Germain Grisez's brutally honest take on Catholic health care

By Joe Tevington

09/23/2024 • View profile

Germain Grisez's brutally honest take on Catholic health care

For a time (I do not know if this remains true.), the works of Germain Grisez were very much in favor at Philadelphia's St Charles Borromeo Seminary.

Some years ago, I had a personal moral dilemma and wondered what Grisez's thinking would be. So, I picked up the phone and called him at Mt St Mary's in Maryland. Dr. Grisez provided me with a patient and clear answer. Though thought to have been influential in Pope Paul VI's Humanae Vitae, he was not too self-inflated to take my call.

Way back in 1997, Dr Grisez was quite prescient about prospects for Catholic health care in our Post-Christian society:

"Catholic hospitals that avoid all wrongful cooperation and maintain their identity may not be economically viable. Therefore, Catholics committed to health care as an apostolate may have to look for other, better ways of carrying it on."

Though clearly not a naive man, I doubt Dr Grisez would have been prepared for Trinity Healthcare Midatlantic's flagrant heterodoxy (i.e., https://www.instagram.com/trinityhealthmidatlantic/p/C79nrCPN_3X/). In addition to the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, Trinity Health Mid Atlantic has one hospital in Delaware:

Art. 11. – The diocesan Bishop is obliged, if necessary, to make known to the faithful the fact that the activity of a particular charitable agency is no longer being carried out in conformity with the Church’s teaching, and then to prohibit that agency from using the name “Catholic” and to take the necessary measures should personal responsibilities emerge.

(Pope Benedict XVI, 11/11/2012; https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/motu_proprio/documents/hf_ben-xvi_motu-proprio_20121111_caritas.html)

Archbishop Perez and Bishop Koenig need to stop Trinity Health Mid-Atlantic from continuing to identify as Catholic.

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About the Author

Joe Tevington

Joe Tevington is a proudly orthodox Catholic, a husband since 1986, a dad to two adult children, a grandpa to two, and a civil service retiree. He is a sign language fluent certified rehabilitation counselor with graduate degrees in deafness rehabilitation, religious studies/moral theology, & Christian counseling psychology, as well as a catechetical diploma and certificates in benefits planning and Catholic social ministry. He deeply appreciates Catholic teaching on the sanctity of human life and the sanctity of the transmission of human life, as well as how they are to inform us in our apostolates and ministries.

On much lighter notes, he fancies himself to be the foremost authority on his native Brooklyn, when it comes to architecture, cinema, geography, history, Italian food, stick ball, stoop ball, or wiffle ball.

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