By Marie Mulvenna

The battle waged by pro-life forces in the Catholic Church is not yet won, according to Monsignor James T. McDonough, president of the Catholic Hospital Association.

Addressing some 1,500 health administrators, meeting in Atlanta for the Third Annual Catholic Health Assembly, the CHA president said the “infamous decision” of the Supreme Court on abortion “not only legalized abortion on request” but “legitimizes a value system which denies the inviolability of any human life.”

This leads to the conclusion, he said, that any life can be violated if sufficient reasons can be found for doing so. “This is utilitarianism, pure and simple.”

“A value system radically opposed to our traditional Catholic value system has become dominant in American society today,” Monsignor McDonough asserted.

He told delegates that Catholic hospitals must recognize this difference and urged members to continually measure values to keep them “in conformity with the New Testament” and to develop value systems that are consistent with New Testament values.

“We cannot rest until we have brought the values of society in which we live and our own values, not only into conformity with one another, but into conformity with the moral vision of Jesus Christ.”

Archbishop Thomas A. Donnellan delivered the homily at the opening Liturgy for the delegates to the Third Annual Catholic Health Assembly on Sunday June 2.

As a step in this direction, Monsignor McDonough reported that the CHA, founded in 1915 and comprising 869 Catholic health-related facilities in the country, had conducted programs throughout the U.S. on individual and corporate rights of institutions. These were conducted, he said, in an effort to assure a firm foundation for the group’s pro-life stance and to communicate the association’s position in regard to litigation “directed against the moral values and principles for which the CHA stands.”

“The CHA wanted to help legal counsel and decision-makers in local efforts to protect and preserve the health care apostolate of the Catholic Church.” He said during the past several years the group has “expressed its long-standing concern with the increased nationwide efforts to liberalize abortion laws.” The Supreme Court decision of January 1973 “epitomized and climaxed these efforts.”

Referring to the passage of the “conscience clause,” Monsignor said that “even though the determined efforts of the U.S. Catholic Conference along with our own aggressive posture won passage of a much desired conscience clause, we cannot be lulled into complacency and think the battle is won.”

A proposed hike in association dues would include a 3 percent of operating expenses amount set aside for “financial assistance to any member threatened with litigation related to preserving and protecting its corporate rights and prerogatives when such litigation would seriously effect the Catholic apostolate.”

Monsignor McDonough, who is director of social services for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, said he believed that strong, well-established and efficiently managed health care institutions would “stand as monuments to our respect for life – all human life – from conception to death and eternal life.” They will, he said, enable a more productive response to the needs of the people, providing a wide variety of services.

“The mission is difficult but not impossible. It is a challenge for us all so that our values collectively may one day conform to the moral version of Christ.”