gaffes stretching way back to his earliest days as a religious broadcaster. Most responsible Christian leaders, evangelical or otherwise, have long since exiled him to the obscurity of his perpetually contracted television program, The 700 Club. These days, whenever he makes the news, it is for something embarrassing. Such is the case this time around, as the aging televangelist has jumped the shark on a serious question about marital fidelity and terminal illness.

Pat Robertson advised a viewer of yesterday's 700 Club to avoid putting a "guilt trip" on those who want to divorce a spouse with Alzheimer's. During the show's advice segment, a viewer asked Robertson how she should address a friend who was dating another woman "because his wife as he knows her is gone." Robertson said he would not fault anyone for doing this. He then went further by saying it would be understandable to divorce a spouse with the disease. 

"That is a terribly hard thing," Robertson said. "I hate Alzheimer's. It is one of the most awful things because here is a loved one—this is the woman or man that you have loved for 20, 30, 40 years. And suddenly that person is gone. They're gone. They are gone. So, what he says basically is correct. But I know it sounds cruel, but if he's going to do something he should divorce her and start all over again. But to make sure she has custodial care and somebody looking after her." 

Co-host Terry Meeuwsen asked Pat, "But isn't that the vow that we take when we marry someone? That it’s For better or for worse. For richer or poorer?" 

Robertson said that the viewer's friend could obey this vow of "death till you part" because the disease was a "kind of death." Robertson said he would understand if someone started another relationship out of a need for companionship. 

Robertson gave the example of a friend who faithfully visited his wife every day even though she could not remember his visits to illustrate the difficulty of caring for someone with the disease.  

"It's really hurtful because they say crazy things," Robertson said. "Nevertheless, it is a terribly difficult thing for somebody. I can't fault him for wanting some kind of companionship. And if he says in a sense she is gone, he's right. It's like a walking death. Get some ethicist besides me to give you an answer because I recognize the dilemma and the last thing I'd do is condemn you for taking that kind of action." 

Robertson's advice stands in stark contrast with most theologians and ethicists who would advise fidelity. The decision would not be easy.

In the interest of full disclosure, let me remind readers here that I am a hospice chaplain. Thus, I find Robertson's comments equating Alzheimer's Disease with a "kind of death" sufficient to release a spouse from a vow of fidelity particularly grotesque. To abandon a dying spouse at the very moment when unconditional love is needed the most can never be viewed, from a biblical perspective, as anything other than a grievous sin and a violation of a most sacred vow.

In contrast to Robertson's careless comments, Christianity Today recounts the moving story of Robertson McQuilken, former president of Columbia Bible College and Seminary (now Columbia International University), and the difficult but loving decision he had to make when his wife was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease.

Robertson McQuilkin faced a similar situation two decades ago. He decided to step down and end his 22 year tenure as president of Columbia Bible College and Seminary. Instead, he helped care full-time for his wife Muriel. She died in 2003 after suffering for 25 years with the disease. During the last decade, Muriel could not recognize her husband caregiver. 

In a CT article written after his resignation from Columbia, McQuilkin explained his decision. "When the time came, the decision was firm. It took no great calculation. It was a matter of integrity. Had I not promised, 42 years before, 'in sickness and in health . . . till death do us part'? 

This was no grim duty to which I stoically resigned, however. It was only fair. She had, after all, cared for me for almost four decades with marvelous devotion; now it was my turn. And such a partner she was! If I took care of her for 40 years, I would never be out of her debt," McQuilkin wrote. 

In an interview in 2004, McQuilkin said he made the right decision. "Some people sort of resent the imposition, but those thoughts never came to me," McQuilkin said. "I thought it was a privilege to care for her. She had always cared for me. So it was not a burden. In fact, if it had been a burden, maybe there wouldn't be so much grief now, that sense of loss."

No One Dies Alone: Compassionate companionship for the terminally ill

A moving story from, of all places, the San Francisco Chronicle, about a program known as "No One Dies Alone," in which volunteers provide compassionate companionship for the terminally ill during their final days. Very refreshing, as Wesley J. Smith so aptly observes.

