Expanding the Tradition: Global Public Health as Priority for the Catholic Church’s Healthcare Ministry
Joshua Snyder, PhD, Assistant Professor of the Practice in Theology, Boston College
In responding to this year’s theme of “True to Tradition: Religion, the Secular, and the Future of Medicine,” this paper will argue that global public health has been a lacuna within the Catholic Church’s healthcare ministry. While the Catholic Church has nearly two thousand years of tradition in terms of robust engagement in healthcare, it has been noticeable lacking in the realm of global public health. In response to this absence, I will argue that the Catholic Church’s healthcare ministry must broaden its tradition to include global public health and policy issues.
The paper will proceed in two parts. First, I will argue that the Catholic Church’s healthcare ministry has been preoccupied with responding to illness by offering immediate relief to medical suffering. I will show how this is rooted in the healing narratives of scripture that focus on interpersonal healing rather than the transformation of social structures that perpetuate patterns of illness. The emphasis on curative medicine continued with the tradition of hospitalitas and the development of the Catholic Hospital Association. Likewise, the Church’s magisterial documents focused on healthcare workers and the moral dimensions of care.
The second part of the paper will address how the Catholic Church can better engage in global health in a way that addresses some of the enduring problems within global public health as well as draw upon the unique gifts of the Church. By addressing global health as part of the common good, the Catholic Church can draw upon its rich tradition of human rights. I will argue that human rights are foundations for the determinants of health and therefore global health policies must be complementary to those rights. Lastly, I will propose four contributions that the Catholic Church offers global public health. 1) cultivate a sense of vocation among global public health workers that is rooted in the virtues of joy, hope, and compassion, 2) develop a preferential option for the poor and vulnerable as a measure of the institutional effectiveness of global health initiatives, 3) institute the principle of subsidiarity in order to shift from a top-down approach toward emphasizing grassroots capacity building, and 4) operationalize the corporal works of mercy at the level of population and policy.
The paper will proceed in two parts. First, I will argue that the Catholic Church’s healthcare ministry has been preoccupied with responding to illness by offering immediate relief to medical suffering. I will show how this is rooted in the healing narratives of scripture that focus on interpersonal healing rather than the transformation of social structures that perpetuate patterns of illness. The emphasis on curative medicine continued with the tradition of hospitalitas and the development of the Catholic Hospital Association. Likewise, the Church’s magisterial documents focused on healthcare workers and the moral dimensions of care.
The second part of the paper will address how the Catholic Church can better engage in global health in a way that addresses some of the enduring problems within global public health as well as draw upon the unique gifts of the Church. By addressing global health as part of the common good, the Catholic Church can draw upon its rich tradition of human rights. I will argue that human rights are foundations for the determinants of health and therefore global health policies must be complementary to those rights. Lastly, I will propose four contributions that the Catholic Church offers global public health. 1) cultivate a sense of vocation among global public health workers that is rooted in the virtues of joy, hope, and compassion, 2) develop a preferential option for the poor and vulnerable as a measure of the institutional effectiveness of global health initiatives, 3) institute the principle of subsidiarity in order to shift from a top-down approach toward emphasizing grassroots capacity building, and 4) operationalize the corporal works of mercy at the level of population and policy.