The Church and the sick


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THE CATHOLIC HOUR

THE CHURCH AND THE SICK
BY

REV. ALPHONSE M. SCHWITALLA, S. J.
President, Catholic Hospital Association, Dean, St. Louis University School of

Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri

The first in a series of nine addresses on. THE CHURCH IN ACTION,
delivered in the Catholic Hour, broadcast by the National Broadcasting Com-
pany, in cooperation with the National, Council of Catholic Men, on September
5 , 1943 .

National Council of Catholic Men

Washincrton, D. C.



THE CHURCH AND THE SICK
The Church in Action in the

care of the Sick, is Christ in ac-

tion in the world of today, as He
was in action in the days of Cap-

harnaum and Jerusalem. Nothing

is more striking in the Gospel nar-

ratives than the proportionate

space devoted by the Evangelists

to the narration of Christ's mir-

acles. Among the latter the mir-
acles of the restoration to health

occupy by far the larger share of

the Evangelists' attention. No
fewer than twenty-two miracles

dealing with individual sick per-

sons are narrated by the three his-

torical Evangelists : Matthew,

Mark, and Luke. In all four of the

Gospels there are passages sum-

marizing days upon days of

Christ's ministry on earth in such

simple statements as : that the

sick flocked to Him or were brought
to Him or were sent to Him and
He healed them.

The ministry of healing contin-
ues as one of the moral miracles

of the Church, as one of the moral

notes characteristic of the true

Church of Christ. There never has
been a time or a place from the
apostolic days in Palestine to our

own day in every country upon
which the light of Christianity has
dawned where the ministry of
healing has not flourished among
pioneers and apostles, and mis-

sionaries who have gone forth to
bring the light of Christ and His

teaching to our less favored

brethren.

Throughout the history of the

Church her teaching and her life

externalized the teaching and the

life of Christ. The teaching of the

Church on the care of sickness em-

phasizes and stresses thoughts

that are foreign enough to the

teachings and thoughts current in

a materialistic civilization. For

the Catholic, suffering of itself is

not an evil. Suffering and pain

are creatures of God to be used

according to God's designs, and the

evil lies not in pain and suffering,

but it lies in the use which self-de-

termining man makes of pain and
suffering. If he uses suffering as

Christ used it in Olivet and on

Calvary, man becomes more Christ-
like; if he abuses it as a conquered

and subdued and vanquished man
is apt to use it, suffering debases

man and reduces him to a hopeless
helplessness. What we do with suf-

fering depends on ourselves. Each

moment of pain might be a step-

ping stone to the heights of self-

realization; it might also be a step-

ping stone to self-debasement.

This fundamental viewpoint
which flows from a philosophy en-

lightened by faith finds its most

far-reaching application in the life

UBaCfumSu



of Christ and in the imitation of

that life as practiced by the

Christian. Christ deliberately

chose a life of privation and suf-

fering through which to redeem

the world. The Christian who imi-

tates Christ at least accepts suf-

fering and uses it to the extent to

which, in his limited* endurance, he

might be capable; but to the extent

that he uses it and loves it, endures

and cherishes it, he reaches an

ever greater Christlikeness.

And all this teaching, transfused

as it is by the viewpoint of faith,

is consonant with a sound psycho-

logical approach to the problem of

suffering. Even the psychologist,

the psychiatrist, the physician

knows the difference between pa-

tient and patient—the difference
between the man whose every day

of silent agony makes of him a

greater and a better man and the

man for whom each day of restless
and agonizing pain makes of him,

sooner or later, a distorted carica-

ture of his former self. In no

realm of human experience is it

more important that the Gospel of

the captaincy of one's own soul, of

man's ability to determine his own

development, should be preached

than in the realm of human suffer-
ing.

Such are the approaches to the

problem of sickness which the

Church has accepted as her own.

