Catholic Healthcare West drops ties with Church [CWN]

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One of the nation’s largest health-care systems has severed its formal ties with the Catholic Church.Catholic Healthcare West, a corporation that oversees 40 hospitals in California, …

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mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_19801737
SANTA CRUZ - Dominican Hospital officials announced Monday that they remain wedded to the Catholic mission, despite an announcement by the hospital’s parent company, Catholic Healthcare West, to split from the Catholic Church and adopt a new name, Dignity Health.
“We will remain a Catholic hospital, sponsored by the Adrian Dominican Sisters, following the ethical and religious directives for Catholic health care services,” Dr. Nanette Mickiewicz, Dominican Hospital president, said in a brief statement Monday. “In the rapidly changing health care environment, this new name and structure position the entire organization for growth and success.”
Dignity Health is the fifth largest health system in the nation, operating 25 Catholic hospitals and 15 non-Catholic hospitals. It was founded in 1986 when nuns in Burlingame and Auburn merged their health care ministries.
Lloyd Dean, Dignity’s president and chief executive officer, said the name change reflects a commitment to being a national leader in health care, supporting the company’s “long-term plan to grow and coordinate care.”
Dignity is investing $1.8 million in electronic medical records for the next five years as a way of using data to drive innovation and improve care while cutting costs. In mid-December, the privately-run company was designated by Medicare as one of 26 “hospital engagement centers,” accepting a mission to change practices to reduce injuries and complications 40 percent and hospital readmissions 20 percent over three years. That initiative is funded by the federal health care reform legislation.
Catholic Healthcare West had three layers of management. Nuns from six religious orders served as corporate board members who appointed the 18-member board of directors; together they selected the executive management. Dignity has a single board that retains nine members from Catholic Healthcare West. They include Sister Julie Hyer, a member of the Adrian Sisters who preceded Mickiewicz as Dominican Hospital president. She did not return a call seeking comment Monday.
Dominican’s Catholic affiliation prevents doctors there from doing a tubal ligation, a procedure to prevent future pregnancies, at the time of a Caesarean section, or an abortion. Those who want a tubal ligation must go to Sutter Maternity & Surgery Center or Watsonville Community Hospital, he said noting abortions usually are performed at a freestanding outpatient center rather than at a hospital.
Dr. Jerome Deck, who served as president of Dominican’s medical staff 30 years ago, voiced regret. “I’m sorry to see the Catholic system is going to knuckle under to business,” he said…“I don’t think Dominican Hospital will start doing abortions right away,” Deck said, but he expects there will be pressure to perform that service, perhaps by setting up a separate unit.
 
Disgusting. The Devil just stole 25 Catholic hospitals from the Church.

If the highest level of oversight of this corporation is reserved for representatives of 6 Catholic religious orders then they should be absolutely ashamed for establishing a governing board and executive management that established hospital operations in direct opposition with Catholic medical ethics.

How is it even remotely tolerable for NUNS to run a business that provides abortions? Then their response to being rebuked by the Church is to remove the name “Catholic” from their business so they are no longer subject to that admonition under Canon Law? The correct course of action was to replace the offending members of the board of directors until such time as the organization conformed to Catholic practice once more.

If this isn’t being run as a Catholic ministry then Religious Sisters have no business running it. Frankly, I’m outraged that their decisions effectively de-Catholicized all the Catholic hospitals in Phoenix. Parishioners and other benefactors contributed money for generations - earned through blood, sweat, and sacrifice - to support a distinctly Catholic mission of medical services that’s all been eradicated due to the disobedience and intransigence of a handful of lay religious.

I guess this should be a lesson. We should not support “Catholic” social institutions unless their bylaws have an immutable guaranty that top management will serve at the pleasure of someone accountable to Church hierarchy. That way when madness like this ensues eventually a Bishop or Religious superior can be held to the task of purging the corrupt board and replacing it with trustees that will carry on the faith.
  • Marty Lund
 
Disgusting. The Devil just stole 25 Catholic hospitals from the Church.

