I started writing this post because of an article emailed to me by a friend entitled North Dakota Hospital Adds Meditation Room. "This is cool!" noted my friend, a fellow Pagan. On first blush, I agreed with her-- St. Alexius Medical Center in Bismarck, ND has built a specially-designed room for patients "for whom the main [Catholic] chapel is not suitable". The local Native American population seems to have been the driving force behind it, and the features of the room include vents for the smoke from smudging and soundproofing for drumming and singing. There's also a window positioned for Muslim patients and staff to face Mecca.
Pretty progressive, I thought.
Then I read further and saw these two consecutive paragraphs:
"We are all children of God," Hassan told the crowd of about 200 people at the dedication ceremony on Thursday. "We are more similar than otherwise."
The hospital has published rules for use of the room. Peyote, used by some American Indian groups in ceremonies, and other drugs are prohibited, as is the "practice of any religion or act which is diametrically opposed to the Roman Catholic Church." The hospital lists "Satanism, Wicca and Voodoo" as examples. (emphasis mine)
...yeah.
OK, so I can see restricting certain acts, like peyote. I could understand it if they specified that there was no nudity, no open flame, no proselytizing-- things that are either hazards to the building or that would sort of involve outside parties by default.
But I find myself profoundly bothered by the specific exclusion of some religious paths. Isn't this supposed to be sort of a catchall non-Christian spiritual space? Are we all children of God or not?
I'm sure there are some of you saying, but, it's a private institution and it's Catholic and so of course they wouldn't want Satanists performing a Black Mass or whatever and isn't it their right to draw some lines somewhere? That was kind of my thought at first too...I thought that I must be troubled by this for my own reasons, and I've always been big on private institutions having a fair amount of leeway in setting their policies.
But here's the thing. First of all, technically speaking, isn't pretty much *every* religion that isn't Catholicism diametrically opposed to the Roman Catholic Church? Judaism does not recognize Catholicism's central tenet that Christ is the son of God and the savior. Islam-- which of all non-Christian religions quite possibly has the best things to say about Jesus, at least in the Quran-- acknowledges the life and works of Jesus and calls him a great prophet who did speak the revealed word of God, but does not consider him to be the ONLY messiah nor "God the Son". Native American spirituality doesn't even deal in God or Jesus, and how is Grandmother Spider to be taken in the context of "thou shalt have no other gods before Me"? And pretty much every Protestant church grew out of some version of some religious philosopher/scholar saying "Screw you!" to the Catholic church and establishing a church that in one way or another flies in the face of Catholic doctrine.
Wicca, Satanism, and Vodoun might be farther down the spectrum of "sort of resembles/totally unlike Catholicism", sure. But I see it more as prejudice and misunderstanding than anything else. If you're going to allow Native Americans to practice their traditional faiths, then why not Wicca? Wicca, in its core philosophy, is no more involved with Catholic concepts as any Native American path. Is it because Wicca is less mainstream or not a "real" religion? Is it because of the label of "witchcraft"? Let's keep in mind that Wiccan witchcraft is very different from the Catholic conception of witchcraft, which has a lot to do with consorting with the devil. Or is it because Wiccans don't think that sexuality is a sin or that women are to be despised?
I would have a hard time imagining a genuine Satanist wanting to do any ritual activities in a Catholic hospital except perhaps as a statement; Satanism (as a religious philosophy such as that practiced by the Church of Satan) is about as hostile to Christianity as Christianity is to it. However it's worth noting that actual Satanists (as opposed to rebellious kids, shock-rockers and the mentally disturbed) state that their concept of Satan has nothing to do with the Christian/Islam Satan, that they do not actually worship him (or anyone), and that they do not practice ritual murder or abuse (as is often alleged against them).
Vodoun probably gets lumped in there because the Hollywood stereotype of bayou witches raising zombies from the dead and sacrificing humans is still pretty prevalent. But the Vodouns I've known have all been very intelligent, thoughtful, devout people, not wild-eyed lunatics, and if you ever have a chance to attend a Vodoun ceremony, you will find that it is actually quite beautiful and very moving. Vodoun is not devil worship, as it is often accused of being, and I would personally argue that even the darkest and most intimidating lwa is no harsher than the old testament God of fire and brimstone and plagues. I'm assuming that Native American spirituality "counts" to St. Alexius because there's a local population quite capable of clearing up any misconceptions and because it's respectful to the Native American heritage. Well...Vodoun (or Santeria or Candomble) is also a religion with a strong cultural/racial tie, and suggesting that Native American spirituality is ok but Vodoun is not smacks of racism (even though there are many Caucasians and others now seeking initiation into Vodoun et al).
What I'm getting at is, how are they determining what's an acceptable religion to practice in their room and what is not? Is Hindu ok? How about Shinto? I'm going to guess Buddhism is ok because its practices are pretty non-offensive and accepted in the mainstream, but how is Buddhist philosophy not diametrically opposed to the Catholic church? If they see a white person meditating in there, or maybe receiving some Reiki, are they going to interrupt them to ask if they are doing that under a "proper" religious context? Perhaps they should post a list of acceptable and unacceptable religions to make it easier for everyone to figure out who counts as one of God's children and who does not.
