Abstract
This important book provides us with much-needed perspectives on the theology and ecclesiology of Catholic health care. The theological and ecclesiological perspectives are necessary in order to frame our discourse on the vocation and responsibility—ecclesial, civil and social, and humanitarian—of Catholic health care.
The essays provide wide-ranging theological foundations for a Catholic understanding of health care (scriptural, christological, trinitarian) and a theological/anthropological view of the human person. The chapters in the section on liturgy and sacramentality are particularly important in a post-Vatican II model of Catholic institutions that values diversity and welcoming of non-Catholics and non-Christians as part of the changing nature of institutions of Catholic health care in a pluralistic and multireligious world. In this sense, the book is not just a reflection on how ecclesiology must inform health care, but also on how Catholic health care can shape a renewed understanding of ecclesiology and the church. The section on the church and health care—on health care as ministry and on the ecclesiology of health care in a church with a more prominent role of the laity—provides great insights for those who work in health care, but also for theologians interested in understanding the complexity of Catholic ecclesiology in the world of today.
The future of Catholic health care is key to the future of the mission and identity of Catholicism in America: Catholic hospitals and clinics and other facilities care for approximately 1 in 6 patients in the USA every day. But Catholic health care plays a role that is not different in other developed countries (such as Australia), and in countries where the missionary activity of the Catholic Church is represented by health care. In a very rich way this book develops reflections that respond to what Pope Francis meant when he talked about the church as “a field hospital.”