Bad Catholic: The Pope Calls For Guaranteed Healthcare For All People, Santorum Attacks Healthcare Plans For The Poor

Gee, it's been fun to talk about contraception, and the US Catholic Bishops' opposition to providing contraceptive care to employees of their affiliated charities and hospitals. But, to be honest, for a religious community that defines itself as pro-life, including, to their credit, "official "opposition to the death penalty, I wonder why the Catholic Bishops "went to the mattresses" to publicly and relentlessly hammer President Obama over the contraception issue, when there is a much more important moral and ethical issue that their church "officially supports," but on which they have remained essentially silent.

I speak of course of Pope Benedict's call for guaranteed health care for all people issued in 2010:


VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI and other church leaders said it was the moral responsibility of nations to guarantee access to health care for all of their citizens, regardless of social and economic status or their ability to pay.

Access to adequate medical attention, the pope said in a written message Nov. 18, was one of the "inalienable rights" of man. [...]

"The care of man, his transcendent dignity and his inalienable rights" are issues that should concern Christians, the pope said.

Because an individual's health is a "precious asset" to society as well as to himself, governments and other agencies should seek to protect it by "dedicating the equipment, resources and energy so that the greatest number of people can have access."

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