If the highest level of oversight of this corporation is reserved for representatives of 6 Catholic religious orders then they should be absolutely ashamed for establishing a governing board and executive management that established hospital operations in direct opposition with Catholic medical ethics.

How is it even remotely tolerable for NUNS to run a business that provides abortions? Then their response to being rebuked by the Church is to remove the name “Catholic” from their business so they are no longer subject to that admonition under Canon Law? The correct course of action was to replace the offending members of the board of directors until such time as the organization conformed to Catholic practice once more.

If this isn’t being run as a Catholic ministry then Religious Sisters have no business running it. Frankly, I’m outraged that their decisions effectively de-Catholicized all the Catholic hospitals in Phoenix. Parishioners and other benefactors contributed money for generations - earned through blood, sweat, and sacrifice - to support a distinctly Catholic mission of medical services that’s all been eradicated due to the disobedience and intransigence of a handful of lay religious.

I guess this should be a lesson. We should not support “Catholic” social institutions unless their bylaws have an immutable guaranty that top management will serve at the pleasure of someone accountable to Church hierarchy. That way when madness like this ensues eventually a Bishop or Religious superior can be held to the task of purging the corrupt board and replacing it with trustees that will carry on the faith.
  • Marty Lund
I think it’s better that they formally separate because I think they stopped being Catholic entities long ago. Frankly, I can’t think of any “Catholic Hospital” that is different from any non-Catholic one in any meaningful way. The gyrations about sterilizations and abortions are a scandal in the true meaning of the word. Frankly, they shouldn’t be “non-profit” anymore, either. What they are is tax-exempt for doing nothing more than any taxable hospital does. The world has changed. It’s not a mission or a charity in any meaningful way anymore.

Also, healthcare has become big business - nothing more. Like EWTN trying to keep the Bishops’ hands off that media plum (and it’s separation from the Church some years back), this could be nothing more than keeping the Bishops’ hands off the hundreds of millions of dollars of healthcare assets. I don’t know, but my guess is that is at work, too.
 
Hmmm… a few years ago, most independent Catholic hospitals had to be joined to a large group for government regulation reasons. I don’t remember the details, someone else here may.

So now the government only has to get a few Catholics to renounce their faith instead of many there used to be. How convenient.
 
So now the government only has to get a few Catholics to renounce their faith instead of many there used to be. How convenient.
As far as Big Government goes, that’s not a Bug, but a Design Feature.

But please, let’s continue to let the government take over healthcare in the name of “compassion” by pretending that makes it “free.” What could possibly go wrong?

Sigh
  • Marty Lund
 
I think it’s better that they formally separate because I think they stopped being Catholic entities long ago. Frankly, I can’t think of any “Catholic Hospital” that is different from any non-Catholic one in any meaningful way. The gyrations about sterilizations and abortions are a scandal in the true meaning of the word. Frankly, they shouldn’t be “non-profit” anymore, either. What they are is tax-exempt for doing nothing more than any taxable hospital does. The world has changed. It’s not a mission or a charity in any meaningful way anymore.

Also, healthcare has become big business - nothing more. Like EWTN trying to keep the Bishops’ hands off that media plum (and it’s separation from the Church some years back), this could be nothing more than keeping the Bishops’ hands off the hundreds of millions of dollars of healthcare assets. I don’t know, but my guess is that is at work, too.
I understand what you’re saying. The profession of medicine seems to no longer be about compassion but a gravy train to those in the business.

If it was a real business, competition would lower the prices. But they keep away competition by licensing and other controls that are supposedly to help the public but are really about stopping competition and keeping prices high.

But there are some differences between a Catholic hospital and others. If you have a difficult situation, like a difficult pregnancy or dying patient, you can trust (okay should trust, those CA nuns have me worried now), you can trust the Catholic hospital to guide you in the moral decisions. The other ones will recommend whatever is expedient. And when you’re in such a emotional experience, it’s necessary to have someone help you who has a moral compass too.
 
