Negative view of Church’s healthcare involvement criticised

Many Irish doctors too easily accept a caricatured negative take of Church involvement in healthcare, a leading member of the Irish Medical Council (IMC) has said.

Criticising media coverage of the governance conflict between the National Maternity Hospital and St Vincent’s University Hospital, Dr Ruairi Hanley writes in the current issue of The Irish Medical Times that he finds it “hard to believe that any religious order could possibly dictate the parameters of medical practice in the heart of Dublin 4”, and says “it appears some journalists have once again gone gangbusters on the only religion it is now culturally acceptable to despise”.

The Drogheda-based GP, who has served as a medical officer in the Defence Forces and who before being elected to the council successfully led a campaign for all qualified GPs to be permitted to treat medical card holders, observes that some of his younger colleagues “rarely miss a trick when it comes to denouncing Catholicism via Twitter”. He notes that “Many GPs seemingly prefer the official narrative of the violent Christian Brother and the sadistic guardians of the Magdalene Laundries”.

Narrative

Contesting this narrative Dr Hanley says the Church “has been overwhelmingly a force for good across the globe”, adding that “No organisation in human history has performed greater acts of kindness, charity and humanity”.

While acknowledging “appalling events and scandals”, he says “any fair assessment” of the Church’s contribution to Irish society “must acknowledge that the vast majority of clergy were decent, honest and compassionate human beings who devoted their lives to the care of others”. 

Pointing out that religious orders ran the Irish health system for decades “because the State was incapable of doing so”, Dr Hanley says, “the number of people alive today as a result of their efforts must run into the hundreds of thousands”. 

“I believe the Catholic Church still has an overwhelmingly positive role to play in our society” and “deserves better than to be routinely condemned for its very existence”, he concludes.