February 02, 2018

V. Bradley Lewis, associate professor, philosophy, was quoted in a National Catholic Register story on Catholic social teaching, health care policy, and a recent presidential appointee.

... As in the past, the bishops’ evaluation of Azar’s agenda will be grounded in Catholic social teaching, from Pope John XXIII’s 1962 encyclical Pacem in Terris, which affirmed medical care as a human right (11), to the Second Vatican Council’s pastoral constitution on the Church in the modern world, Gaudium et Spes, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Bradley Lewis, a political philosopher at The Catholic University of America, told the Register that the U.S. bishops’ approach to health care policy, and their insistence on universal access, echo elements of Pope Francis’ teaching. The Pope has criticized health care policies that restrict access to medical care, a fundamental human right, and transform it into a consumer product subject to market forces.

But Lewis stressed that the Church has not embraced a particular model for expanded access to affordable, quality health care.

There is a separate issue “of how it is to be organized,” said Lewis. ”This seems to be a question best left to experts and to the political process.” ...

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