Eric Gorski writing for the AP - item in today's SF Comical - notes that various US Catholic bishops have decided that the threat of government provided health care is greater than the problem of people living without medical care:

The most thorough critique, however, comes in a joint pastoral letter from Archbishop Joseph Naumann of the Kansas City, Kan., diocese and Bishop Robert Finn of the Kansas City-St. Joseph diocese in Missouri.

Posted online Tuesday, the letter says: "The right of every individual to access health care does not necessarily suppose an obligation on the part of the government to provide it ... The teaching of the universal church has never been to suggest a government socialization of medical services."

A government that oversteps its authority on health care, the bishops wrote, could create a future tax burden and contribute to "permanent dependency for individuals or families upon the state."

Because Jesus was all about low taxes and sturdy self reliance. Or at least about dependence of people on their employers and the Church.

This would all be so much more convincing if the Catholic Church were actually active in efforts to extend health care to all.

But from where Wonks Anonymous sits this does not seem to be the case. Catholic Hospitals here in California are run just like any other group of not for profit hospitals and, he guesses, that they extend just about the same amount of charity care as any of the secular not for profit hospitals. He sees no particular outreach efforts on the part of these hospitals.

Most non hospital charity care and outreach efforts, in this state at least, are provided by large secular medical groups and by various outreach efforts and clinics organized by secular groups. The Catholic Church, for its part, is busy trying to persuade the government to sanction only its peculiar definition of marriage and to enforce its own views on the point at which human life starts.

Come preach to me when you are actually doing something.