Does anyone know if these hospitals are opposed to the contraceptives mandate?
 
Only shows the magnitude of the Roman Catholics when companies can use the Catholic covenant then so easily walk away. Secular within a denomination has its pitfalls. Jesus said as long as they were baptizing in His Name there was no reason to stop the process of salvation. It’s just the doom foretold by the prophets concerning the messiah that the world must heed to.
:signofcross:
 
This is a trend which the HHS mandate is designed to accelerate. Hospitals can not remain Catholic and comply with the mandate.
 
Does anyone know if these hospitals are opposed to the contraceptives mandate?
A related answer:

" …

One thing that will not change: some of the services that are off-limits to both Catholic and non-Catholic facilities in the network. According to Dignity Health’s Statement of Common Values, **"direct abortion is not performed. Reproductive technologies in which conception occurs outside a woman’s body will not be part of (the) services. This includes in vitro fertilization. … " **

Read more: sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/01/24/BU0M1MTGFH.DTL#ixzz1mrMdwrI7

also Phoenix diocese strips St. Joseph’s Hospital of Catholic statusby Michael Clancy - Dec. 22, 2010 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic .

On the day Phoenix Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted declared St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center can no longer call itself Catholic, hospital officials vowed to provide patient care the way they always have, saying they could not ethically and legally comply with the bishop’s demands.

Both sides on Tuesday insisted their interpretation of a case that involved a pregnancy terminated at the hospital was correct.

azcentral.com/community/phoenix/articles/2010/12/21/20101221phoenix-diocese-strips-st-josephs-hospital-catholic-status.html

Although the bishop in Phoenis declared this hospital as “no longer Catholic,” it is still called a part of CWH acc to the CHW own news. The hospital was declared no longer allowed to call itself Catholic after a Sister of Mercy gave her personal “OK” to an abortion. That was back in DEC 2010.

The CWH listing appears under its new name: Dignity Health.

chwhealth.org/CHW_Hospitals/Hospital_Search/index.htm

Maybe most telling is Dignity’s declaration:

You may have noticed in Tuesday’s Chronicle three large display ads on separate pages headlined “Dignity is.”

"It’s “something you are born with,” one ad says. “Taking care of your body, mind and spirit,” says another. And in the last one: “60,000 people committed to delivering superior care.”

Get it???
BORN with dignity -
not CREATED with dignity.

Read more: sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/01/24/BU0M1MTGFH.DTL#ixzz1mrPEQxJG

I suggest many prayers for the Religious Sisters of Mercy.
 
Hi All,

I don’t quite understand it. How can a “Catholic” hospital become non catholic one day? What do you mean by a “Catholic hospital” in US ? I mean , I am in India and here if it is a Christian Hospital or a school or a college, it 100 % belongs to a religious order or a diocese who is 100% under the bishop. No private entity or management cannot just decide to go non catholic way. There are no other “investors” who can take it over.

Do Catholics give the rights to use the name “catholic” to private businesses ? That is the only possibility here. If that is the case only the Catholics in the US to be blamed.
Joe
 
I don’t quite understand it. How can a “Catholic” hospital become non catholic one day? What do you mean by a “Catholic hospital” in US ? I mean , I am in India and here if it is a Christian Hospital or a school or a college, it 100 % belongs to a religious order or a diocese who is 100% under the bishop. No private entity or management cannot just decide to go non catholic way. There are no other “investors” who can take it over.

Do Catholics give the rights to use the name “catholic” to private businesses ? That is the only possibility here. If that is the case only the Catholics in the US to be blamed.
Joe
In the US, anyone can use the word “Catholic” and apply it to their business or organization. Technically, the bishop of the diocese should first give permission and he can request that a Catholic individual or organization not use the word to describe themselves. However, under US law, the bishop’s request has no legal force.

A faithful Catholic will comply with the bishop’s request. Unfaithful Catholics, or persons not in communion with the Holy See, may very well disregard the bishop’s request and not face any legal consequences.

