For 10 years, the Rev. Henry Heffernan ministered to patients and their families undergoing treatment at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) W.G. Magnuson Clinical Center, the nation's premier medical research facility.

The Catholic priest suddenly lost his job in 2004 but was reinstated in February 2007 after two federal review panels found that the reverend was a target of "discriminatory and retaliatory animus." According to the Washington Post, religious bias within the NIH chaplain corps is a growing problem, leading to the termination of at least three clergy and causing an unusually high turn-over rate.

The problems seem to emanate from O. Ray Fitzgerald, a Methodist minister and former director of the NIH clinical center's spiritual ministry department.

Former colleagues say the Rev. Fitzgerald harbored animus toward Catholics and Jews and he did not hide his biases while running the department. He frequently referred to the staff's only rabbi, Reeve Brenner, as "the butthead Jew," "that crass Jew" or just "that Jew."

Greek Orthodox lay minister Edar Rogler, told the Post that "[Fitzgerald] would not refer to the rabbi ever by his name. It was always, 'that Jew, that Jew.'" Rev. Gary Johnson, who left in 2002, said his boss once told him that he "didn't want rabbis and Catholic priests in the department."

Rogler was terminated the day she notified her boss that she would testify on Rev. Heffernan's behalf before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Merit Systems Protection Board, the two federal panels that handled Heffernan's wrongful termination complaint. She has filed her own lawsuit in federal court, in which she says "NIH officials hatched a plan, 'Operation Clean Sweep,' to purge the staff members who cooperated with the priest's complaint."

NIH officials protected Fitzgerald's behavior and conjured up false reasons to terminate the chaplains. They "endorsed intolerance, and they reinforced intolerance with intolerance," said Brenner. Rabbi Brenner testified on Rev. Heffernan's behalf before the federal panels and was subsequently fired in February 2007.

It appears as though the NIH was not just protecting one employee's religious bias, but also an epidemic of discrimination, animus and indifference in the hospital's chaplain corps.

The department does not currently publicize the religious affiliations of its chaplains, but it wasn't a very diverse bunch as of October 2000. The six person staff, responsible for serving over 7,000 inpatients a year, consisted of three Protestant ministers, two Catholic priests and one rabbi. A Muslim employee in the scientific research department was tapped to minister to Muslim patients and arrangements were made for minority religious leaders to come in when needed.

The lack of religious diversity among staff is disconcerting considering the NIH treats people from around the world and 40 percent of their patients self-identify as non-Christian. Even more disconcerting, especially to Rev. Heffernan, was Rev. Fitzgerald's "one size fits all" approach to ministry.

Fitzgerald would order non-Catholic priests to minister to Catholic patients, rabbis to minister to Muslims and Protestants to minister to Jews. Basically, there was no distinction between religious beliefs or practices. Rev. Heffernan explained to the Post that this was a serious problem because "non-Catholic chaplains are unable to perform the Catholic sacraments, such as hearing confessions and performing last rites."

This approach is a detriment not only to the chaplain's role as spiritual leader, but to the patients' desire for guidance in a time of crisis. Publicly paid chaplains exist to serve the needs of people who cannot otherwise access religious resources (prisoners, service members and hospital patients, for example). Not allowing patients access to the religious leader of their choice violates their freedom of conscience and may well hamper their physical and mental recovery.

The mess at NIH underscores why taxpayer-supported chaplains are such a bad idea. The family of a hospitalized person should make arrangements for spiritual needs with whatever religious leader they want -- privately. But if taxpayers are going to fund public chaplaincies, we must make certain that religious discrimination is a non-issue and patients' needs are put front and center. The public chaplaincy is not a place to practice or protect religious bias.