Moral obligations to care for the sick poor seem, at first blush, to be so straightforward as hardly to warrant analysis. When we face a vulnerable, sick person needing health care, the simple obligation to "do unto others" ought to compel action.

The Golden Rule motivates us to care for the indigent. Yet if moral arguments were the only obstacle, society would long ago have helped the millions who face unacceptable impediments to obtaining health care.

With a majority of citizens supporting some right to health care, and with economic boom times, why have we been so unsuccessful in supporting adequate health care for the indigent sick? The story of a woman I met named Dorothy might be instructive.

After moving to Chicago I found myself stepping daily over the human gargoyles tucked into the city's doorways and alleys. I found myself timid and torn, not knowing whether and how best to respond to beggars' plaintive eyes. I did nothing.

My perspective and actions changed when a dear friend with whom I frequently walked would—based clearly on religious conviction—stop, greet, and truly engage the street poor by learning their names and stories and literally offering them every last penny he had. Embarrassed, and perhaps annoyed at the number of encounters, I eventually saw the gargoyles as persons. That's how I met Dorothy.

Dorothy was one of those toothless fixtures that seemed to live in the doorway around the corner. Since she was rendered visible to me—by no action of mine—my friend and I began to worry about her jaundiced coloring, her warmth in winter, and where she was when we didn't see her for days. Economic thriving and strong moral arguments for healthcare reform have not changed the plight of Dorothy or her lot. Oddly, Dorothy has changed my perception, but not in the way you might imagine.

Knowing Dorothy has not only motivated me to help her access another program—dental care, nutrition, and drug treatment. Rather, I was invited to cross the line and see her as another person with dignity; we became connected and committed as human beings. The most fundamental element of holistic health care is to help people become part of the human community, and not simply the object of a treatment or social program.

To do nothing but offer another institutional response is to keep Dorothy as "other," to keep her invisible. Vincent de Paul suggested we ask the poor to forgive us for our charity. I take this to mean that our charity can be as oppressive as our good intentions, if in the process we render the poor's humanity invisible.

Perhaps the problem of the poor and health care is not as much a matter of being convinced about rights to health care as it is seeing the poor in the first place. This issue of the Bulletin is one step toward rendering visible the invisible.