Cardinal Dolan on the
Ethical Questions of Our Time & Generation (Full Text of
the Interview)
On Thursday, June 5, 2014, Fordham University’s Center for Ethics Education Ethics
and Society student editors Michael Menconi (FCRH ’15) and Ken Ochs
(FCRH ’15) interviewed Timothy Cardinal Dolan, the Archbishop of New York. Cardinal
Dolan is former President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops,
a member of the Board of Trustees at the Catholic University of America, past chairman
of Catholic Relief
Services, and he also serves on the Pontifical Council for Promoting New Evangelization and Pontifical Council for Social Communications in Rome.
His Eminence and the editors were joined by Father
Thomas Berg, a moral theologian and advisor to Cardinal Dolan,
at St. Joseph’s Seminary of the Archdiocese of New York for the interview.
Ochs: Thank you once again for having us. We
would like to get started with our first question. You have had a great deal of
interaction and dialogue with young people, and college students, particularly
Fordham students. You’ve been to our university many times since you’ve been
installed as Archbishop of New York. What values—ethical values, religious
values, societal values perhaps—do you believe are most important for those in
our generation to hold and put into practice?
His Eminence: Well, first of
all, thank you for reminding me of my extraordinarily happy visits to colleges,
beginning with your own Fordham University. Those have been magnificently
uplifting occasions—and the more, the merrier. Fordham’s president, Father Joseph
McShane has been very diligent in inviting me to visit often. I
assume he thinks, ‘If I invite you to twenty things, and you show up to one,
I’m in good shape.’ I try to make sure at least once a year I show up at
Fordham because I cherish and respect it so much. So I have to say to Fordham:
thanks for inviting me to so many of those special occasions. But you asked
about the ethical values I think should be most compelling for our students on
university campuses, and let’s get precise: at Fordham. What would be the
values? What would be the ethical dimension? High on the list of virtues I
would look for in college students, and which—by the way—I find in places like
Fordham, would be the virtue of generosity. Most of the time we don’t think of
generosity as a virtue. One of the most common and challenging
temptations young people face today is to be “ungenerous.” There is a heavy
stress today on individualism – what Pope Francis calls the ‘cult of
convenience’ – that it is myneeds, my wants, my career, my degree,
and my time would be dominant in our lives. Now, for an
ethical person, and especially for a person for whom Jesus Christ is Lord,
Savior, and Teacher, that is very insipid: what we need instead is a generosity
of heart that would show itself in openness to others, such that I am not the
center of the world – God happens to be the center of the world, and other
people come after God, and then finally myself. The beauty of generosity is, of
course, that we quickly find in many ways a generosity of heart also leads to a
spirit of fulfillment. So, in a way, paradoxically, there is a selfishness to
generosity, because in the long run it is rewarding. We look around to see the
people who are locked into themselves – those who almost live within a personal
gated community, for whom other people are distractions or means to an end.
They end up being extraordinarily unhappy, whereas people who have this virtue
of generosity are the happiest of people. Now, the one who expressed it
best—well, it would be Jesus—but the one who in our memories expressed it most
poetically would be Saint John Paul II, who spoke about the ‘law of the gift.’
You might remember what he called the ‘law of the gift’ was simply: we are at
our best, we are acting most consistent with the way our Creator intends us to
be, when we give ourselves freely and lovingly away to another person. And the
‘law of the gift’ is at the heart of the whole Christian ethic. So the ethic I
would look for most in our college students today is that of a spirit of
generosity. Generosity is an antidote; generosity is penicillin to our culture
of entitlement that is avalanching all of us. And young people are particularly
susceptible to the insidious belief that there are certain things coming to me,
that I am owed certain things, that I am simply here for other people to serve
my needs and take care of my necessities. That culture of entitlement is
strangling western civilization. The virtue of generosity is an antidote to
that.
Ochs: When you talk about the culture of
extreme individualism, and you also mention the mindset that people have to be
served, how do those two things reconcile with each other? If one is an
individual and wants to be removed from the world, how do you reconcile that
with entitlement?
