Why is the largest "Catholic" Healthcare Network Funding Genital Mutilation Surgeries?
The Vatican has given its approval
Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. Ephesians 5:11
Note: This is not an attack on individual, faithful Catholics or the Catholic faith; I am exposing and denouncing the organizations responsible for these evil deeds and holding the Catholic Church accountable for backing them.
This is a follow-up on my controversial video in which I addressed the bombshell report about immoral activity in Catholic hospitals published by the Lepanto Institute, a research and education organization devoted to protecting the Catholic Church from both external and internal threats.
Before we dive in, let me state that I realize when something you believe in or are a part of is challenged – or worse, exposed – a common response is to shoot the messenger instead of considering the facts.
And that is exactly what happened to me when I was attacked by some Catholics who took issue with a video I published based on a recently-released investigative report implicating the Catholic Church and its support of CommonSpirit Health (created by a merger of Dignity Health and Catholic Health Initiatives) which in turn funds and supports hospitals in its network such as Saint Francis Memorial Hospital, which runs a “Gender Institute” providing all manner of genital mutilation surgeries, based on the guidelines of the Human Rights Campaign, a mega-influencer of all things LGBTQ and touting abortion as “health care.”
My video was based on this recently released investigative report by Michael Hichborn, of the Lepanto Institute. https://www.lepantoin.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/CommonSpirit-Report-6.9.2023-FINAL.pdf
(Incidentally, Michael’s mother is a Healthy American.)
Mr. Hichborn’s thorough research and investigation, complete with links and original-source data, is compiled in a report published in June 2023 and titled, “CommonSpirit Heath and the Sex-Change Industry: An investigative report into the largest Catholic health system in the United States and its performance and funding of transgender surgeries and therapies, abortions, and its prescribing and provision of contraception.”
As president of the Lepanto Institute, Mr. Hichborn recently revealed shocking information in a report on the most prominent Catholic Health Network, CommonSpirit, which exposed their involvement in practices antithetical to Catholic doctrine including mutilation surgery.
As I expose the hypocrisy at the highest level of the Catholic Church (the Vatican), I acknowledge that there are probably organizations that use the word "Catholic" solely for worldly purposes, but I will show you evidence that it is not just in name only.
Summary
In 2019, the Catholic Church supported a merger of Dignity Health and Catholic Health Initiatives (CHI) to create CommonSpirit Health, the largest Catholic Health System in the United States.
While CommonSpirit maintains that it is a Catholic nonprofit hospital, it has recently been accused of being at odds with Catholic doctrine. As reported by the Lepanto Institute, “CommonSpirit Health is performing transgender surgeries, providing hormone-based transgender therapies, providing puberty blockers to children under the auspices of so-called “gender-affirming care,” is financially subsidizing the same through its employee benefits packages, is financially subsidizing medical institutions performing these procedures and therapies, is providing all forms of modern contraception (including abortifacients) to patients, and is even performing elective abortions and surgical sterilizations.”
In light of the report's findings, the Lepanto Institute has petitioned the United States' bishops to remove the Catholic designation from CommonSpirit Health and the other so-called "Catholic" hospitals listed in the report. In addition, the Lepanto Institute is urging bishops to lead the faithful in public acts of penance and reparation for the horrifying evil CommonSpirit is committing in the name of the Catholic Church, and to demand that Catholic hospitals in their dioceses disaffiliate from CommonSpirit Health or risk losing their Catholic identities.
Both health care systems are sponsored by canonical organizations overseen directly by the Vatican, which, according to canon law, will also need to approve the merger. My follow-up investigation confirmed that the Vatican gave its blessing to the merger between these two large, Catholic-based health groups; however, Dignity Health had essentially severed ties with the Catholic Church in 2012 when it restructured and changed it’s name from Catholic Healthcare West to Dignity Health.
I’ll break down the background on the two entities that merged to create CommonSpirit, highlight their ties to the Human Rights Campaign, a mega influencer of all things in the “pride community” and show some of the hospitals and medical centers that have been identified for one or more of the following offenses: performing sex-change surgeries; providing transgender healthcare services (whether by referrals for or the provision of hormone treatments and puberty blockers); providing employee healthcare benefits that cover transgender surgeries and/or “services”; committing abortions; dispensing contraception; performing surgical sterilizations.
This demonstrates the hypocrisy of the highest levels of the Catholic Church, whose doctrine is explicitly against all of these anti-life policies, yet they give their blessing to the merger between CHI and a nondenominational entity, Dignity Health, that restructured with the express intention of reducing ties to the Catholic Church.