Hers is a viewpoint that encom-

passes the whole human being, that

views man as man, man as a com-

posite of the physical and mental,

as a being that has a dual destiny

—the destiny of earthly success
*and the eternal destiny of heavenly

beatitude. The Church, therefore,

must be intolerant of all partial

viewpoints regarding sickness as

she must be intolerant of all par-

tial viewpoints in any human ex-

perience. There can be no un-

mixed evil in the world except only

sin. Poverty and the loss of power

and even disgrace may make better

and greater men of us provided

the resources of the individual are

such that they can be called upon

to meet sometimes the most pro-

found disillusionments of life.

Therefore, to emphasize sickness

simply as a welfare problem, sim-

.
ply as an economic problem, or a

scientific problem, or a medical one

must appeal to the Church as in-

adequate. The Church must encom-

pass all of these, but she must

synthesize and combine and inte-

grate them all through her insis-

tence upon the supernatural view-

point in which all these partial

viewpoints find their true and

their deepest meaning.

The Church deals realistically

with man as man. She lays down

no abstract speculations about di-

sease or sickness; that is not her

field. That is scientific medicine.

She does, however, concern herself



intimately with the sick human be-
ing, the individual who is sick.

She surrounds him with the abun-

dant gifts of her Christlike char-

ity; she places at his disposal the

most select of her devoted adher-

ents; she brings to him the super-

natural assistance of prayer and

especially of the Sacrament of the

Sick, Extreme Unction, which sanc-

tifies the soul while it strengthens

the sufferer and, after restoration

of complete peace of mind through

the Sacrament of Penance, eases

him, if that be God's provident will,

on the pathway to his eternal des-

tiny, even in the company of the

Christ Himself in Holy Viaticum.

As a necessary corollary to all
this thinking, it is obvious that the

Religious Orders of the Church,

the orders of Sisters and Brothers,

personify in their dedicated lives

the teachings of the Church re-

garding sickness and suffering.

From that earliest day when, upon
the emergence of the Church from

the life of the catacombs, the first

flowerings of the liberated life of

her children blossomed forth, into

the anchoritic life, that same con-

templative ideal produced the men,

the motives, and the zeal for the

creation of the first hospitals of

Christendom and also of the first

children's hospitals. It is a provo-

cative thought that the Catholic

Hospital of history is the product

of the contemplative rather than

of the pragmatic life of the

Church. From that day to this the
tradition of life's dedication to the

service of the suffering is unbroken

in the Church of Christ.

In our country, the astounding

fact of the unprecedented develop-

ment of the Sisterhoods and

Brotherhoods devoting their lives

to the care of the sick confronts

the student of medical history. Al-

most two hundred Sisterhood juris-

dictions have been founded or have

been continued from previous

foundations in the Old World, in

this country of ours, all devoted to

the care of the sick exclusively or

devoted to the care of the sick and

to the work, of education. Twenty-

eight thousand of these Sisters and

Brothers are now required by their
self-imposed vows to give to the

sick their whole life of self-dedica-

tion and of self-sacrifice and, if

need be, of self-immolation. In

nearly a thousand institutions they

are taking care of almost one-

third of the hospitalized sick of

the nation. The Catholic hospital

numerically represents not quite

11% of the hospitals of the land,
and these hospitals contain scarcely

more than 7% of the bed capacity
of all the hospitals, yet they care

for 30% of those who are seeking
the restoration of their health in

the hospital. How vast is the re-
sponsibility carried by the Catho-

lic hospital may be understood



from this fact alone, that these

Catholic hospitals during this last

year cared for 43% of the patients
of all the hospitals organized not

for profit, and they cared for as

many as 87% of the patients who
last year sought the restoration to

health in the church-controlled

hospitals. Surely Christ lives in

this hospital work which is the

continuation of the work which He
did at the crossroads of Judea, in

the valleys and on the mountain-

sides of Galilee.

Not only in hospitals, but in

nursing schools as well, has the

Catholic heart of the Sister or

Brother found opportunity for con-

tinuing in a mystical but over-

poweringly effective manner the

health-giving miracles of the life

of Christ. Time was when an older
generation distinguished between

educational and welfare vocations,

assuming, in that older day, that

certain activities, such as teaching,

were predominantly intellectual

and that others, such as nursing,

were predominantly manual. The

one was thought to require the
mind, the other the emotions; one

was thought to require knowledge,

the other skills. But we have been
disabused of such easy and simple

distinctions, and the conviction has

grown upon us that education is
welfare work and welfare work is
education.

