Catholic Healthcare West Becomes Dignity Health - What Does It Mean?

By: Most Reverend George H. Niederauer, Archbishop of San Francisco

In late January 2012 Catholic Healthcare West (CHW), a San Francisco-based health care system that operates 25 Catholic and 15 non-Catholic hospitals, announced that it had changed its governance structure and name, and would henceforth be known as Dignity Health. Several media headlines proclaimed that CHW undertook this action in order to “pare its ties with the Church” in a “quest to grow.” Some of these reports implied that Catholic bishops had approved such a result. These headlines and the stories that accompanied them have left many Catholics and the larger public with the mistaken impression that CHW’s Catholic hospitals had become secular health care facilities. This is not the case. I am writing to clarify the situation.

Catholic Leaders React to New Contraception Mandate

Responses to the new U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) mandate that all health plans provide no-cost contraception and sterilization services has been swift and incredulous. The regulations, in effect, create a new definition of religious employer – one that is so narrow few will qualify.

“In this case, the government is imposing a narrow, radically individualistic idea of religion – defining religion as only worship and moral teaching,” wrote Archbishop Gomez of Los Angeles in a column for a leading Catholic journal. “As many have noted, under this definition, much of what Jesus Christ did would not qualify as a ‘religious ministry.’”

FAQ: Federal Conscience Protection

From the USCCB Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities

Claim: Abortion advocates have long claimed that federal laws protecting conscience rights on abortion endanger women’s lives. When the Hyde/Weldon amendment was first enacted as part of the Labor/Health and Human Services appropriations bill in 2004, they said “the provision could allow hospitals to turn away women who need emergency abortions because they are hemorrhaging, experiencing heart failure, or suffering any one of a host of other grave complications of pregnancy. The measure could permit callous disregard for women’s health despite federal and state laws that generally require hospitals to treat patients in medical emergencies.” (1) Now that Congress is considering bills to make the Hyde/Weldon amendment’s protections more secure (H.R. 3, H.R. 358, and H.R. 361), they have renewed their claim that such legislation “would allow a hospital to turn away a pregnant woman experiencing a life-threatening complication without further regard for her health or well-being.” (2)

Bishops Note Way Forward with Health Care, Clarify Misconceptions

WASHINGTON—The U.S. bishops called for steps to protect the lives of the most vulnerable, provide fairness for immigrants and guarantee conscience protections for individual and institutions in a statement on health care reform issued May 21.

The statement was offered by Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, Chairman of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Committee on Pro-Life Activities; Bishop William Murphy of Rockville Centre, New York, Chairman of the USCCB Committee on Domestic Justice, Peace and Human Development, and Bishop John Wester of Salt Lake City, chairman of the USCCB Committee on Immigration.

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