The Sisters of Mercy
The story starts with The Sisters of Mercy which is religious order that has been approved by the Vatican, the Catholic Church. They were founded in 1831 in Dublin, Ireland and came to Pennsylvania in 1843.
Most sisters belong to Roman Catholic orders – an order is a group of women who live in the spirit (or charism) of a particular founder, and have their own rules for living. The rules (or Mercy Constitutions) of most orders are approved by the Church. So, yes, you have to be Catholic to be a Catholic sister. (There are other kinds of nuns, e.g., Anglican nuns and Buddhist nuns.)
Here is why it is important: Sisters of Mercy created Mercy Hospital in 1847 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Catholic Healthcare West was founded in 1986, when the Sisters of Mercy Burlingame Regional Community and the Sisters of Mercy Auburn Regional Community merged their health care ministries into one organization. Catholic Healthcare West later became the Dignity Health Network in 2012.
In a nutshell, this authentic and legitimate Catholic Order created Catholic Healthcare West.
Dignity Health
In 2012 Dignity Health, adopted a new board structure and changed its name from Catholic Healthcare West, deemphasizing its ties to the Catholic Church. Then-Archbishop George Niederauer of San Francisco determined the changes were consistent with Catholic morals. Dignity Health’s hospital network comprised of both Catholic and non-Catholic hospitals and at the time, it was reported that the system's Catholic hospitals would continue to adhere to the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services. The system's non-Catholic hospitals adhere to the system's "Statement of Common Values." Those rules prohibit abortion and in-vitro fertilization but not sterilization procedures like tubal ligations.
As stated by the press release from Dignity Health:
Under the new governance structure, Dignity Health is a not-for-profit organization, rooted in the Catholic tradition, but is not an official ministry of the Catholic Church. The new structure and name enable the organization to grow nationally, while preserving the identity and integrity of both its Catholic and non-Catholic hospitals. The organization's Catholic hospitals will continue to be Catholic, directly sponsored by their founding congregations, and adhering to the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services. Dignity Health's non-Catholic hospitals will continue to be non-Catholic, adhering to the Statement of Common Values.
According to another report,
Catholic hospitals are governed by the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services, released in its fifth edition in 2009 by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith also released 17 principles in 2014 regarding collaboration with non-Catholic entities.
According to Modern Healthcare, 15 of Dignity Health’s 39 hospitals are historically non-Catholic, providing services that are not in line with Catholic doctrine.
As part of the merger, all but ONE of Dignity Health’s non-Catholic hospitals would be placed in a separate corporation, allowing them to continue to perform services, such as post-delivery tubal ligations, according to Modern Healthcare.
Dignity Health also runs The Gender Institute at St. Francis Memorial Hospital which promotes abortion and “gender-affirming surgeries” (AKA gender-denying care).
If the merger between Dignity and CHI requires regulatory approval and also scrutiny that it does not violate Catholic ethical and canonical norms then why is the Vatican approving a merger when Dignity formally broke from the Church in 2012 and clearly operates in direct contradiction with Catholic doctrine?
The Human Rights Campaign (HRC)
The Human Rights Campaign is apparently run by marxist-gloablists under the guise of fighting for LGTBQ rights. In order to impose the absurd gender-ideology on Americans, they have militarized a social credit score and employed the Corporate Equality Index (CEI) to exploit, intimidate, and bribe American businesses.
What is the CEI? The HRC has pushed the corporate equality index, a social credit rating system, as a means of shackling American corporations into check-listing compliance required by the gender ideology cult. It's a form of financial bully tactics whereby powerful investors use non-market criteria to make or break businesses.
Both Dignity Health and CommonSpirit have hospitals and medical centers following the guidelines set forth by the HRC.
HRC’s Healthcare Equality Index has five major categories of criteria with multiple subcategories:
• NON-DISCRIMINATION AND STAFF TRAINING
• PATIENT SERVICES AND SUPPORT
• EMPLOYEE BENEFITS AND POLICIES
• CRITERIA 4: PATIENT AND COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
• CRITERIA 5: RESPONSIBLE CITIZENSHIP
CommonSpirit
CommonSpirit Health is still recognized as a “Catholic health system” based in the United States. Founded in 2019 by the merger of Dignity Health and Catholic Health Initiatives, CommonSpirit Health formed as one of the largest non-profit hospital systems by revenue in the United States. Since its formation in 2019, CommonSpirit has absorbed two other health networks: Centura Health and Virginia Mason Fransiscan Health.
