Following my plea for separation of church and state, many people expressed surprise and had questions about my Catholic community hospital experience. I offer another example.
When a church decides to step outside its doors to run a soup kitchen, gas station, or hospital, it has stepped into a secular sphere where nonreligious, civic considerations apply. A hospital is to provide science-based medical care. With that in mind, for what medical reason should a priest slip unannounced behind the drawn privacy curtain to give communion to a patient mid-ultrasound, massage, or exercise treatment? This occurred often. It diminished both the religious ritual and the physical therapy. The patient response was to grin and bear it. Separation would have better served both worlds.
When I faced the emergency C-section, I did not seek medical care “behind church doors” but went where my doctor was waiting at the only hospital in my community. Yes, a priest ultimately permitted the medically approved, contraceptive tubal ligation at this Catholic hospital.
So what does it mean when a priest goes against the church’s dictated moral code? I don’t know, but as years went by I came to see the priest as a kindly but forlorn figure, trapped within the role chosen for him by childhood indoctrination. I felt sorry for him.
Had Internet been available, he might have found comradery through (clergyproject.org) where disillusioned religious leaders discretely support each other. For someone middle aged to leave the clergy is to leave employment security, status, and possibly be shunned (bullying) by family and community. But that’s another topic.
Geri Jensen
Grand Marais
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