Religion of Health
Vatican officials Thursday decried what they called a “religion of health” in affluent societies and held out Pope John Paul II’s stoic suffering as an antidote to the mentality that modern medicine must cure all.
“While millions of people in the world struggle to survive hunger and disease, lacking even minimal health care, in rich countries the concept of health as well-being figures in creating unrealistic expectations about the possibility of medicine to respond to all needs and desires,” said the Rev. Maurizio Faggioni, a theologian and morality expert on the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy for Life.
To some extent, I agree. People often take their health way too seriously. Go down to South Florida and watch the stampede of near-death retirees in front of the flu-shot center. We’ve become obsessed with delaying our mortality and squeezing every last bit of time out of our withering bodies.
But at usual, the Vatican manages to work a Socialist agenda into their statement.
“The medicine of desires, egged on by the health care market, increases the request for pharmaceutical and medical-surgical services, soaks up public resources beyond all reasonableness,” Faggioni said.
The Catholic church has no business talking about “public resources.” If they want to make a statement regarding an obsession with health, fine. But don’t try to frame it as some sort of social injustice. What’s next… “Every time you get a flu shot, someone dies in Africa” bumper stickers?
Vatican officials stressed that all people should have access to basic health care.
But “it is difficult to establish what a decent minimum is,” said Faggioni, when asked about criticism over unaffordable health care for many in the United States.
Unaffordable health care? All that means is that not everyone can afford to have complete coverage. Try this: break your arm. Go ahead… break it. Then walk into a hospital. Tell them you don’t have insurance, or a health care plan. They won’t turn you away.
Walk into a dentist’s office. Tell the dentist that you want to take better care of your teeth, but that you simply can’t afford to pay in full each time. They won’t turn you away. That seems like a decent minimum to me.
There is a reason that this is possible in the United States. Democracy leads to freedom leads to prosperity leads to generosity. The United States has (in many areas) the best health care in the world. People in poor countries don’t have good health care because they are oppressed by their own governments. Don’t try to blame their suffering on an Americans and their health obsessions.
