Vatican To Draft Guidelines For Catholic Hospitals, AIDS Prevention

By Francis X. Rocca
Religion News Service

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Controversies over bioethical standards at U.S. Catholic hospitals show the need for greater Catholic education for health care workers, Vatican officials said Thursday (Feb. 3).

Church leaders said a new set of biomedical guidelines will be published later this year, as well as a separate document on AIDS prevention after last year's controversial remarks by Pope Benedict XVI on the morality of condom use.

The announcement, at a press conference to publicize educational initiatives of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers, did not include a publication date for the AIDS document.

Bishop Jose L. Redrado, secretary of the council, said Catholic facilities are confronting a "culture of death" following disputes over a 2009 abortion at a Catholic hospital in Arizona that doctors said was necessary to save the mother's life. Phoenix Bishop Thomas Olmsted
stripped the hospital of its Catholic affiliation and excommunicated its chief ethicist.

Such disputes show the need to translate church teaching into the terms of "modern society," Redrado said.

"The language should be clear," he said, "explaining what the church says, where the frontiers are, where there is a risk of crossing the line."

A forthcoming charter for health care workers, which would update a guide issued in 1995, will be a major part of the educational effort, said Monsignor Jean-Marie Musivi, undersecretary of the council.

The charter will reflect the latest church teaching in such fast-changing fields as stem cell research and assisted reproduction technology.

"We have some good nurses, even including our religious sisters, but they don't have specific preparation on these questions, so this charter could play a role," Musivi said.

The document on HIV/AIDS will reflect the work of a May 28 Vatican conference on the subject, and include notes on Benedict's comments on the morality of using condoms to help stem the spread of the disease.

In a book-length interview last year, Benedict said condoms are not a "real or moral solution" to the AIDS epidemic, but that their use by someone intending to prevent infection could "be a first step in the direction of a moralization" of sexuality.

A December statement by the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith -- which Musivi on Thursday called an "authoritative explanation" -- insisted that the pope's words did not mark a change in Catholic moral teaching or "pastoral practice" against the use of condoms for AIDS prevention or contraception.

Comments

[Richard McRae]

04:33 PM on 02/04/2011

So they only waited until 1/4 of the population was infected? Kudos for them. :/

I also love that they forbade condoms, but then stripped a hospital of all support once they performed a necessary abortion to save the mother's life. The hypocrisy is amazing.

For anyone who thinks that the church is benevolent and that they perform such amazing good throughout the world, remember this. They help only so long as you do all that they say, believe as they believe, and will strip you of all help the second you contradict them.

That's not help, that's blackmail.

[Liberty1967]

01:08 PM on 02/04/2011

Any institution that won't perform standard-of-care treatment, including life and health-saving abortion and access to potentially lifesaving information about HIV prevention, should get out of the healthcare business, yesterday, or be forced out by law.

[Bluelynx]

10:52 AM on 02/04/2011

I'd like to know where these people went to med school.

[3RawBob]

10:03 AM on 02/04/2011

#1. Insert the phrase “unless the Church is not making a good profit” in the Bible in Matthew 25:26 about taking care of the sick.
#2 If you get a good offer, sell the hospitals to a venture capital group, like in Massachusetts.
#3 When you sell the hospitals, as a condition of the sale, they must enforce the rule that women have no reproductive rights.
#3 Remind the faithful that the proclamations of Pius IX are dogma and the Pope is never wrong.

[ThinkCreeps]

09:00 AM on 02/04/2011

So, let's see if we can summarize vatican AIDS protection 101:

When the man in the gold hat tries to take advantage of his position and sexually assaults you, you need to make sure he doesn't?

[ThinkCreeps]

08:58 AM on 02/04/2011

Shows "the need for greater Catholic education for health care workers"?

Either that, or the the need for greater general, healthcare, ethical and legal education for catholics.

[turfkiller]

08:54 AM on 02/04/2011

Trying to keep attention from a new book just published. "“The Sexual Person: Toward a Renewed Catholic Anthropology (Moral Traditions)".

[ThinkCreeps]

09:22 AM on 02/04/2011

That may just be destined for the lowest sales ever for a book with `sexual' in the title.

[turfkiller]

08:54 AM on 02/05/2011

I mention it as it has caught the attention of the Bishops who have denounced it. It has facts as say opposed to 'good Catholic facts'.

[turfkiller]

08:25 AM on 02/04/2011

We are led to believe that the Catholic Bishops will be clear in their statement. The Church is keeping it self updated with the findings from science based medical and social science. They will however simply ignore their own guidelines and remain in contravention of Vatican II.

The Bishops know that 89% of Catholic practice methods of contraception prohibited by the Church and consider themselves to be good Catholics. While this does not change their dogma, it does prove that Bishops and their doctrine and dogmas have nothing to do with the real questions of the real world in which real men and women live.

If we are to take the advice of differing views, which will it be? Whose views should receive our greater consideration? Those of the Bishops or those of your doctor, and health care based science?

[David N Taiwan]

04:38 AM on 02/04/2011

I’m sure there will be protests over my use of the adjective “silly” when referring to Catholic sexology, but please stop and consider who develops such thinking – people who are committed to not having sex, people who take vows of celibacy. From recent news stories, we know many of them fail miserably with maintaining those vows and when their urges erupt forth, they erupt in the most inconvenient, embarrassing and illicit ways, which essentially means Catholic sexology is developed by those who are successful in keeping their vows (in other words, virgins) and those who aren’t (in other words, perverts). Any theological conclusions about sex coming from such a committee would have to be totally laughable, i.e., “silly.”

[Indigo1941]

07:28 AM on 02/04/2011

That works for me.

[A-Superstitionist]

01:05 AM on 02/04/2011

This is like the Alchemy Society setting new guidelines for chemists.

Or the Astrology Society setting new guidelines for astronomists.

The world should ignore and reject any guidelines from the Worldwide Pediphile Superstitionists.

[Douglas Campbell]

04:02 AM on 02/04/2011

yes

[Indigo1941]

07:30 AM on 02/04/2011

Or astronomers trying to tell astrologers there's a "new" zodiac sign.

[turfkiller]

07:52 AM on 02/04/2011

No, it's not. Not even close. Not even in the same universe.

[ThinkCreeps]

08:55 AM on 02/04/2011

Hmm.. because the sun's not real, and doesn't loop around past the background stars sky every year?

[From the Raft]

11:43 PM on 02/03/2011

Does this mean they have solved the pedophillia priest problem?

[Richard McRae]

04:36 PM on 02/04/2011

As long as there is at least 1 priest, they haven't solved the problem.

[Douglas Campbell]

04:04 AM on 02/04/2011

Does that mean that HIV does not cause AIDS or that everyone HIV+ knows they are HIV+?

[David N Taiwan]

04:34 AM on 02/04/2011

LOL!!!

I have a question about #1 - Does the rule pertain to women too? - "No sex unless married to a woman with whom you are having that sex?"

If so, maybe there is hope.

[LMPE]

07:42 PM on 02/03/2011

Lemme guess. The guidelines are gonna be:

If you have an abortion or are LGBT, you're going to hell.

[MagicManDoneIt]

02:49 AM on 02/04/2011

And if you persecute LGBT and prevent abortions at the expense of the mother's life, you are on the fast track for sainthood.

[ThinkCreeps]

01:08 PM on 02/04/2011

All hail mother teresa! The kind of croat who used to give croats a bad name.