Lloyd Dean, president and CEO of the San Francisco-based Dignity Health, said the merger will build upon a shared mission and will "expand our commitment to meeting the needs of all people with compassion, regardless of income, ethnicity, or language."
"We foresee an incredible opportunity to expand each organization's best practices to respond to the evolving health care environment and deliver high-quality, cost-effective care," he continued.
Currently Catholic Health Initiatives has hospitals in 17 states, while Dignity Health has facilities in 22 states, including those operating under brands such as U.S. HealthWorks, the Sacramento Bee reports.
CNA contacted Dignity Health, and the Archdiocese of Chicago for comment but did not receive a response by deadline. Catholic Health Initiatives was unable to respond to a request for comment.
In 2012 Dignity Health, adopted a new board structure and changed its name from Catholic Healthcare West, deemphasizing its ties to the Catholic Church. Then-Archbishop George Niederauer of San Francisco determined the changes were consistent with Catholic morals.
At the time, it was reported that the system's Catholic hospitals would continue to adhere to the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services.
The system's non-Catholic hospitals adhere to the system's "Statement of Common Values." Those rules prohibit abortion and in-vitro fertilization but not sterilization procedures like tubal ligations.
Catholic Healthcare West, later renamed Dignity Health, came under scrutiny following a 2009 incident at St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix, which is part of the health system. The hospital's ethics board decided that a direct abortion could be performed on a woman who was suffering severe medical complications, in violation of Catholic teaching that direct abortion is inherently evil.
In December 2010 Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted of Phoenix revoked the Catholic status of the hospital after an investigation found both the hospital and its parent company involved in a pattern of behavior that violated Catholic health care ethics, including creating and managing a government program that offers birth control, sterilization procedures and abortion.
In January 2012 the health network's CEO, Dean, said concerns about the system's Catholic affiliation hindered potential agreements with other hospitals.
The expansion of Catholic hospitals operating according to Catholic teaching has drawn opposition from critics, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the MergerWatch project. Those groups co-authored a 2013 report that claimed the growth of Catholic hospitals was a "miscarriage of medicine."
(Story continues below)
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The report said the ACLU's advocacy in the area was backed by various funders including the Arcus Foundation, which is a major funder of an influence campaign to restrict religious freedoms in areas that run counter to the foundation's vision of LGBT advocacy and reproductive health.
Kevin J. Jones is a senior staff writer with Catholic News Agency. He was a recipient of a 2014 Catholic Relief Services' Egan Journalism Fellowship.