SW News: Finally, the Biden administration in the United States has withdrawn its threat to remove a Catholic hospital in Oklahoma from federal accreditation if it failed to extinguish the constantly burning candle near the tabernacle in its chapel.

On Friday, May 5, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) told St Francis Health System that the chapel could have the burning candle and that there would be no action to strip the hospital of accreditation. This was announced by the law entity Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which was representing the Catholic hospital system.

Vice president and senior counsel at Becket Lori Windham said in a statement, "The government has seen the light and has abandoned its attempt to force an Oklahoma hospital to blow out a small candle or stop serving elderly, disabled and low-income patients. HHS has told Saint Francis that it can keep its living flame — a sacred candle housed in the hospital chapels.”

Windham said the government was well aware it was “playing with fire” and that was why it announced that the hospital could keep the living flame and continue to “serve God and the community”.

HHS took the decision to allow the burning candle in the chapel days after Windham shot off a letter to the secretary of the department Xavier Becerra and other officials. The letter warned them that Becket was preparing to file a federal lawsuit on behalf of the hospital to defend its right to religious liberty.

It all began when an HHS subagency named the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) conducted an inspection in the hospital and found that the lit candle posed a fire hazard and had to be extinguished. It threatened the hospital with the removal of the privilege to accept Medicare, Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program patients.

"For 15 years, that flame has burned without problem or concern in Saint Francis Hospital South in Tulsa; and for 63 years, the eternal flame has burned at Saint Francis Hospital Yale Campus, the largest hospital in the state of Oklahoma, without problem or concern," Windham said in the letter.