His Eminence: People who are
living in an internal gated community recognize that there are others out
there, so it is not a complete solipsism. But they also believe that those
other people simply exist to take care of them. So people become objects. As
Pope Francis says, ‘people are not a means to an end,’ they are an end in
themselves, and they need to be loved and respected. So we don’t look at people
from a utilitarian point of view: how can they serve me? How can they satisfy
my needs? We look at them not as objects but as subjects,
and they are not means to an end, but an end to themselves. I see that
generosity of spirit, which I would hold up as a primary virtue for young
people, at Fordham, when I see students come after school to tutor; when I visit
a soup kitchen and I see Fordham students serving the hungry; when I go to
pro-life rallies and see Fordham students defending the dignity of all human
life. When I had the honor of celebrating the Baccalaureate Mass
here in 2012, I met a large group of seniors who were going to spend a year as
volunteers in the Catholic Relief Services, so I know that there is the virtue
of generosity alive on this campus, and bravo for that. Now a
second virtue that I would encourage, that I feel would be pivotal to our young
people, would be the virtue of openness to truth. I don’t know what that virtue
is called. I am simply saying that this characteristic is
certainly virtuous. We live in a culture—in a society—that would almost be
based on relativism. That means that the only constant in life would be our own
subjective desires, drives, and urges – our own hopes and dreams.
These things would therefore be the only constants, the only normative values
in our lives. But, of course, we are driven to seek truth. And there is an
objective truth for us, as Catholics, and it is so real that the truth has a
name: Jesus Christ, the Way, the Truth, and the Life. We believe that, at the
heart of both Christian ethic and Catholic wisdom, God has told us a lot about
himself, and has told us a lot about ourselves. And the best, most effective
way He has told us about Himself and ourselves, is by sending his only-begotten
Son, the Incarnate Word. As Saint John Paul II so often said, it is impossible
to understand ourselves without God, and without Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is
God’s revelation of what humanity is intended to be, and Jesus said “I am the
Truth.’ That sort of truth is so beautiful. The reason you are at a university,
and why the Church is in that sacred enterprise, is because you are longing for
the truth. You want to know the truth. Not just the truth about math and
physics, but the truth about life. Now, we don’t have the whole truth.
Sometimes we have a lot more questions than we have answers. But at least we
know that there is truth, and it is an extraordinarily noble way to spend one’s
life to be open to that truth and to pursue it. Those two virtues—generosity of
heart and openness to the truth—are key for all of us, but particularly for
young people. But, again, congratulations: I see these virtues evident in
students when I visit places like Fordham.
Menconi: We hear from Pope Francis about duty
and about obligation and responsibility toward vulnerable populations, toward
the elderly, toward the poor, both in our communities and on a global scale.
Oftentimes moral principles are portrayed by what we must not do rather than,
instead, what we are obliged to do. What unique responsibilities do young
people have today, particularly in regard to social justice, and how do these
correspond with the rich history of Catholic moral thought?
His Eminence: Let me try to
respond in a number of different ways. Unfortunately, words like ‘obligation’
and ‘duty’ are somewhat frowned upon today. Pope Francis is wise in always
reminding us that duties and obligations are not something that are imposed,
but are something that come from within. If we properly understand who we are
in God’s eyes, who we are in the eyes of our Creator, and in relation to other
creatures and all of creation, we will sense that there are certain duties and
obligations that simply flow from who we are. This is not only an ethical,
moral, religious, Catholic insight: it’s also a very American insight. It is at
the heart of what our founders meant when they speak about the common
good. As a civic society, especially at the very core of an
enlightened democracy, who we are as privileged citizens of this republic have
certain duties which arise from within, upon which a democracy is to depend if
it is to flourish. I would congratulate Pope Francis for reminding
us of this. It is not an onerous imposition from beyond. The most brilliant person
to remind us of this is his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI. Pope Benedict would
often speak about it, and one of the best ways he did it was through what is
often called his ‘September legacy.’ Each September of his pontificate he would
travel – there were trips to England, France, two trips
to Germany, one of which we all remember when he made the comments about Islam.
On one of those talks, he said that, in the Biblical view of life, the
‘ought,’ – that is, the ethics, the duties, the obligations – always
flows from the ‘is.’
First we emphasize the ‘is’ of
something. Who are we? Who am I as a human being? Who am I as a child of God?