Barren and unproductive truth

cannot today be defined as the ob-

jective of education any more than

skills unenlightened by knowledge

can be made useful in the complexi-

ties of modern life. And so, in con-
nection with more than half of the

Catholic hospitals of the land, there

is a school of nursing having pro-

fessional, intellectual, moral, and

social ideals that merit the ap-

proval of Catholic and non-Catho-

lic alike. During last year the 369

Catholic schools of nursing enroll-

ed a total of 27,979 student nurses,

fully one-third of the total number

of nurses enrolled iri all of the

schools of nursing of the land. To-

day as the call to arms re-echoes in

the heart of the nurse to be an-

swered by pledges of allegiance and

loyalty to the country and its

rulers and by pledges of self-dedi-

cation to the purposes of the War,

these students in our Catholic

schools of nursing, we may confi-
dently predict, will rise to their

opportunity in the service of God

and country, military and civilian

alike. We may confidently expect
that the enrollments in our Cath-

olic schools of student nurses in the

United States Cadet Nurse Corps

will represent more than a propor-

tionate share of volunteers and en-

listees.

Not content with all of this,

many of our Catholic schools and
Catholic hospitals have enlarged

their programs of activity to in-



elude both welfare and education

work in other fields as well. Our

Catholic hospitals have offered op-

portunities for development in

practically every modern health en-

deavor, from dietetics to therapy,

from technology to hospital ad-

ministration. These opportunities

are being used not only by all

groups but most enthusiastically

by the members of the Sisterhoods

particularly.

In all of this we have a perfect
illustration of the principle that

faith in the hereafter and in the

supernatural cannot and does not

in the mind and heart of the wise

man destroy his concern for the
natural and the temporal. Rather

it is a paradox, most emphatic and

striking, that the more supernat-

ural is man's concern, the more

will he emphasize the worth and

dignity of the natural. By reason
of their supernatural character

have our Catholic sisterhoods

created the great, progressive, and

most productive institutions, as

alone worthy of the cause to which

these institutions are dedicated,

the service of the sick, imitative

of the life of Christ. No standard
can be too high or too exacting in

the achievement of such an ideal.

Not only schools of nursing and

hospitals, but nurses' organizations

and a far flung hospital association

as well, have been used by the

Church in this country to carry on

the age-old traditions to maintain

continuity in the ideals and the

achievements of the centuries. The

Church is ever eager in her em-

phasis upon her purpose to use

every human means at her dis-
posal; and so she has placed her

benediction upon an organization

such as a Catholic Hospital Asso-

ciation, which has merited the ap-

proval of several Pontiffs, a com-

mendation of the whole Catholic

Hierarchy during the quarter cen-

tury of that Hospital Association's

existence. And today the Church of
this country is placing her endorse-

ment upon the organization of

nurses—^the National Council of
Catholic Nurses—made up of the
graduates of our Catholic schools

of nursing and of the Catholic

graduates of other Schools as well.

Yet even this is not all. In our

own country we have the unique
distinction among contemporary
nations of having developed five

schools of medicine under the con-

trol and guidance of one of the Re-

ligious Orders of men of the
Church. For the Society of Jesus

(or the Jesuit Order) conducts five

such schools and has maintained an

unbroken tradition of interest in

and concern for the medical pro-

fession and medical education from

the pioneer days on the Western

Frontier of 1839 right down to our

own day—a century of endeavor in
training those who will care for the



sick, a century of translating into

practical programs of educational

and welfare activity the funda-

mentally basic and sound philoso-

phies which we have briefly touch-

ed upon at the beginning of this

resume. And in those schools
about two thousand students each

year receive their medical educa-

tion. But something more is done;

for it may be confldently asserted
that an imprint has been left upon

these students which will charac-

terize them as imbued with a

strong sense of the basic ethical

fact of the physician's responsi-

bility for his patient.