In the case of the hospital in Phoenix, Bishop Olmsted requested that they no longer identify themselves as Catholic and ordered that the Blessed Sacrament be removed from the hospital chapel.
 
In the US, anyone can use the word “Catholic” and apply it to their business or organization. Technically, the bishop of the diocese should first give permission and he can request that a Catholic individual or organization not use the word to describe themselves. However, under US law, the bishop’s request has no legal force.

A faithful Catholic will comply with the bishop’s request. Unfaithful Catholics, or persons not in communion with the Holy See, may very well disregard the bishop’s request and not face any legal consequences.

In the case of the hospital in Phoenix, Bishop Olmsted requested that they no longer identify themselves as Catholic and ordered that the Blessed Sacrament be removed from the hospital chapel.
Thank you for that clarity. Still I wanted to ask if the hospital Phoenix isn’t run by some nuns? Does that mean in US some women religious congregation can run a hospital without being catholic? If it is not their hospital, why should those nuns be associated with a hospital that think it is not worth being catholic?
Joe
 
In the US, anyone can use the word “Catholic” and apply it to their business or organization. Technically, the bishop of the diocese should first give permission and he can request that a Catholic individual or organization not use the word to describe themselves. However, under US law, the bishop’s request has no legal force.

A faithful Catholic will comply with the bishop’s request. Unfaithful Catholics, or persons not in communion with the Holy See, may very well disregard the bishop’s request and not face any legal consequences.

In the case of the hospital in Phoenix, Bishop Olmsted requested that they no longer identify themselves as Catholic and ordered that the Blessed Sacrament be removed from the hospital chapel.
Good explanation.

Anyone who wants care at a CATHOLIC hospital in Phoenix
should know that St. Joseph’s is no longer allowed to call
itself “CATHOLIC.” The bishop has spoken and his word rules
in this case. The RSMs can pretend that they are sponsoring
a Catholic hospital but in the case of St. Joe’s, that’s no longer factual.
 
Eventually, I think there is going to be a lot of this.

Not many Catholic hospitals are subject to a bishop’s jurisdiction. Most are controlled by ever-smaller and more secular orders of nuns. I think there are a lot of Sister Carol Keehans in the “Catholic hospital” industry.

It’s a terrible shame, but the secularization that has gone on in so many Catholic institutions has hollowed them out. Perhaps it might have been reversed decades ago, but it wasn’t.

And it’s not only the hospitals. Whole orders have folded and sold off what generations of well-intended Catholics built by their work and their donations. Some have effectively become private secular liberal foundations.

In 20 year or perhaps even in five years, the “Catholic landscape” is likely to look a lot different from what it once did.

I think we’re going to start almost from scratch again, but this time there will be terrific barriers against charitable works of any kind.

And if, indeed, 25% of all hospital organizations are “Catholic”, imagine for a moment the fortunes that Obama’s secular humanist friends are going to make over their liquidation; something that i am sure was not lost on him and his wealthy patrons. And it won’t only be hospital organizations, either.
 
Eventually, I think there is going to be a lot of this.

Not many Catholic hospitals are subject to a bishop’s jurisdiction. Most are controlled by ever-smaller and more secular orders of nuns. I think there are a lot of Sister Carol Keehans in the “Catholic hospital” industry.

It’s a terrible shame, but the secularization that has gone on in so many Catholic institutions has hollowed them out. Perhaps it might have been reversed decades ago, but it wasn’t.

And it’s not only the hospitals. Whole orders have folded and sold off what generations of well-intended Catholics built by their work and their donations. Some have effectively become private secular liberal foundations.

In 20 year or perhaps even in five years, the “Catholic landscape” is likely to look a lot different from what it once did.

I think we’re going to start almost from scratch again, but this time there will be terrific barriers against charitable works of any kind.

