Red Mass message
HCH photos/Anna Weaver
Guest speaker Richard Meiers addresses the Jan. 21 Red Mass congregation after Communion. Bishop Larry Silva gives his homily. Honolulu city councilmember Romy Cachola, fire chief Kenneth Silva and police chief Louis Kealoha attend the Red Mass.
Health care reform must protect ‘life and dignity of all’
By Patrick Downes | Hawaii Catholic Herald
In a talk that brought national front page politics into the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace, retired health care administrator Richard Meiers told Hawaii government officials at the Jan. 21 Red Mass that the nation needs “universal health coverage which protects the life and dignity of all, especially those who are poor and vulnerable.”
Meiers, the former president and chief executive officer of the Healthcare Association of Hawaii, addressed the politically explosive topic of health care reform before a congregation of about 300 at the annual morning liturgy that is the diocese’s invocation to the Holy Spirit on behalf of Hawaii’s public servants.
“I am very concerned about the different roads the health care debate has gone down,” Meiers said. “I believe most Americans feel changes are needed in our health care system because we cannot afford to continue in the future what we have been paying in the past for health care.”
“No issue in recent memory has been debated in such depth across our nation,” he said.
The speaker mentioned events developing that very morning that were affecting the fate of the health care reform bill, a priority of the Obama administration, that for months has been making its way through Congress. The election of a Republican senator in Massachusetts days earlier had broken the filibuster-proof Senate majority that had just passed its version of the bill, leaving the legislation in jeopardy.
Although the future of the legislation before Congress was now uncertain, Meiers did lay out a few priorities the Catholic Church had insisted be a part of any reform.
One would be a “universal health coverage which protects the life and dignity of all, especially those who are poor and vulnerable,” he said.
“We oppose any efforts to expand abortion funding, that mandate any abortion coverage, or endangers the conscience rights of health care providers and religious institutions,” Meiers said.
“Finally, we support effective measures to safeguard the health of immigrants, their children and all of society,” he said.
About 20 government officials were present at the Mass, a smaller number than usual. Among them were Lt. Gov. James “Duke” Aiona, speaker of the state House of Representatives Calvin Say, Hawaii Supreme Court Justice James Duffy, Honolulu Police Chief Louis Kealoha, and city prosecuting attorney Peter Carlisle.
Bishop Larry Silva presided at the Mass which opened with a Hawaiian chant and the singing of “Hawaii Ponoi,” the state anthem.
In his homily, the bishop pointed to the examples of St. Damien and Blessed Marianne Cope, who both gained their sanctity by giving their lives to Hawaii’s Hansen’s disease patients quarantined on Molokai a century ago.
Theirs was a health care that “took into account the whole person” — body and soul, he said.
Though they have gone before us, Bishop Silva said, they carry on their intercession on behalf of those suffering from illness and disease.
“In their places in Heaven, they continue in ways we will not know about,” he said.
The bishop criticized modern “obstacles” to health care — “language, poverty, fear, legal roadblocks and confusion.”
He also condemned the use of physicians to perform abortions, capital punishment and assisted suicide, calling those actions “medical procedures, but not healthcare.”
“God is the only true healer of body and soul,” he said.
Nineteen priests concelebrated the Mass with the bishop and 12 deacons assisted.
The assembly included about 50 members of native Hawaiian orders and societies, who regularly take part in the yearly event. Several members of the Knights and Ladies of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre also attended.
Just before the close of Mass, the public officials gathered in a semicircle in front of Bishop Silva for his blessing. The bishop called on God to help the leaders “discharge their duties with honesty and ability.”
The clergy exited the cathedral to the strains of “America the Beautiful.”
The Red Mass has been celebrated in Hawaii since 1955 and is usually scheduled for the Thursday of the week in January that the state legislature opens. The Mass is named for the color of the vestments used for a Mass of the Holy Spirit.