This Alliance brings together the best minds in medicine, law, business, and theology.
By Shannon Mullen, Carl Bunderson
Washington D.C., Jan 20, 2022 / 16:38 pm
Bishop James Conley of Lincoln, Nebraska, and the leaders of five Catholic medical or professional associations on Thursday founded the Catholic Health Care Leadership Alliance, meant to support the reception and provision of health care in accord with Church teaching.
“This Alliance brings together the best minds in medicine, law, business, and theology. I look forward to working with CHCLA and my brother Bishops to guide and support CHCLA in this important work that will not only bring faithful medicine to our people, but bring our people to a deeper relationship with God,” Conley, chair of the group’s episcopal advisory board, said in a statement.
He added that it will “serve as a reliable and trustworthy resource for bishops to turn for assistance, information, and support; so that bishops can properly and more effectively exercise their pastoral office in overseeing health care ministry in their diocese. They will be better equipped to help facilitate an atmosphere of mutual understanding, fruitful collaboration, and ecclesial communion with the health care leaders in their dioceses.”
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Douglas G. Wilson, CEO of the Catholic Benefits Association, spoke Thursday about the recent disclosure in a federal lawsuit, reported by the National Catholic Register in November, that the U.S. Department of Health (HHS) is developing sweeping new regulations that would require U.S. health care providers to provide abortion and gender-transition services, without any religious exemptions.
Such extreme regulations, said Louis Brown, executive director of the Christ Medicus Foundation, a Catholic health sharing network, “would in effect make Catholic health care illegal in the United States.”
Brown said the fight to preserve religious exemptions for faith-based health providers to offer “pro-life care” promises to become “the biggest pro-life battle” in the nation.
More information about the alliance is available on its website, catholichealthalliance.org.
For additional information on the importance of the new Catholic Health Care Leadership Alliance, read CMF’s press release.