Washington D.C., May 23, 2010 / 14:28 pm
The division between the U.S. Catholic bishops and some Church-affiliated organizations, most prominently the Catholic Health Association, that accompanied the passage of the Obama administration's health care overhaul was downplayed as a difference of opinion purely at the personal level. But on May 21 the bishops issued a statement that cast aside that spin, saying, “it represented a fundamental disagreement, not just with our staff as some maintain, but with the Bishops themselves.”
The process of reforming the nation's health care system is not something that the U.S. Catholic bishops began thinking about when it popped up on the political radar; they have been advocating reform decades.
In the lead up to the passage of the Obama administration's overhaul, the bishops said that while they liked the availability of health care to all, they remained opposed to certain aspects of the Senate version being pushed by the administration. The U.S. Catholic leaders wanted stronger conscience protections, no federal funding for abortion and access for immigrants to health care.
After the ink dried on the new law, the three bishops chairing the committees that were involved in giving moral guidance on the health care reform process decided that they needed to “set the record straight,” resulting in a May 21 statement with the same title.