Who am I as a citizen? Who am I as a participant in the human project? From
this ‘who,’ from this ‘is,’ will flow the ‘ought,” and from this ‘who’ will
flow the ‘what.’ Now, Pope Benedict would tell you that he was not the first to
say this, and that it comes from scholastic philosophers. Actions flow from who
we are. If we, at the core of our being, have the identity of being a child of
God, made in His image and likeness, redeemed by the precious blood of his only
begotten Son, destined to enjoy eternity with Him, if this is all at the core
of our being, then that ‘is’ leads to a lot of ‘oughts.’ So we ought
to treat another person, who, like I am, is also a child of God. A woman who
often speaks about this is Dorothy Day. In fact, one of her beautiful
biographies is called ‘The Duty of Delight.’ Duty for her was not imposed, it
was not a burdensome obligation, it was delightful. So, her feeding of the poor
was not a duty as in ‘I have to do this, because the Church tells me to.’ It
was so spontaneous and natural, because it flowed from who she knew she was,
and who she knew they were. When we speak about duties and
obligations, what we have to do as a Church is to reclaim the fact that duties
are not arbitrary, obligations are not impositions, but the basic duties and
obligations that we have flow from who we are. And then it becomes liberating.
I don’t think that’s a novel idea. I see it when I meet soldiers. I see it when
I go to their wakes and funerals. Last summer I went to the wake of a young man
who was killed in Afghanistan, and his family was understandably mourning his
loss, but proud that, for him, service was a sacred obligation and duty that he
felt flowed from his very identity as a responsible American citizen. People
might argue with this particular war, but no one could doubt the valor of what
he did. Where you most readily see this sense of the ‘ought’ flowing from the
‘is,’ I like to think, is in married couples. A father does not complain about
the burdens—although, sometimes if your father were like mine, he would gripe –
but his sense of obligation, whether it would be going to work every day,
coming home and loving us and my mom, cutting the grass and painting the house,
the things we might take for granted, was all something that simply flowed from
who he was as a husband and a father. And the same for moms in all the things
that they do for their husbands and families. So our identity is so important.
Pope Benedict has helped us recover that, and now Pope Francis is building upon
it. It is a beautiful Biblical and Catholic tradition of the ‘is’ flowing from
the ‘ought.’ People will often say: why does the Church have all these rules?
Why does the Church have all these directives? Why does the Church have all
these commandments? The simple answer is, we don’t. The Church says, ‘our
beautiful duty is to share with you the good news that we have received from
God, especially as lived out by the Church for two thousand years.’ There is an
exciting adventure here: an adventure in fidelity, and we want to share that
with you. Once you get a sense of who God is, and who God has
destined us to be, certain ‘oughts’ flow from that. The Church is not typing up
new sets of rules; rather, the Church is reminding us that our actions are
consonant with who we are. It is like when a wife says to a husband after he
slips up in something, ‘Honey, did you really do that? Is that what a faithful
husband would do?’ At that point, the husband can hardly say, ‘Why she is
barking at me with all these rules?’ The wife is simply saying that, if you are
my loving and faithful husband, which you are, ninety-nine percent of the time,
can you see that what you did is not consonant with that? This is what the
Church is into, and I would like to think that this is a very urgent ethical
challenge that we have today.
Ochs: That goes really nicely into our next
question. Because some in our generation, as you probably know, might have a
negative impression of the Catholic Church. Pope Francis has mentioned an
overemphasis on certain polarizing moral issues. Some in college, Catholics and
non-Catholics, might feel excluded, perhaps that their lifestyles and choices
are at odds with the Church’s teachings, especially those of sexual ethics.
What advice would you give to young people whose ability to fully hear the
Church’s expansive Gospel message of love, justice, and charity is injured by
their disagreement on very specific moral teachings?
His Eminence: Sure, sure. I
would like to invite them—because there are a lot of them, you’re right – to be
as patient with the Church as they are with themselves and their good friends,
and to be as patient with the Church as they are with their families, because
indeed the Church is our spiritual family. I would ask them to be as patient
with the Church as they hope God is with them. The Church is made up of an
extremely awkward and bumbling group of sinners. I happen to be a big one, and
so are they. So when we look at the Church, we see a group of people who are
striving, due to God’s grace and mercy, to live in accord with God’s
expectations as revealed in Jesus Christ, but who more often than not do not
live up to them. Pope Francis – and I am glad you cited him, because once
again, he is right on target – observes that, if we start with the rules, if we
start with the regulations, if we start with the moral do’s and don’ts, we risk
turning a lot of people off. Instead, Pope Francis says that we must return to
the initial strategy.
Ochs: I recall that in a recent interview, you
refer to the Holy Father, Pope Francis, as a shrewd leader.
