How much does the Biden Administration hate the Catholic Church?

This much.

Might you think that headline is a gross exaggeration? Read on.

From RedState.

Joe Biden’s Department of Health and Human Services is preparing to strip a Catholic hospital system in Tusla, OK, of its ability to serve Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP patients if it retains its Catholic identity. The Saint Francis Healthcare System is the twelfth largest in the nation and runs five hospitals in Eastern Oklahoma. Those hospitals serve about 400,000 patients each year. Over the last five years, the hospital system has given away more than $650 million in free medical care to the indigent. It employs more than 11,000 people.

In other words, Saint Francis Healthcare is fulfilling one of the vital missions of the Catholic Church by following the command of Jesus to heal the sick; and it does it well. But does HHS truly want to strip the hospital of its credentials over a single candle? Yes, it does, or at least it claims so.

[T]he hospital system is Catholic in more than name. Because of the requirements of its faith, it maintains chapels in each of those hospitals that are available to patients and staff 24 hours a day. One of the features of a Catholic chapel is the presence of an eternal flame . . . On February 21, an inspector working for Xavier Becerra’s Department of Health and Human Services cited the hospital in Tulsa for a fire code violation. The hospital appealed. Naturally, the appeal was declined . . . Losing their accreditation means they can no longer serve patients receiving federal health benefits.

In its appeal the hospital points out this deadly single candle is surrounded by “many sprinkler heads” and the room it is in has “good exhaust, the flame’ [has] double glass encasing, the bronze top enclosing the flame, despite its mounting to a wall over six feet high, and despite the surveyor’s knowledge of the fire marshal’s long-standing approval of the eternal flame, the sanctuary lamp did not meet with the surveyor’s favor.”

And that’s that. It seems obvious the Secretary sent that “surveyor” to the hospital charged with a mission: find something, anything we can use to screw this outfit. Why? Who knows, but it could be simple blind hatred of the Catholic Church because of her espousal of conservative mores. Or maybe because there is one procedure the hospital will not perform under any circumstances, abortion. That must surely stick in the Administration’s craw. Whatever the reason, we may be sure there is more to this story than merely an over-zealous bureaucrat drunk with his little powers.

Just imagine what will happen to our nation should this toxic administration be allowed four more years’s license to continue its war against our institutions. We are in an existential struggle.