For nineteen years I had the privilege of working as a clinical bioethicist in various Catholic hospitals and long-term care facilities. During that time I watched most orders of Catholic nuns diminish and, in many instances, transfer the oversight of their facilities to lay boards and administrators who promised to continue the Catholic mission of providing healing and health care to the sick, the suffering, the elderly, the frail, and the dying. 

But what is the Catholic mission of healing? One need only turn to the Gospels to understand why our Catholic instincts have led us to this ministry. The Catholic mission of healing is rooted in the instinct of Jesus to extend a healing hand and heart to the sick and suffering and in his instructions to his disciples to follow suit.

Our Inalienable Right

In 1963, Pope John XXIII declared that all human beings have a right to health care. (See Pacem in Terris, 11.) Since then, the Church has consistently taught that universal access to basic health care is an inalienable human right. As a matter of justice, the obligation to care for the sick and dying also rests upon every human being, each in his or her own way.

In matters of justice the Church teaches that respect for human rights is guided by the principle of subsidiarity—that is, whatever can be accomplished at the lower levels of a social organization should be. This lived principle creates solidarity in society and respects the value of an authentic pluralism. Here, individuals, families, private organizations, and public institutions all cooperate to ensure that the right of every human person to basic health care is respected and realized. This justice-oriented approach forms a framework for the Catholic Church’s dialogue with the secular world about the value and importance of universal health care.

Mind * Body * Soul

While teaching Church history to a group of seventh-grade students from our parish school, one of the students asked me to “sum up” what Jesus was about. I hesitated, and then voiced the one word that came to my mind, “Healing.”

Jesus healed people physically, but also emotionally and spiritually. Ultimately, Jesus brought healing to the whole universe as he “reconciled the world to himself” (2 Cor 5:19) through his death and resurrection.

Since then, the Church has continued Jesus’ healing ministry. The Catechism of the Catholic Church puts it this way: “The Lord Jesus Christ, physician of our souls and bodies, who forgave the sins of the paralytic and restored him to bodily health, has willed that his Church continue, in the power of the Holy Spirit, his work of healing and salvation, even among her own members. This is the purpose of the two sacraments of healing: the sacrament of Penance and the sacrament of Anointing of the Sick” (1421).

Spiritual Maturity | Part Four of Six

Jesus sees Jerusalem in front of him. One can hear his heart breaking in his simple, earthy words, “How many times I yearned to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her young under her wings, but you were unwilling!” (Mt 23:37). Jesus has walked long, hot days to get here. He wants to put his arms around these people and embrace them. And yet he knows this is the city that kills prophets and stones those who are sent to it.

In Jerusalem he will speak urgently about the reign of God; and then his steps will move quickly toward the last meal he will eat with his friends—a meal he will forever connect for them to his passion. But Jesus is frustrated. He has preached and taught and warned. In the same Temple in which he healed those who were blind and lame, he threw out moneychangers. He challenged the leaders in this city to move them: Is your money serving God or Caesar? (See Mt 22:17–22.)