His Eminence: Yes! He is a
shrewd pedagogue, as he says let’s return to the strategy that was given to us
by the most successful teacher ever: Jesus. When he met his first disciples at
the shore of the Sea of Galilee, Jesus did not say: Come here, I want to teach
you about the Trinity. Come here, I want to teach you that abortion is a sin.
Come here, I want to teach you about why divorce is wrong. No. He said: Come
and see. Come, follow me. Get to know me. Talk to me. Love me, and fall in love
with me, and gradually, gradually, gradually, your path in life will open up to
you. An analogy that I personally like comes from Father Bob Barron, who I
consider perhaps the best catechist and evangelist around today, a new
Archbishop Fulton Sheen. Father Barron says that as rector of a seminary in the
Archdiocese of Chicago that he has a lot of young men here studying to become
priests for the Archdiocese who are not American. They come from Poland, they
come from Africa, they come from Ukraine. He told me once, “Alleluia! Thank God
we have them because that is the reflection of the Church in Chicago. One
of the things I insist upon is that they cannot be ordained until they
understand baseball because, as Jacques Barzun said, you cannot understand
American life without understanding baseball. So, I take them
to Wrigley Field, and they smell the hot dogs, they see the stadium, they watch
the crowds, they’re looking at the batting practice. They start to get into the
rhythm of the game. They’re intrigued. They’re fascinated. Pretty soon they
begin to like it, and start to ask me questions. But when they ask me, I do not
start by explaining something intricate like the in-field fly rule. Instead I
start with the beauty and the majesty of the game. And then they say to me:
explain why does the game have this rhythm and majesty? Only then do I begin to
say, ‘here are the rules.’” That is, in a way, what Pope Francis is saying
Christian discipleship is all about. It’s all about one person: Jesus. And when
we begin to love and serve him, then we begin to say: what are the implications
of fidelity to him? What are the results of me saying, ‘Jesus, I love You. You
are my Lord and Savior.’ What are the implications of that? That means that now
there are certain choices I make and don’t make—and that of course is morality
and ethics. These moral and ethical choices, by the way, do not oppose, but
rather enhance, the human project. It is the way to true freedom. It is very
similar to the choice that men eventually make about a vocation. Some may
choose the priesthood—alleluia, if that—but most men someday fall in love with
a woman and say ‘I would like to spend the rest of my life with you, and I
would like you to be the mother of my children.’ That choice of love means
other choices are excluded. It means: I can like another woman too, but now I
cannot go out with her. That is how it is with faith. That is how it is with
Jesus, and with ethics. Morality becomes not the starting point but the
consequence. You would not say to a young person preparing to be a catechist in
one of our schools, ‘I am only going to teach you moral theology,’ without also
teaching the future catechist about the human person. Before we can get to the
beatitudes and commandments, right and wrong, we first have to talk about
revelation, the Bible, and doctrine: the Trinity, the Incarnation, Christology,
because, here we are again, what we do flows from who we are. If we are going
to re-engage and re-fascinate our young people, we have to modify that
widespread belief so many people have that the Church is some sort of celestial
rotary club, whose leaders meet every once and awhile to issue new policies. I
still meet with journalists who say to me, ‘with the new pope, is the Church
going to change its policy on abortion?’ They think it is just a rule, a
position, like a plank in the Republican or Democratic platform. No! We don’t
have a ‘policy’ on abortion. We have an exciting belief that human life mirrors
God’s life, that it is sacred, deserving of dignity and respect, and, most
importantly that it is intended to be forever! Ergo, we don’t tamper
with the most frail and vulnerable, namely the baby in the womb. This is not a
‘policy,’ voted on and passed at some convention. This flows from our
beliefs. We must reclaim that excitement, that priority, that the
Church is not a rule-making ethical society, or an N.G.O. with an agenda –
which Pope Francis has warned us against – but a group of extraordinarily free,
rational individuals who have fallen in love with a teacher, a man, the Son of
God—who has literally done for us like what he did for St. Peter, who was
crucified upside down—he has turned our lives upside down and given us a whole
new vision and outlook on life. It does have cogent and real moral
consequences. But it flows from our faith and love.
Ochs: Before we move to the next questions, I
would like to ask you a quick follow-up on this. You mention that some might
view the Church as a sort-of rotary club. What effect do you think the Second
Vatican Council had on the public’s perception of the Church’s constancy—for
both Catholics and non-Catholics? Do you think that the impression of the
Church as seen as an unchanging bulwark moving through history is now a little
different because of the reforms of Vatican II, as perhaps an unforeseen consequence?
