Our Parish, like most in in the Archdiocese of Chicago, reads off a list of pro-forma petitions, the Prayer of the Faithful, a sort of laundry list of requests for topical prayers. Many of these (in Chicago) are somewhere between benign and unexplainable (harmony and peace come up a lot); others read like plants from David Axelrod and ASK Communications (we prayed for Hope and Change 2 days before the 2008 Democratic Primary). This past Sunday’s petitions included a shout out for Haiti and Chile earthquake victims and the off hand request for long term aid to Haiti and Chile.

Haiti is in horrible condition, and has been the recipient of US Aid (and intervention) for over 100 years, and is in pretty much the same condition that it was 100 years ago. However, per the IMF, the average per capita income in Chile is $14,300, which is striking for a country that was in poverty only a generation ago. Free trade, high individual savings, and a strong work ethic pulled Chile into being a 1st world economy, thriving before and after the authoritarian Pinochet regime left power. So why would we want to provide long term aid to Chile? Why not just buy and sell goods, (among many other riches, Chile has some fine wine and huge copper reserves) rather than providing long term aid?

It is the mindset that has made for an indefensible position for (purported) Catholic Social Teachings. People are by and large completely capable of taking care of themselves in normal circumstances. In ambulatory circumstances, such as an earthquake, ambulatory response like sending aid is completely justified, and then it must stop. Many of our Church leaders have shown support for long term government support of charitable institutions (Catholic Charities comes to mind) that are now dependent upon government support and the incessant political games of lobbying and pleading for funds.

The Catholic Bishops took a consistent and courageous stand in opposing abortion funding in the recent healthcare bill, and deserve the backing of the faithful for their leadership. But a pause for reflection is also needed to consider how we got in such a fix that we are relying on the Federal Government to provide such a range of services to people that we have detached the personal and spiritual relationship of charitable support of healthcare.

It wasn’t that long ago that organizations such as the Sisters of Mercy (1846) and the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth (1895) came to Chicago to care for the sick. Along the last 100 years or so, the Sister’s built up huge organizations and facilities that resembled multinational corporations more than Convent sickrooms. Of course, the growth was necessary as the population increased and medical technology changed. But when the Catholic Health Association openly supports abortion coverage in the Federal Health Care Bill, it is clear that something has gone heinously wrong with the prudential judgement of the Sisters.

Edward Hospital in Naperville became famous for standing up to the Illinois Health Facilities planning board and refusing to pay Tony Rezko for permission to build a health facility in Plainfield. The new hospital would compete with existing, nominally Catholic, hospitals in the Plainfield area, and was rejected by the planning board, with felonious complicity via Tony Rezko, Stuart Levine and charges against Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Five years later, Edward still wasn’t able to build the hospital, depriving a growing area of vital health services.

You can repeat this type of thoroughly corrupt influence of Illinois State Government at any number of health facilities, from the innovative Proton Therapy unit in DeKalb to the minute clinics that do not exist in the missing Wal-Marts on the South Side.

Any fair minded person should ask, is more government really what is needed to provide better health care? Is the corrupting influence of politics too great to justify further government influence in business? Should religious people be standing up against the basic impediments to providing goods and services rather than clamoring for more government funding?

The Catholic health systems have quite a bit to manage that is directly under their own control. A recent ruling in the Illinois Supreme Court found that a Catholic hospital in Urbana does not provide a sufficient level of charitable care to be eligible for a property tax exemption, while the Loyola Health Care system in Chicago advertises that it provides it’s Ob/Gyn Residents with “the opportunity to perform interval surgical sterilization procedures, as well as first and second trimester terminations of pregnancy”. It has to be tough enough to find some spiritual reason for a Catholic hospital to continue being Catholic even without a new set of extraordinary pressures.

The support of a Federal Mandate for healthcare (sans abortion) was a prudential call by the Bishops, and is certainly defensible within the catechism. That is no excuse for ignoring the years of abuse within the current level of government provided healthcare and the massive problems with the healthcare bill. Giving up on your own common sense to hand over power to a small group of bought-and-paid-for politicians does not strike me as particularly prudent. Prudential judgement does not mean forcing others to pay for your speculative opinions. The roads to both heaven and hell is paved with good intentions. The hard part is seeing the end result despite the composition of the pavement.