The federal government is cracking down on a Catholic hospital in Oklahoma for the “use of lighted candles,” threatening a “correction process” if the hospital does not remove the sanctuary candle from its chapel.
According to the Department of Health and Human Services, the hospital’s lighted candles, which have been in use since 1960, are in violation of a fire safety code. After an inspection in February, Saint Francis Health System is now faced with severe penalties if it does not blow out the candle, which staff contends represents the hospital’s “faith in the living God.”
“The flame, far removed from medical equipment and patients, is shielded by two glass holders, sits on a brass basin, is affixed to a wall and has a brass top covering it, with many sprinkler heads above it,” explained Becket Law, a religious liberty non-profit. “For Catholics, the living flame is a sign of the living presence of Jesus. The federal government now threatens to tell all patients who rely on Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP that they can no longer receive care at Saint Francis—all over a candle.”
The report later added that “the candle… has been approved repeatedly by the government and the local fire marshal.”
Becket Law and the law firm Yetter Coleman LLP responded to the federal government in a letter: “[Y]ou put not just Saint Francis Health System in peril but the entire State of Oklahoma and any person in need of Saint Francis Health System’s preeminent care, all because Saint Francis maintains a single, enclosed, and reverently kept eternal flame in its chapels. Two months ago, and for the first time since Saint Francis’s founding in 1960, a surveyor from one of the federal government’s official hospital accreditors took issue with the sanctuary candle and issued a fire-safety citation demanding that it be snuffed out. Saint Francis cannot do this as a matter of faith. And so, in twenty-five days, the federal government intends to disaccredit (and thereby effectively shutter) this premier health system, which includes the number one hospital in Oklahoma and the 12th largest hospital in the nation. All because Saint Francis refuses to abandon its religious beliefs and extinguish the sanctuary lamp.”
This is an absurd case of gross federal overreach. Unfortunately, violations of religious liberty have become all too common in our nanny state. America’s bureaucracy is out of control, and it will not stop here. Cracking down on Saint Francis’s religious liberty is only the first step.
To put the federal government back into its constitutionally-defined box and stand up for 1st Amendment rights nationwide, Convention of States is hard at work to call the first-ever Article V convention. Through this process, as laid out in the Constitution, the American people can impose fiscal restraints on the federal government, limit its power and jurisdiction, and impose term limits on federal officials.
To join us in this endeavor, sign the petition below and get involved today.
Federal government cracks down on Catholic hospital’s religious liberty
Published in Blog on May 11, 2023 by Jakob Fay