His Eminence: Let me be honest:
the Second Vatican Council has had an extraordinarily providential effect on
the Church. One of the things it did was to fulfill the dream, the prayer,
uttered by Pope Saint John XXIII when he convened and convoked the Council, and
preached on the feast of the Maternity of Mary on October 11, 1962. He said, in
Latin: ‘Gaudet Mater Eccelesia’ – Rejoice, Mother Church. And he said
that while what the Church teaches is unalterable, how she teaches it can
change. The Second Vatican Council reminded us of that in an extraordinarily
potent way. It reminds us that the core beliefs are immutable and timeless
within the Church. They are there forever. That is the patrimony;
that is the pearl of great price that we have received. And we do not tamper
with that. We receive them. We accept them. We rejoice in them. How that is
expressed, how that is emphasized, how that is presented—to use the term of
Saint John XXIII, how it is gift-wrapped – that can
change, as the Second Vatican Council reminded us. So, now, you have the
changeless and the changing. There would be some, and I speak as a Church
historian, who say: to have accented that in the life of the Church is very
providential. Looking back to how things were prior to the Council, there was
an overemphasis on the unchanging. After the Council, there may have been an
overemphasis on the changing. If you talk to someone who was an adult before
the Council, they might say that nothing ever changed, that everything was the
same from the time of Jesus—which assuredly wasn’t true, as practices do
change. But that was a certain perception. And that was not healthy that we
live in a completely unchanging, kind of frozen atmosphere here. But now there
are some who seem to think that everything is up for grabs, nothing is
immutable, there is nothing that we inherit, nothing passed on, and everything
is subjective and everything is subject to alteration and change. That is
equally toxic! As equally toxic as the frozen approach, isn’t it? The Church is
not some frozen lake. The Church is more like a river, as Archbishop Fulton
Sheen used to say. There are flowing waters that run, in our belief, in the
sight of Christ. These are constantly fresh and life-giving waters, constantly
flowing and moving. Yet this water is defined by clear banks, which make it a
river. It is not a lake, but it is also not a flood. So we have to stress the
two of them: both the flowing water and the discernable banks, the two
boundaries that will contain the flowing river. Today, perhaps, we stress too
much the flowing water, and not the defining riverbanks. In the past, we
probably stressed the defining banks and not the flowing water. The danger of
that is that the water turns stagnant. The danger now is that the water is
turning into a flood, which destroys instead of nourishes.
Menconi: For the next question, oftentimes,
students during their young adult years might feel pressured to identify with a
political party and blindly adopt all of its viewpoints without examining them
in relation to one’s own ethical principles. What dangers do you see with this
approach? Are there issues that the young Catholic, or the young college
student, must be sensitive to, that are conventionally associated with both the
American ‘left’ and ‘right?’
His Eminence: First of all, I
would not find it bad that young students are actively investigating political
parties, and might find a particular affinity with one or the other. I am glad
that they are. I would like to see more students involved in politics. One of
my fears, though, is that politics has unfortunately become so tawdry and that
young people who are idealistic do not want to get involved in it. The tenor of
your question is very good, because for us, as thoughtful human beings, and as
committed Catholics, no earthly system can be dominant in our lives. The only
thing dominant, the first and foremost feature in our lives has to be the one,
‘Dominus,’ the Lord. Part of the dominion, or ‘Dominus,’ of the Lord, are
political implications: a sense of and desire for justice, for virtue, for
right living. As organized in the political sphere, this would be a very urgent
demand for anyone who is a thinking, rational, human being, but especially for
a follower of Christ, or for anyone for whom God’s revelation is forceful.
Where the problems arise is if we allow anyone or anything else to have the
sway over us that we believe only God can have. It was Saint Thomas More who
said, ‘I am the king’s good servant, but I am the Lord’s servant first.’ Now
that could be tough. That is a tough juggling act to do. No one and no thing in
this life can have dominion over us that it does not deserve, that only the
Lord deserves. To do otherwise would violate the first commandment: ‘I am the
Lord thy God, thou shalt not have strange gods before me.’ This is idolatry.
