Catholic hospitals, bishops reach accord
In the wake of public spats between the Catholic hierarchy and health-care executives, the Catholic Health Association publicly acknowledged that bishops—not doctors or hospital ethicists—have the final say on questions of medical morality.
The concession came in letters made public on January 31 between Sister Carol Keehan, president and CEO of the Catholic Health Association, and Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Disputes between health-care executives and bishops have intensified as Catholic authorities wrestle with increasingly complex moral quandaries in the country's more than 600 church-affiliated hospitals.
