Inspired by saints like Mother Cabrini, Catholic health care must always be a work of both corporal and spiritual mercy

Health care and Christianity have been closely linked in history. The word “hospital” is taken from the virtue of hospitality, but today, many feel adrift and buffeted by the business of health care. But when Jesus Christ is secured as the anchor in our health and wellness, we grow and thrive in body and soul.

We remember the beautiful example of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, founder of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and the hospitals she created and the care she gave to the poor and forgotten immigrants in New York City and beyond. Before Mother Cabrini, we remember in the early 1800s St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, founder of the Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph, whose order expanded after her death to include health care. They helped introduce the Catholic notion of caring for the body and soul of a patient on the road to wellness.

But today, the landscape in patient care has drastically shifted.

Health-care costs have risen dramatically, the complexity and advances in medical procedures have grown exponentially, and the secularization of patient care has almost eliminated the spiritual components of caring for the whole person in an integrated way. Furthermore, some of these new technological capabilities pose ethical and moral challenges.

While many hospitals today still receive substantial financial support from benefactors, most rely on reimbursements from publicly traded health-insurance companies. A key way for insurers to control health-care costs is by reducing reimbursements to hospitals. For patients, this means higher insurance premiums, higher deductibles and higher out-of-pocket expenses pulling open the curtain and displaying that insurance is often only an illusion of security..

With the high cost of insurance premiums, Catholics also are questioning what their money is funding. They have awakened to the fact that these premiums often cover procedures that clash with the teachings of our Catholic faith.

I recall what Mike O’Dea, co-founder of Christ Medicus Foundation, once told me. While he and his wife Peggy were engaged in pro-life side-walk counseling ministry in the 1980s, they spoke with a young pregnant woman and the woman’s mother who were considering the possibility of abortion. The O’Deas asked this family, “What help do you need? Is health care an issue?”

The woman’s mother responded that they didn’t need help because her insurance would pay for either the pregnancy and delivery of the baby or for an abortion. Mike and Peggy had discovered an ugly truth: Insurance companies were paying for abortions. They have done so for decades, using in part the insurance premiums paid by millions of Catholics.

Many Catholics are growing frustrated and finding it more challenging to reconcile that their money is indirectly funding procedures like abortions through their insurance premiums.

Today, the advent of new technological capabilities brings new debates and the need for ongoing catechesis on how these technologies conform or not to God’s original design and plan for his children.

In-vitro fertilization (IVF) is heavily promoted in society and increasingly supported by insurance companies. Yet IVF can involve transferring 2-3 embryonic children per course of treatment. Some of these embryos fail to implant in the uterine lining and die. Among those who do successfully implant, many are targeted for “selective reduction.” In other words, the doctor kills some children and then leaves one or two to develop to term.

The hidden truth is that infertility often is a symptom of an underlying condition that can be treated. But few medical professionals have received training to treat such conditions, and the medical-industrial complex is focused elsewhere.

IVF also reduces the creation of life to a commodity, removing conception from its intended place within the unitive and procreative embrace of a husband and wife in the marital act, which makes us cooperators with God in creating new life.

So IVF destroys human life and usurps God’s role in creating life. Yet some in the medical field are promoting the belief that we can become independent creators of life.

It is important to have the proper medical care when we need it. It is appropriate to desire the greatest quality of medical care possible for ourselves and our families. But eternal life rests only in the Lord. Catholics must center and entrust our whole care back to the author of life and our Divine Physician, Jesus Christ, with a focus on not only trying to repair and survive, but to grow and to thrive.

As Catholics, we know that God created us body and soul and that we must nurture both. At CMF CURO, we see more and more people seeking spiritual direction, which is foundational to caring for our soul. We also are seeing more individuals desire wellness coaching from a Catholic perspective, which is very helpful in integrating different aspects of our bodily care to promote our growth toward not only health but also holiness.

Care of the soul and care of the body complement each other and help us to flourish in the true life to which we are called: eternal union with God. They also reinforce what St. Augustine reminds us: “Take care of your body as though you are to live forever; take care of your soul as though you are going to die tomorrow.”

F. Javier Arellano writes from Miami and serves as Assistant Director of Member Development for the Christ Medicus Foundation (CMF).