Nasty Party Trick Fails in Oklahoma: Candle in Catholic Hospital Chapel Still Burns

COMMENTARY: With the information laid out towards them, the Biden administration had no alternative however to retreat.

Federal bureaucrats have been compelled to confess their folly final week with the sneaky trick they tried of their conflict towards health-care suppliers who’re motivated by their Catholic religion. In truth, it was so sneaky that they might discover that it outrages even nonreligious members of the American public. 

Within the chapel of St. Francis Hospital in Tulsa, Oklahoma, a single candle is left burning day and night time. It’s a Catholic chapel, and it is a sanctuary lamp. The candle is encased in a thick glass globe, encased in a second glass globe, lined by a bronze prime that matches over the second globe, and rests in a bronze holder, which is affixed to the wall of hospital chapels. 

Nobody of their proper thoughts can consider that it is a hearth threat. However, in case you are actually decided to harass this not-for-profit Catholic facility, which is a part of a community of fantastic St. Francis hospitals within the state, then you definately would see this closely encased flame signifying the presence of Christ within the Eucharist as an excuse to deprive it of its Medicaid and Medicare eligibility and its means to serve aged, disabled and low-income sufferers in Tulsa. 

And that’s exactly what the Division of Well being and Human Companies’ Facilities for Medicare and Medicaid Companies (CMS) tried. 

In February, a surveyor working for the CMS requested to see the chapel. He noticed the candle, which is encased in not one however two glass globes and — get this — surrounded by sprinkler heads. And as an alternative of claiming, “Nicely performed; you’ve actually gone the additional mile to satisfy well being and security necessities,” and noting that the native hearth chief is pleased, he reported to CMS that “there was a lit candle with open flame burning unattended 24/7.” He may say one thing comparable, in fact, about pilot lights that burn “unattended” in heating techniques — however it is a Catholic chapel and totally different requirements apply. That’s, grossly unfair ones that allow public officers to play what quantities to an ingeniously nasty secularist occasion trick. 

The St. Francis Well being System accounts for about 11,000 jobs and cares for greater than 400,000 sufferers in its 5 japanese Oklahoma hospitals. It may have bent the knee to the Division of Well being and Human Companies by agreeing to exchange the candle with a faux electrical model, which some Catholic hospitals do. However it prefers to abide by the Basic Instruction of the Roman Missal, which mandates that “a particular lamp, fueled by oil or wax, ought to shine prominently to point the presence of Christ and honor it.” This may need been controversial if there have been a real security problem concerned — however there isn’t. 

The federal government’s demand that the chapel extinguish its lamp was so preposterous that Lori Windham, vp and senior counsel at Becket legislation group, wrote a 13-page letter to CMS declaring that it had “flagrantly violated the Non secular Freedom Restoration Act by punishing St. Francis’ long-standing, uninterrupted free train of its faith by sustaining an enclosed candle in its chapels.” 

Windham is without doubt one of the most skilled religious-freedom advocates in america, with a number of successes earlier than the Supreme Courtroom. She added: “If we go to court docket, you’ll lose. I write within the hope that you will note motive (or at the very least the legislation) and we will skip to the straightforward half.” 

With the information laid out towards them, the federal government had no alternative however to acknowledge that they have been caught taking part in a silly and obnoxious ideological sport. It’s simply the newest instance of the Biden administration’s pursuit of each alternative to genuflect to excessive progressives — one in all whom, the president’s head of Well being and Human Companies, Xavier Becerra, was baptized a Catholic however has morphed into an intensely religious and dogmatic follower of the secularist faith. 

As Windham famous, he misplaced this one. However they may little doubt proceed to search for each alternative, nevertheless slight, to extinguish different flames of genuine Catholicism.