{"id":76,"date":"2007-07-31T17:55:50","date_gmt":"2007-07-31T17:55:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/2007\/07\/lawmakers-urge-probe-into-nih.php"},"modified":"2007-07-31T17:55:50","modified_gmt":"2007-07-31T17:55:50","slug":"lawmakers-urge-probe-into-nih","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/07\/lawmakers-urge-probe-into-nih","title":{"rendered":"Lawmakers Urge Probe into NIH Chaplain Complaints"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>RNS<br \/>\nby Michelle Rindels<br \/>\nWashington &#8211; Several Congressmen are urging the Department of<br \/>\nHealth and Human Services (HHS) to investigate an allegedly<br \/>\nanti-Semitic, anti-Catholic chaplain at a government-run clinical<br \/>\nresearch hospital in Bethesda, Md.<br \/>\nThe Rev. O. Ray Fitzgerald, a Methodist minister and former head of<br \/>\nthe Spiritual Ministry Department, was demoted after a Catholic chaplain<br \/>\nthat he fired was judged the victim of &#8220;discriminatory and retaliatory<br \/>\nanimus&#8221; in an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission decision.<br \/>\nBut while the Catholic chaplain was reinstated, Fitzgerald still<br \/>\nholds a chaplaincy position at the clinic, which is run by the National<br \/>\nInstitutes of Health (NIH). In light of a lawsuit and two EEOC<br \/>\ncomplaints against Fitzgerald, fourteen Congressmen want that changed.<br \/>\n&#8220;Intolerance has no place at the National Institutes of Health,<br \/>\nespecially within the Spiritual Ministry Department,&#8221; wrote Rep. Chris<br \/>\nVan Hollen (D-Md.), who spearheaded the letter from Capitol Hill.<br \/>\nIn a July 9 letter to HHS Secretary Michael Leavitt, a bipartisan<br \/>\ngroup urged him to send the administration&#8217;s Inspector General &#8220;to<br \/>\ninvestigate all allegations of impropriety and mismanagement.&#8221;<br \/>\nAllegations of intolerance include claims that Fitzgerald organized<br \/>\nschedules so some patients could not access a chaplain from their faith<br \/>\ntradition. Former chaplains complained that he fired those who<br \/>\nchallenged him and that he referred to Rabbi Reeve Brenner as &#8220;the<br \/>\nbutthead Jew&#8221; and &#8220;the crass Jew.&#8221;<br \/>\nEdar Rogler, a former Greek Orthodox chaplain who filed the lawsuit,<br \/>\ntestified in an EEOC hearing that Fitzgerald told her that Catholic<br \/>\npriests are pedophiles.<br \/>\nThe HHS issued a statement to The Washington Post saying the NIH has<br \/>\nalready performed a thorough, independent review of the spiritual<br \/>\nministry department. But with Fitzgerald still on the payroll, the<br \/>\ncoalition still isn&#8217;t happy.<br \/>\n&#8220;We do not believe that the NIH management has acted sufficiently to<br \/>\nremedy this serious matter,&#8221; the letter said.<br \/>\n<em><br \/>\nCopyright 2007 Religion News Service<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>RNS by Michelle Rindels Washington &#8211; Several Congressmen are urging the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to investigate an allegedly anti-Semitic, anti-Catholic chaplain at a government-run clinical research hospital in Bethesda, Md. The Rev. O. Ray Fitzgerald, a Methodist minister and former head of the Spiritual Ministry Department, was demoted after a Catholic&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Lawmakers Urge Probe into NIH Chaplain Complaints<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/07\/lawmakers-urge-probe-into-nih\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Lawmakers Urge Probe into NIH Chaplain Complaints\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"RNS by Michelle Rindels Washington &#8211; Several Congressmen are urging the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to investigate an allegedly anti-Semitic, anti-Catholic chaplain at a government-run clinical research hospital in Bethesda, Md. 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