Bishop calls on church to live its teachings on labor in health care

Published: 2008-05-28

NEW YORK (CNS) -- "We're great on supporting unions when they are in commercial operations. We're not so great when they're in our own institutions," said Bishop Joseph M. Sullivan May 23. The retired auxiliary bishop of Brooklyn, N.Y., was the closing speaker at the 24th Catholic Healthcare Administrative Personnel program held May 19-23 at St. John's University in New York with joint sponsorship by St. Vincent Catholic Medical Centers. Fifty administrators and pastoral care professionals from dioceses across the United States participated. Bishop Sullivan is the former board chairman of the Catholic Health Association and a member of the U.S. bishops' Task Force on Health Care. He spoke on "Creating a Just Workplace: Church Teaching, Union Negotiations and the Realities of the Marketplace -- From Confrontation to Cooperation." "There has to be a consistency between what we say and what we do," he said. "People point out that (the church has) all the documents to show that we think about these (issues), but when we come to doing, there's a slip between the cup and the lip."

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