The No One Dies Alone program started in Eugene, Ore., more than a decade ago, and has slowly spread to other hospitals around the country. The Kaiser Santa Clara program started in March 2010 after Donnelly and Becker heard about a similar program at Stanford Hospital. In each place, the impetus is the same: someone in the hospital — a nurse, a volunteer, a clergyperson — notices a patient on his deathbed, with no friends or family, alone in the chaos of hospital life. “If someone is dying, and they want someone to be with them, to hold their hand, that just seems like a good thing to do,” said Susan Scott, coordinator of the Stanford program, which began three years ago.

The programs are volunteer- based, although at both Kaiser and Stanford, hospital employees make up a good portion of the volunteers. While there is definitely a spiritual element to the programs, they aren’t religion based. Volunteers undergo hours of training before they’re allowed to be with a patient. They’re told what to expect when a person is dying — how his breathing might change, how his hands and feet might grow cold. And they’re taught how to sit quietly and just be a supportive presence. Volunteers aren’t there to just sit in a chair and occupy space — they’re not supposed to knit or send text messages or read to themselves to pass the time, Becker said. They’re focused on the patient.

Just one more reason why government and healthcare are a bad combination

Tony Woodlief from WORLD magazine has this disturbing report from across the pond where, as you probably know, the government is in charge of healthcare.

This week I read about a British doctor censured by a government medical licensing board for discussing his faith with a patient. According to one news report, the patient, a young man, saw the doctor for what appeared to be mental health problems. After securing his patient’s permission to talk about their shared, professed Christian faith, the doctor did so.

The young man’s mother, upon hearing about this, filed a complaint with government authorities. As an aside, when a 24-year-old man’s mama is inclined to get offended on his behalf because someone talked to him about Jesus, that may well be a clue into not only his problems, but also the decline of manhood across Western civilization.

Because the doctor won’t take a slap on the wrist, this is becoming a bigger issue, and he may lose his license. From his point of view, he offered his patient something that may well cure his ills.

Though I’m sorry for the doctor’s trouble, I love this kind of case because it flushes out into the open folks who want to imagine that our faith is something that can be confined to the private sphere and still retain meaning. If our faith is anything other than a talisman worn around our necks, then it is applicable—indeed, essential—to our well-being. To imagine that all problems confronting patients can be resolved by adjusting something in the body or the brain is to reconceptualize man as machine, which is something I suspect even many of my atheist friends won’t embrace.

Man has a soul, or sometimes we might say “a heart,” and by this we mean something more than a blood-pumping muscle. This heart can be dreadfully sick, indeed can be dying, and often is. No pills or physical procedures can fix this, because it is rooted in the disconnection from God that has plagued him since the Fall.

I have a friend—a very successful businessman—who went to his doctor years ago plagued by depression. After doing a physical exam and taking a personal inventory, his doctor told him his problem is spiritual. He wrote down on a prescription pad the name of a good pastor.

My friend went to see the pastor, and after some time came back into the Church he had abandoned years ago. Today he is immersed in a prison ministry, reaching out to some of the most broken people in society. He is transformed, and this great change is spilling over into the lives of his wife and his children. All of them are being rescued, and if we are to describe the Christian life in any way, we must describe it that way, as a great rescue from despair.

I understand why a proselytizing doctor would make some people uneasy. He might abuse his authority, after all. In the same way he might overprescribe medication, or misdiagnose an illness, or molest a vulnerable patient. We, of course, tolerate and manage all those risks because the alternative is to eviscerate the ability of doctors to heal. Why then, in light of those risks, are we so worried that someone might talk about Jesus to his patients?

Because deep down we are convinced that Jesus is irrelevant to the state of a patient’s health, and that any doctor who doesn’t agree is inherently unfit.

All of which makes me think that it’s not the doctor who is incompetent in this case but British medical authorities who imagine man has no soul.