Virginia Mason Franciscan Health very clearly states on their website that they follow the guidelines of the HRC, an organization that promotes abortion and these mutilation surgeries.
According to the report by the Lepanto Institute:
“13 CommonSpirit Health facilities received a full 100 points and “Leader” status from HRC on the HEI. This means that these facilities give coverage for hormone replacement therapies, puberty blockers for youth, and full transgender surgeries to employees. In fact, each one of these health facilities specifically received a blue checkmark on their profiles, indicating that they have employee health benefits that cover the aforementioned transgender “treatments.”
While these facilities are not “Catholic,” they are nonetheless all members of CommonSpirit and fall under the sponsorship of the Catholic Health Care Federation, which receives its approbation from the Vatican. However, in addition to these non-Catholic facilities, a similar number of CommonSpirit facilities that are Catholic are engaged in the same wicked coverage of benefits for self-claiming transgender individuals.
14 CommonSpirit Health facilities listed on the HRC Healthcare Equality Index are all “Catholic” facilities. While they did not receive a full score of “100” from HRC, every single one of these “Catholic” facilities are confirmed to have employee healthcare benefits coverage for hormone replacement therapies, puberty blockers for youth, and full transgender surgeries to employees, as is verified by the blue checkmark in their profiles indicating as such. All of these facilities, except for Mercy San Juan Medical Center, received a score of 95, having 5 points deducted from Criteria 5: Responsible Citizenship. Mercy San Juan Medical Center received a score of 75, having 25 points deducted for that same portion.
Aside from the universal ethical and moral concerns about "gender-affirming" care for adults and adolescents, public promotion and affirmation of homosexuality and transgenderism is directly contradictory to Catholic doctrine yet this merger was approved by the Catholic Church anyway.
In addition to the astronomical salaries paid to CommonSpirit's top executives, the organization's IRS filing also confirms that it is, in fact, a Catholic healthcare network. It derives its Catholic identity through the sponsorship of a “canonical person,” called the Catholic Health Care Federation, which receives its approbation from the Vatican’s Congregation for the Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life. In short, its Catholic identity is provided directly from the Vatican.
Catholic Health Initiatives and Dignity Health merged in 2019, creating what is now known as CommonSpirit. Every piece of information disseminated by CommonSpirit makes reference to the fact that it is a "Catholic" organization that must adhere to the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic health Care Services. They claim to be a Catholic healthcare institution, but the truth is that it is not Catholic and operates in blatant violation of even the most fundamental principles of medical ethics, which are drawn from the Hippocratic Oath to "First, do no harm."
You can read Michael Hichborn’s complete, in-depth report which can be downloaded here.
ACTION STEPS:
Get in touch with your priests and/or bishops and write them a letter detailing your concerns, and ask them if they are aware of this or if they are a part of any of these health networks.
If you belong to this CommonSpirit Health Care Network, which is one of the largest networks in the United States, you need to pray about whether or not to continue to be part of it.
Consider joining a Christian Health Share Ministry. I have belonged to www.samaritanministries.org for many years. Here is the link if you are interested in learning more about what I do instead of traditional health insurance.
Let me know in a comment below if you were aware of what is going on in these “healthcare” settings and also of any other action steps you’d like me to share with my readers.
As always, I appreciate you for being a Healthy American and for taking a stand for LIFE.
~ Peggy
Not surprising at all. 🙏
Excellent post. I think many who have a problem with exposures like this are unable to admit that -
1. The larger an organization (religious or secular) becomes, the more it becomes a business, with goals, agendas and plans, that many times are veer far away from the original intent/charter of said organization. It in essence, becomes a bureaucracy - that is infiltrated and run by the enemy - in this case secular globalists.
2. The total capture of our societal pillars, does indeed, include their churches and religions. If anything, organized religions have been easy targets, as the woke globalists twist and then use their own doctrines against them.
The easy propaganda narrative is "WWJD - turn his back on his suffering, oppressed and besieged children, under constant attack and torments from their own parents and dying by the thousands daily or would he allow those with the medical skill to lovingly make these children whole, healthy and happy??"
As all here know, I'm sure - one for the first targets of evil and the globalist, woke perverts of today - is always the children. They're always a pivotal part of their strategy and they will use any and everyone, to get to them...even your priests, bishops, cardinals and popes.