In all of this development the

form of the Church's organization

has not been lost sight of. In prac-

tically every one of the 113 arch-

dioceses and dioceses of the conti-

nental United States there is some

official who is concerned predomi-
nately, as the Bishop's representa-

tive, with the health care and the

sickness care of that diocese.

Sometimes it is the Director of

Catholic Charities; sometimes it is

the Diocesan Hospital Director;

sometimes, especially in the larger

dioceses, both officials share the

responsibility for the work of the
Church in action in the health

fleld. Whatever the form of the
organization might be, of this we
may be assured, that through such
officials there is effected a coordi-

nation of effort and unanimity of

purpose, a constancy and persist-

ence in motivation, which permit

progressive growth and the estab-

lishment of continuing and sound

policies. It is thus that the de-

velopments of the last two or three

decades can be best explained.

To be sure, there is room for

further developments. School hy-

giene programs, child welfare, ma-

ternal welfare, the co-ordination of

health care with general welfare,

the further amplification of efforts

in many specialized fields—all of
this is part of the vision of the

future. But we have the satisfac-

tion of knowing that that vision

is not a tenuous illusion. It is a

vision made up not merely of hopes

and velleities, but also of solid

achievements and successes. With-

in the framework of the Catholic

Church of the future in this coun-

try every trend indicates an ex-

tension of concern for the care of

the sick, the prevention of disease,

and the procedures of developmen-

tal medicine.

Lastly, we cannot close without
just a word concerning the partici-

pation of the Church in the de-

velopment of legislation in the

health fields, looking towards in-

creased social security. Conform-

able to the teachings of the Pon-

tiffs, particularly those since Leo

XIII, and to the teachings of the

great social encyclicals, such as



Rerum Novarum and Quadra-
gesimo Anno, the Church in this

country has encouraged its leaders

to participate in the drafting of

sound national policies. As the

Church has interested itself in the

problems of labor and employment,

of security and social stabilization,

so she has seen all of these prob-

lems as having a bearing upon

sickness care and health develop-

ment. She has not only encour-

aged her leaders, the Sisters and

Brothers, in the hospital and pro-

fessional education fields, to study

these broader and deeper aspects

of their work, but she has interest-

ed herself actively in the formula-

tion of policies and in the develop-

ment of programs. In these activi-

ties the Church is guided by fun-

damental principles: first, the dig-

nity and majesty of the human in-
dividual who must not be deprived
of the only basis upon which that

dignity and majesty can rest,

namely his personal responsibility;

and secondly, the principle that the

individual to be true to that maj-

esty and dignity must be mindful

ever of the majesty and dignity of

other individuals. Each man ac-
cording to the mind of the Church

must achieve his own self-realiza-
tion while he labors effectively, un-

reservedly, and zealously for the

development of his fellow man.

Man's responsibility fo^ himself

and man's responsibility for his

fellow man are not two responsi-
bilities but one: ‘Thou shalt love

thy neighbor as thyself." And if
the Church has been critical at

times of legislation in the health

field, as she has been of legisla-

tion in the welfare field, it is be-

cause she has been aware of the

inadequacies of projected legisla-

tion to achieve the unified and in-

tegrated ideal which she has ever

held up before the eyes of the

world. The Church cannot but in-

sist that it is the function of gov-

ernment to serve the individual

man, not the converse, to make the
individual man the servant of gov-
ernment.

The work of caring for the sick

is the work of Christ. The work of

caring for the sick leads the worker

to Christ and makes him more
Christ-like. But what is even more

to the point, sickness itself under

the care of a Christlike worker

makes the patient more Christlike.

Christ has insisted that “As long

as you did it to one of these my
least brethren, you did it to me"
{Matthew 25:40). In this work

the Church, according to the words

of St. Paul, is urged on by the
' charity of Christ. Those words

have become the motto and the

driving force of the Church in

Action in the Service of the Sick:

''Caritas Christi urget nos''—“The^
charity of Christ urges us

onward."