And if, indeed, 25% of all hospital organizations are “Catholic”, imagine for a moment the fortunes that Obama’s secular humanist friends are going to make over their liquidation; something that i am sure was not lost on him and his wealthy patrons. And it won’t only be hospital organizations, either.
A little timeline reminder about Carol K and the abortion at St. Joe’s:

"Phoenix, Ariz., Dec 23, 2010 / 02:42 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Catholic Health Association has once again found itself at odds with Church authority– this time, over Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted’s decision to revoke the Catholic status of a hospital that admitted to serious ethics violations, including a highly-publicized abortion.

“Catholic Healthcare West and its system hospitals are valued members of the Catholic Health Association,” said that group’s president, Sister Carol Keehan. Her remarks came less than 24 hours after the Bishop of Phoenix stripped one of those hospitals, St. Joseph’s in Phoenix, of its Catholic affiliation.

The Bishop of Phoenix announced his decision on Dec. 21, after negotiations with St. Joseph’s hospital, and its parent company Catholic Healthcare West, ended without an agreement. Their main dispute concerned a November 2009 incident, in which medical ethics advisers at St. Joseph’s authorized an abortion for a pregnant woman who was seriously ill.

Bishop Olmsted, in consultation with his own diocesan medical board, concluded that the abortion was a direct violation of the Church’s ethical health care guidelines. He also accused the hospital and its parent company of “formally cooperating” in the management and administration of a government program that offers abortion, birth control, and sterilization procedures at other hospitals.

Sr. Keehan, however, opined that Catholic Healthcare West facilities were “well-known” for a “long and stellar history in the protection of life at all stages.” Her brief statement did not address the company’s alleged cooperation with government-funded abortion and sterilization.

But she did defend St. Joseph’s decision to perform the abortion. “They had been confronted with a heartbreaking situation,” she stated. “They carefully evaluated the patient’s situation and correctly applied the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services to it, saving the only life that was possible to save.”

Sr. Keehan is not a physician, although her official biography mentions “more than 35 years” in “administrative and governance positions at hospitals,” as well as her bachelor’s degree in Nursing.

However, two obstetrician-gynecologists from the Diocese of Phoenix’s Medical Ethics Department said Sr. Keehan was misrepresenting both the facts of the St. Joseph’s Hospital case, and the ethical principles of Catholic health care. …"

catholicnewsagency.com/news/catholic-health-association-defies-phoenix-bishop-over-abortion-case/

How and why the Daughters of Charity allow Carol K to remain within their
community is beyond me. The motherhouse is in Paris. Hope Paris acts!
 
One of the many timely articles about
Bishop Olmsted’s decision to remove title
of CATHOLIC from St. Joe’s, Phoenix:

**Phoenix bishop strips hospital of Catholic status over abortion, other ethics violations
**

"Phoenix, Ariz., Dec 21, 2010 / 04:58 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Citing numerous and ongoing violations of Catholic teaching, including an instance of abortion, Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted of Phoenix has declared that St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center can no longer call itself a Catholic institution.

The bishop announced his decision in a press conference at diocesan headquarters Dec. 21. It follows months of negotiations with officials for St. Joseph’s and its parent company, Catholic Healthcare West.

These talks, aimed in part at getting the hospital to admit its ethical wrongdoing in performing the abortion, reached an impasse last month. The bishop had given officials a Dec. 17 deadline to reach an understanding. When that date passed, he extended the deadline to Dec. 21.

“They have not addressed in an adequate manner the scandal caused by the abortion,” Bishop Olmstead said in making his announcement.

“Unfortunately,” he said, the talks “have only eroded my confidence about their commitment” to the Church’s Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services. These directives are a set of standards drawn up by the U.S. bishops to guide treatment in Catholic institutions.

St. Joseph’s continues to maintain that it did nothing wrong in performing an abortion on a woman in November 2009. The woman was 11 weeks pregnant and doctors contended that she had a heart and lung condition that could threaten her life if she carried the child to term. Some of the hospital’s medical advisers, including Mercy Sister Margaret McBride, who served on the hospital’s ethics board, approved the abortion. … "

catholicnewsagency.com/news/phoenix-bishop-strips-hospital-of-catholic-status-over-abortion-other-ethics-violations/
 
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