As many of you know, I entered Saint Malachi as a seminarian intern in October of 2003. I found that your warmth and hospitality allowed me to quickly develop sensitivity to the needy, a healthy humor in light of frequently full-days, and graced friendships which I am very thankful for, and where hopefully most of you will remember me best.

            From my first week at the church, I was involved in the pastoral experience of: teaching grade school students; listening; assisting the poor and homeless; feeding the hungry; teaching computer skills to the neighborhood residents; visiting the incarcerated; bringing Holy Communion to the elderly, sick and dying; supporting the staff in the office; planning youth retreats; participating in Parish and Community meetings; celebrating dynamic liturgies; and of course, the daily lifting, carrying, and sorting of clothing donations, donuts, canned goods, cooked food donations, and trash which accumulated from  the ministry to the poor and hungry.

            I would not have traded any of these experiences, particularly because the people I met and ministered with added a new dimension to my spirituality, and a new awareness of God’s love in my life. To say that it was difficult for me to leave and return to classes is an understatement, for I will truly miss seeing each of you day to day.

            Living and working at Saint Malachi was a visual reminder that God touches everything in our lives. After I recovered from the initial shock of living hand-in-hand with the poor, addicted, and mentally ill, I was better able to recognize God’s grace working around me.  Each encounter with the hungry and the dying was an opportunity to see God alive in this world.  Coming from the suburbs of Hudson, where I grew up, I thought I understood this message clearly.  But, as I told several of the youth during the April Spirit Retreat, they should feel fortunate to be surrounded by the poor; for the poor are constant visual reminders of our need for God in the world.   

            I would like to thank some people who helped make my experience at Saint Malachi an experience of God’s grace in my life. First, and foremost, I would like to thank all of you—the members of the Community of Saint Malachi. Your eagerness to welcome me to your liturgical celebrations, into your outreach to the poor, homeless, and hungry; and into your homes, was comforting and inspirational.  Secondly, a thank you to Father Tony, the pastoral staff, support staff, Center staff, youth ministers, and the volunteers of Saint Malachi. Their patience, guidance, and laughter made learning to minister to the diversity of people at Saint Malachi a joyful experience!  I would also like to thank all of the youth of Saint Malachi and their parents. The youth will always have a special place in my prayers, as they are some of the most responsible, caring, compassionate, and enthusiastic young people I have encountered in my work around the diocese. And thus credit is also due to their parents for bringing them up in love and faith. I am truly humbled by your dedication to raising your children in our challenging culture today. 

            Speaking of families, I encourage all of you to keep praying for our youth and young adults that they may boldly explore their calling to the vocations of marriage, religious life, or holy orders. I can say from my own experience that healthy vocations begin first in the home.  If we truly want to have a Church that is open, accountable, prayerful, welcoming, and Eucharistic; then we need to foster the vocations to make this a reality. Wouldn’t it be great to have one of today’s youth become the first from the Community to be an ordained priest? From working with the youth during my internship I can see that, with the right support and encouragement, this could be a reality.

            In light of our yearly Easter message of witness and evangelization, you have been helpful in showing me a compelling way in which faith is rooted in action, and fed through participation in inspiring liturgies. As I grow and change, I also encourage you to continue growing in your witness to the faith. The Easter season is an ideal time to reflect on the teachings of the Church, and explore how your own beliefs and traditions reflect those teachings.  I believe that God invites us to discomfort ourselves so as to serve our sisters and brothers more boldly. From my younger days of sailing on Lake Erie with my family, I learned that it was only when we pushed further away from our safe harbor, and lost sight of familiar land, that we could see the stars more clearly.  When we let go of our deeply anchored expectations, and let God direct us forward, we may surprise ourselves at the new energy, renewed focus, and greater commitment we find.

            In closing, I believe I have been blessed with a calling to the priesthood for the Diocese of Cleveland, and that blessing has been strengthened from my experiences with all of you. Though my last full day at Saint Malachi was Easter Sunday, I am finishing classes and projects at the seminary until the middle of May. You can be sure that I will be visiting Saint Malachi again, and will be keeping all of you in my prayers. I am confident that your positive influence on my vocation will be significant for my many years (God willing) of ministry to come. Easter blessings and best wishes!

