An interesting suit was filed on Wednesday against the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs by the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) challenging the integration of religion by the VA chaplains corps into the medical services provided by the Veterans Health Administration. (News Release.) The suit, filed in federal district court in Wisconsin, claims that "As part of the evaluation of each patient's health care needs, the VA requires that a spiritual and pastoral care screening assessment be provided to each patient as part of the interdisciplinary admissions process; VA chaplains then are to determine the 'need' for any pastoral care interventions deemed necessary if 'spiritual injury or sickness' is assessed by the chaplain." The chaplain’s assessment becomes part of the patient’s medical chart.
The complaint was accompanied by sample "spiritual inventories" (1, 2) used by VA chaplains. The complaint (full text) alleges that the funding of these kinds of chaplaincy services, which go far beyond merely accommodating the religious free exercise rights of hospitalized veterans and their families, violates the Establishment Clause. The Madison, Wisconsin Capital Times quotes Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of FFRF, who said that this was an invasion of patients’ privacy by the VA that justifies its practices as "holistic" medical treatment.