Sometimes, we can elevate the state to an idol. That is called nationalism. Or,
in the American chapter, it would be called an excessive partisanship—where
really, my affinity for the Republican Party or my allegiance to the Democratic
Party would trump my faith, and that can’t happen. By the way, that is not just
a Catholic idiosyncrasy. That is an American viewpoint, one that our founding
fathers would believe: that faith and religion are extraordinarily important,
so important that this American proposition probably cannot thrive without
their influence. And, that the state is always second to one’s faith and
religion, such that the state can never impede it. So, we are not dreaming of
something new and novel and radical here. We are dreaming of something that has
found a home in the United States of America.
Ochs: This next question pertains to research
ethics. The ethical treatment of human subjects and animals in scientific
research has recently become a more prominent source of debate in both academic
and theological communities. Many scientists and medical professionals often
impose a utilitarian cost/benefit analysis in the name of scientific
advancement. Do you think that Catholic theology takes into account, or
assigns, moral value to human and non-human organisms when considering their
involvement in research, particularly when the research involves potential harm
to the participants? If so, what measures or values are employed?
His Eminence: Definitely!
Enthusiastically so when it comes to the human person. The human person can
never be the object of experimentation. The human person can be a free,
voluntary participant, in some experiment where there is an overwhelming chance
of enhancing his human dignity, with a cure or treatment. But we can never
allow the use of a human person as a guinea pig, or to use a human as some
number in some type of medical experiment.
Ochs: What about animals?
His Eminence: Animals, I would
say, are a part of God’s creation, the pinnacle of which is the human being,
and they thus deserve unique respect. All creation deserves respect and
dignity. That having been said, any abuse of nature, of any of God’s creatures,
for a less than noble purpose, would be immoral. The Christian wisdom, the
Biblical wisdom would be a noble purpose for the use of animals can be the
betterment of the human project—whether that be for food, or whether that be
for some type of benign experimentation that might better the pinnacle of God’s
creation, namely the human person. So while creation—the environment—and
creatures—like animals—can and should never be disregarded and abused, they
can, under controlled circumstances, be used for something that would enhance
the human project.
Menconi: Society today often stigmatizes young
women who become pregnant, regardless of whether the pregnancy was intentional
or unintentional. In the current education system in the United States and
around the world—even in Catholic institutions—resources for undergraduate and
graduate parents in universities are limited and sometimes non-existent. Is
this absence of supportive infrastructure for young parents in educational
institutions contradictory to the ‘consistent ethic of life’ and respect for the
dignity of the human person? What can be done in light of this reality?
His Eminence: Yes. We have to
put our money where our mouth is to promote the culture of life, don’t we? I
love that, here in the Archdiocese of New York—and it doesn’t happen often, because
it is obviously not optimal—we have cases, in our Catholic high schools, where
a girl would get pregnant. She arrives at a beautiful, faith-driven choice to
give birth to her baby who she loves and wants to care for, and her desire,
along with those of her parents, can be that she can continue her education,
without disruption. I am delighted when Catholic high schools say: come on in,
you are welcome here, let’s rally around you. Now there is some sensitivity, of
course, regarding the parents of her classmates, so that they can understand
the rationale behind the decision. If you want to extrapolate to
colleges, I don’t know all the policies, but I hope there would be nothing
punitive against a young woman who would find herself in an unexpected pregnancy.
I’d like to think what if Mary of Nazareth were a student at Fordham – did she
not have an untimely pregnancy? So, what you are asking is a very good
question: would a young woman in such a pregnancy find a university atmosphere
less than receptive and against the consistent ethic of life? If that is the
case, it is a good thing you are asking that, because then perhaps we should
try to change that.
Ochs: One final question, Your Eminence. Many
students at Fordham University, and many college students across the country,
will go into the sciences—especially medicine. Many will go into law and public
policy. These same students, particularly at Fordham, were marked during their
undergraduate years with informed moral principles, whether they are from the
Catholic faith, another religion, or a secular normative tradition. You have
spoken extensively on the right to practice one’s own faith in the public
sphere, and healthcare is one of the largest areas of this public domain. How
can we as a society, with multiple understandings of the good, protect
individuals’ principles in the healthcare environment, without infringing on
the autonomy of others?
His Eminence: You know, when I visit hospitals in New York, which I
often try to do quietly, without anyone taking notice in order to visit a
patient, usually someone will recognize me and before long, by my side is the
head of a department. Almost unfailingly—and these are non-Catholic
hospitals—they will say: we love hiring Catholics, because people of faith are
particularly good in the healthcare professions. They have a sense of hope,
they have a sense of delicacy and tenderness of human life, they have a sense
of service and generosity that make them excellent. We do not want robots. We
do not wa
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