(Sr. Catherine, a member of Cleveland’s Congregation of St. Joseph, is a lobbyist for Network, National Catholic Social Justice Lobby, in Washington, D.C. This article appeared in the current Network Connection and is reprinted with permission. It is submitted by Mary Englert, who represents the Community of St. Malachi in the United Health Care Action Network (UHCAN) Faith Project.)

            The health care crisis in our nation should be a key issue in the upcoming presidential elections.  Among the urgent concerns we face:  rising costs; employers no longer able to provide full coverage for employees and retain coverage for retirees; hospitals and clinics closing, especially in urban areas serving the most vulnerable people; nurse and physician shortages, especially in rural and depressed areas; and the growing numbers of uninsured.

            A new report, “Insuring America’s Health,” released in January by the renowned Institute of Medicine (IOM), calls for universal access to health care by 2010.  Focusing on the grave implications for society and families of millions of uninsured, the IOM recommended that health care be universal, continuous and affordable to individuals and families and affordable and sustainable for society; and that it should enhance health and well being by promoting access to high quality care that is effective, efficient, safe, timely, patient-centered and equitable.

            An earlier IOM study found that racial and ethnic minority populations in the U.S. received both less care and less high quality care than whites across a broad range of diseases. The IOM joins the national chorus from labor, faith communities, professional and safety provider associations, civil rights groups and other justice-seeking organizations that are actively advocating for health care for all.

            A prominent player in this movement is the Universal Health Care Action Network. Among other goals, it seeks to build voter support for the Congressional Health Care Access Resolution (H Con Res 99/S Con Res 41), introduced by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI).  The resolution calls for Congress to begin a meaningful public debate on how to provide affordable access to health care for all and to pass a comprehensive health care plan by October 2005. Such a broad-based movement would seem to show that the time for health care reform is now. But to succeed, we as a nation must first explore economic, political and philosophical questions of great magnitude. 

            In early January, the Bush Administration reported that health spending accounts for 15% of the gross domestic product (GDP). According to the Department of Health and Human Services, 2002 saw a 9.3% increase in health costs, the largest rise in 11 years, totaling $1.55 trillion, and translating to $5,440 for each person in the U.S.  A key factor in rising health care costs is spending for prescription drugs, representing 23% of what we spend out-of-pocket on health care and 51% of the 2002 increase in such spending. Out-of-pocket spending on prescription drugs rose $6.1 billion to $48.6 billion, exceeding the amount individuals spent on hospitals, dentists and nursing homes. Yet, the Administration and congressional leadership refuse to deal with the pharmaceutical industry to bring drug costs in alignment with those in countries such as Canada and Mexico.

The Role of Public Funding

            The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development notes that the U.S. spends more on health care, as a percentage of GDP, than other industrialized nations, such as Switzerland (10.9%), Germany (10.7%), Canada (9.7%) and France (9.5%).  These industrialized nations allocate more public spending on health care (72% compared to 45% in the U.S.). While public spending represents a greater individual tax burden in these nations, it ensures that all citizens have access to care. Public funding secures health care as a right and not a commodity, a factor critical to the common good and the role of government. In contrast, our nation funds health care through a hodgepodge of multiple public and private entities, programs and mechanisms, each directed to a segment of the population. This is costly. According to a new study by Harvard Medical School and the Public Citizen Health Research Group, the health care bureaucracy cost us nearly $400 billion in 2003, including administrative costs of health insurers, employers, health benefit programs, hospitals, nursing homes, home care agencies, physicians and other practitioners. The bureaucracy accounts for at least 31% of total U.S. health spending compared to $16.7% in Canada.

            Despite the vast sums we spend, nearly 44 million of us under the age of 65 were uninsured in 2002. A Robert Wood Johnson Foundation report found that 74.7 million, one third of the non-elderly, were uninsured at some point in the last two years and that 24% were without coverage the whole of the two-year period. Four out of five were from working families.

The Ideology of the Administration

And Congressional Leadership

            The current political leadership favors a limited role for government in meeting public needs and demonstrates its firm belief in a market economy, even in the distribution of public services such as health care and education. The electorate does little to contest it. We have allowed the Administration and Congress to squander a surplus through irresponsible tax cuts that favor upper-income citizens to the detriment of domestic human needs, and that mortgage the future of our children and grandchildren, creating the largest deficit in the nation’s history. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the tax cuts of 2001-2003 could have fully funded Medicare and Social Security for the next 75 years.