The second thing that bothers me about this policy touches on a larger point. Namely, that religious hospitals (particularly Catholic, which compose I believe about 70% of all religiously-affiliated hospitals in the US) receive government funding through Medicare and Medicaid, and some even receive federal funds through other grants and endowments-- and yet they are given leeway to enact policies that amount to religious discrimination. That's what I'd call the meditation room policy-- pure and simple discrimination. They have imposed a fairly arbitrary standard to limit religious expression to some groups while expressly prohibiting others.
I have a big problem with an institution that runs partly on my tax dollars that engages in active discrimination.
There's a battle going on in this country at the point where medicine and religion meet. Unfortunately, we can see which side the government is currently on, given its enthusiasms for "faith-based" (read: Christian and [grudgingly] Judeo-) institutions receiving federal funds and the Bush administration sponsoring a Catholic health care plan for federal employees that excludes a lot of vital (and legal) reproductive and sexual health practices.
And, of course, we've all heard about the fun new trend of allowing pharmacists to decide whose prescriptions they would like to fill based on their (the pharmacists') personal morality.
I've heard a number of people say things like, what's the big deal, just go somewhere else, don't give them your business. But what if the only hospital near you is a Catholic one that refuses to-- for example-- give you the morning-after pill when you have just been raped? What if you live in a small town, far from a city, and you can't afford (or can't get) Internet access, and the town pharmacist won't fill your prescription for birth control pills because you're not married and he doesn't approve? (I should note that I hear a lot more of the "what's the big deal" argument from men, perhaps not surprisingly.)
According to the Abortion Access Project, currently 76 Catholic hospitals in the US have "sole provider" status, meaning that the next nearest hospital is at least 45 minutes away, meaning that most people near that hospital are going to have to use it in a medical emergency whether they like it or not. Ironically, this means that they get MORE Medicare money. (It should also be noted that these are overwhelmingly not located in significantly Catholic populations.) Factor in the sorry state of health insurance in this country, where most people's options for receiving medical care are pretty strictly limited by who their provider will cover. And then, consider that it is still legal for a Catholic hospital, when it merges with a secular hospital that buys them out, to insist that the Catholic policies are still followed by the new management.
How is that right?
What infuriates me the most about all this is that people who are receiving medical care are in a vulnerable position. If you're sick or injured or pregnant or having surgery, you are not at your best physically and you may also be scared, stressed, upset, unusually emotional, or in some way less than completely rational and in control. For a medical professional-- doctor or pharmacist or nurse-- to take advantage of that to push a religious agenda is, to me, just abhorrent. It is exactly the same thing, ethically, as a guy waiting till a girl is drunk to try to convince her to have sex with him. The government (in the case of hospitals or federal employee health plans) should be trying to protect ALL the people from that kind of manipulation or outright abuse of power, not funding it. And if you're basically healthy and just getting a checkup or picking up a routine prescription, you're still dealing with a very private area of your life, one where most people are normally very worried about not screwing up, or about which they feel some shyness or even shame, and to have your medical professional (who is in a position of authority) try to influence you or condemn you on religious grounds is still pretty damn shameful behavior and should NOT be the province of the medical profession.
It seems pretty simple to me: If your religion frowns on legal, scientifically-accepted drugs or treatments, and you can't find some way to reconcile your religious beliefs with the requirements of your job, DON'T GO INTO THAT PROFESSION. If you think contraception gives you cooties, don't become a friggin' pharmacist. If you can't understand why a woman who's been raped might want to prevent conception, don't become a friggin' doctor.
This is the kind of attitude I'm talking about:
"The killing of a child is contrary to what we believe is correct," he says. If a woman becomes pregnant as the result of a rape, priests "try to move to her to a position where she's making a decision out of love for the child. Decisions made out of hatred are not good choices."
...
"It takes great heroism and courage on the part of a woman to bear a child when she has been raped," he says. "We ask people to be followers of Christ. Sometimes that is a difficult thing."
(Rev. Steve Dublinski, a spokesman for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Spokane, quoted in Women's E-News article "Catholic Hospitals Refuse Patients Contraception")
How horrifying is it to tell a woman who's just been raped (and FYI, dumbass, the morning-after pill isn't the same thing as an abortion because even if fertilization occurs THERE'S NO PREGNANCY UNTIL THE BLASTOCYST IMPLANTS DAYS LATER!!!) that she is wrong and bad for not wanting to be pregnant with a rapist's child? At a time when she is already struggling with the feelings of shame, self-doubt, and self-recrimination that most rape victims experience?
It's not even a question of how widespread the problem is. Statistically, religious hospitals make up a relatively small percentage of American hospitals; and I'm sure when it comes down to it, there's only a handful of pharmacists actively trying to proselytize from their counters. But to me, that doesn't really matter. Either medicine is morally neutral or it's not. Either Catholic hospitals are discriminating against patients while receiving government funding or they're not. If one woman dies because she couldn't get a medically-necessary abortion because of the religious tenor of her medical institutions, that's one too many. If one patient is told that their religion isn't allowed in a hospital that receives federal money, that's one too many.
Where does it stop? Can a Scientologist become a pharmacist so that he can refuse to give anti-depressive drugs to a clinically depressed person, and lecture them about how they have to work harder to overcome the thetans in their bodies, or something? Can a Christian Scientist become a surgeon and then refuse to perform surgery? It's absurd.
The situation in this country is just getting out of control. You know, I seem to recall that there was another period in history where religion and medicine were pretty much the same thing...I think it was called the Dark Ages.
Comments