Joint Statement of the Bishops of the Roman Catholic Dioceses of South Dakota on the Seventh Edition of the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services

December 12, 2025
Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe

To Catholic Health Care Providers, the Catholic Faithful, and All Health Care Providers in the State of South Dakota:

At our meeting of November 2025, the Bishops of the United States adopted the Seventh Edition of the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services. As of December 12, 2025, these directives will become binding on Catholic health care providers as particular law of both the Diocese of Rapid City and the Diocese of Sioux Falls, which together comprise the entirety of the state of South Dakota.

While the directives are specifically binding on those entities that operate as Catholic health care providers in South Dakota, they are also useful to individual Catholics in their medical decisions as Catholics. We also entrust these directives to all providers of health care in South Dakota, as a resource for considering the ethical implications of medical-moral decisions, since the directives are rooted in a medical vision shared by the wider medical community: that each human person has a sacred dignity and that health care is therefore intended to enhance and never detract from the dignity of the human person. We, the Catholic bishops of the state of South Dakota, take this opportunity to express our deep gratitude for all who serve in providing health care to the people of our state who, by their dedication to the healing arts, promote, enhance and preserve the sacred gift of human life, one patient at a time.

As it is our tradition to call upon the prayerful intercession of holy men and women, both living and deceased, we invite all people of faith to join in prayer in support of the sacred work of health care in our state and, at the same time, call upon the intercession of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Patroness of Life.

Given on the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, December 12, 2025.

The Most Reverend Scott Bullock
Bishop of Rapid City

The Most Reverend Donald E. DeGrood
Bishop of Sioux Falls

Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services Particular Law in the Diocese of Rapid City

Prot. No. 2025-09

Mindful of my responsibility as diocesan bishop to safeguard the integrity and unity of the truths of the faith, moral principles, and ecclesiastical discipline in the works of the apostolate pertaining to health care in the Diocese of Rapid City (cf. canons 392, 394, 678, and 747); I, Most Reverend Scott E. Bullock, by the grace of God and the Apostolic See Bishop of Rapid City, hereby issue this General Decree, in accord with canon 29 of The Code of Canon Law, establishing the Seventh Edition of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services as particular law in the Diocese of Rapid City.

The Seventh Edition of the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services is to be promulgated in accord with canon 8, §2 by publication of the text on the Internet Website for the Diocese of Rapid City (www.RapidCityDiocese.org) and by delivering a copy of same and a copy of this decree to the chief executive officer and the sponsors of all Catholic health care institutions located in the Diocese of Rapid City.

The provisions of the Seventh Edition of the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services shall become effective and binding within the Diocese of Rapid City on the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, December 12, 2025, any particular legislation, directives, or instructions to the contrary notwithstanding.

Dated this 4th of December, in the Year of Our Lord 2025.

From the USCCB: Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services, Seventh Edition

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