            In addition, guided by their limited government and market ideology, the Administration and congressional leaders consistently favor legislation that will erode successful programs that protect the most vulnerable segments of the population. Medicare is a prime example. That this government-run health program most closely approaches universal access to health care is not lost on market advocates. Until recent passage of the Medicare legislation, the program guaranteed some 36 million people over 65 and another 6 million disabled persons a defined benefit package and a choice of doctors.  However, under the mantle of providing prescription drug coverage to seniors, the Administration and Congress transformed Medicare from a government program to one dominated by the private market. Instead of incorporating prescription drug coverage into the Medicare program, using Medicare’s enormous buying power to lower their costs, the legislation shifts drug coverage to the private market. Beneficiaries will purchase plans.

            Privatization is no bargain. The ink was barely dry on the Medicare “reform” bill when the Administration announced it had greatly under-estimated the costs of its prescription drug plan. The plan will cost an estimated $534 billion in the next decade -- $134 billion more than projected when the law was passed just weeks earlier. But that’s not all. Under the dubious rationale of providing Medicare beneficiaries with a choice of plans, Congress gifted HMOs and insurance plans with funding to upgrade their benefit packages ($500 million this year, totaling $14 billion between 2004-2013), as a way to lure people from Medicare to the private market. This too is costly, raising the administrative overhead of Medicare from less than 4% to 12%.

            Eventually, only those seniors unable to afford the new premiums and co-payments in the shift from Medicare to private plans will remain on Medicare’s rolls. Slowly, Medicare as a dependable source of coverage for its beneficiaries will be eroded.

            Nor does the Medicaid program escape the eyes of an Administration bent on undercutting the role of government in meeting the needs of its vulnerable citizens.  While the first effort failed to pass Congress, the Bush Administration envisions other vehicles to convert Medicaid into a block grant. This would require each state to deliver services from a set federal grant, rather than from an amount determined by the state's income and needs.  Even now, the economic strains on the states find them cutting programs and setting new eligibility guidelines for participation, thus increasing the number of people without access to care.

            The rising demand for health care reform and for universal coverage is encouraging. But such efforts have been mounted in the past. Indeed, the present system represents years of incremental efforts toward expanding coverage and has proven costly and unsustainable. If this moment is to be different, it must be marked by a strong political will and moral courage. We must acknowledge that we are inter-dependent and that the health and well being of one strengthens or weakens the whole of society.

A SNAP Meeting Reflection

by Marty Miller

(Marty is a member of the Community of St. Malachi.)

            Last month I was invited to attend a SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests) local meeting. The next morning I got an email from a friend asking me what I thought of the meeting. Today, I offer my ‘morning after’ email to the community for your reflection: 

            I heard Barbara Blane before at a Call To Action gathering and at that time was at least sympathetic to her and her cause, but I still had doubts and thought SNAP was pretty extreme…but last night I was truly overwhelmed. She and four other victims, plus two parents of a victim were at a local SNAP meeting. I was there with four other interested SNAP supporters, mostly from the Accountability Coalition. News people from channels 5 & 19 were also there. 

            It was amazing to see how deeply the victims, some of whom had never met before, related to each other. The circumstances of each one’s abuse were different but the effect of the abuse and how it affected their lives were very much the same. Same shame... same pain…same guilt from the church…same response from the clergy.  They all encountered the same clerical culture. So victims were told that they were guilty of scandal. 

            I can understand why so few victims come forward. The church makes it so hard on them and gives them no help. Some of them came forward only to stop the priest from abusing others. Others just came forward to ask for help. None of them came forward to get money.  Our church would not help them and as long as they were quiet, it was business as usual. It was only if they sued the church that they got any response at all. By that time it was not healing or personal. It was all in the hands of the lawyers. It amazes me how much time and money was wasted on secrecy and lawyers, and how little time was spent on the work of Christ. The more I learn about the whole deal, the more sorrow and betrayal I feel. It is a real challenge for me to see Jesus in our church today. There was one victim who was very insistent on her anonymity. She later explained that it would literally kill her 85-year-old father. First he would die if he found out that a priest abused his 11-year-old daughter, and if that didn't kill him, the fact that his daughter would publicly accuse a priest would.