Catholic-affiliated medical institutions are being pressured into offering procedures misaligned with their faith and existing medical evidence.

People of faith and faith-based health-care providers are facing a political assault that has introduced increasing challenges when delivering or gaining access to health care that is free from political agendas.

The faith-based health-care sector is now experiencing persistent attacks from the Left and is enduring pressure from the Biden administration and its ideological allies. The administration’s dangerous agenda has even reached the nation’s largest Catholic nonprofit health-care system, CommonSpirit Health, where some doctors are performing sex-change operations and providing hormone suppression and puberty-blocking drugs to young patients. CommonSpirit staff are also participating in “pronoun training” under guidelines set by the far-left Human Rights Campaign Foundation.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops rightly rejected all medical attempts to modify peoples’ sexual characteristics by saying, “Catholic health care services must not perform interventions, whether surgical or chemical, that aim to transform the sexual characteristics of a human body into those of the opposite sex or take part in the development of such procedures.”

An Enduring Political Assault

Nevertheless, this political assault, these transgressions against human dignity, go on. We are thankful for the Catholic Bishops’ clear and strong standing, and it is imperative they continue to publicly oppose the far-left agenda pushed by the administration. They must call on faithful medical institutions and affiliated religious health-care providers to immediately cease offering these unethical procedures and drugs that clearly harm instead of heal.

Saint Francis Memorial Hospital is a medical facility under CommonSpirit Health’s umbrella and part of what’s known as the Dignity Health network. Despite the fact that Saint Francis is clearly affiliated with Catholic health-care providers, the hospital employs “surgeons and specialists. . . dedicated to the gender-affirming individual experience,” and even produced a YouTube video promoting sex-change surgeries as a way to live as your “authentic self.”

These actions contravene CommonSpirit Health’s broader mission to “make the healing presence of God known in our world” and are drastically out of step with the Catholic Church’s teachings.

Catholic teachings have long affirmed what an abundance of recent evidence reveals: that transgender “treatments” do not relieve the pain experienced by people who struggle with gender dysphoria. A study from 2020 found that patients who underwent hormonal or surgical “transition” from one gender to the other did not benefit from the procedures. On the contrary, studies show that between 80 and 95 percent of children who question their gender naturally embrace their biological sex without undergoing life-altering puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones — if given the time and space to grapple with their internal conflicts.

It Affects Everyone

Patients, whether they consider themselves religious or not, should be very concerned that Catholic-affiliated medical institutions are pressured into offering procedures so misaligned with their faith and existing scientific evidence.

As the administration and its political allies ignore key scientific findings, they maintain their shameful track record of targeting people for their religious convictions. Not long ago, President Obama’s HHS implemented rules and regulations such as the contraceptive mandate that forced Catholic nuns to pay for birth control and abortifacients in their health insurance plan. The nuns had to defend their religious freedom rights all the way to the Supreme Court, but thankfully, won. And Biden’s White House recently persecuted pro-life Oklahomans by attempting to withhold grant money from the state for refusing to use the funds to fund abortions or gender-transition surgeries.

This ongoing religious persecution from elected officials who are intent on injecting radical left-wing politics into health care demonstrates the heightened need for alternatives; alternatives that allow people of faith to access and receive health care that is both ethical and comprehensively life affirming — as well as provided by doctors and medical professionals who believe in the dignity and worth of every individual.

People of Faith Need to Push Back

It’s for those reasons we established Solidarity HealthShare as an option for those who want health care that doesn’t violate their deeply held beliefs.

Solidarity HealthShare recently sent a letter to the Bishops respectfully requesting that the Conference bolster its position by opposing all medical attempts to modify people’s sexual characteristics. The letter also asked the Bishops to consider revising their Ethical and Religious Directives or guidelines for Catholic health-care providers. During their recent annual meeting, the Bishops’ Doctrine Committee voted unanimously to revise their ethical guidelines for Catholic health care providers.

Similarly, the Catholic Medical Association, the largest association of Catholic medical professionals, recently released a statement calling on Catholic hospitals to return to providing authentic patient care in keeping with Catholic teachings.

Let us pray that every Catholic health-care professional, as well as Catholic-affiliated provider, unite in affirming the true healing purpose of medicine and align themselves with the teachings of the Church about the dignity and worth of every human person.

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Join the Movement

Solidarity HealthShare is a non-profit healthcare sharing ministry rooted in the teachings of the Catholic Church. Established in 2016, we operate on the Catholic principles of solidarity and subsidiarity, in accordance with the Church’s commitment to promoting life-affirming, ethical healthcare.

We strive to provide an ethical, community-driven alternative to traditional health insurance that is a refuge from the political assault that our country is facing. Through direct Member-to-Member sharing, Members are able to access quality healthcare services while preserving their family’s financial, physical, and spiritual health, all at once. Members never need to worry about their healthcare dollars funding immoral medical procedures. We promote a holistic approach to healthcare, emphasizing the importance of physical, mental, and spiritual well-being.

At the heart of our ministry’s mission to restore and rebuild an authentically Catholic healthcare culture in America is the recognition that every single person has inherent human dignity. We seek to promote healthcare that honors the sanctity of human life from conception to natural death.

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