The Sisters of St. Martha have handed over the hospital they managed in Antigonish for 120 years.
asserted
they → hand → years
Their leader, Sister Brendalee Boisvert, said the timing felt right.
asserted
timing → say → ?
It was their choice, made freely.
asserted
It → make → ?
A recent Globe and Mail column took this moment to make a different argument.
asserted
column → take → argument
The author, André Picard, wants every Catholic hospital in Canada to either give up its beliefs or leave health care.
asserted
hospital → want → care
He suggests cutting public funding to any that refuse.
uncertain
that → suggest → any
The column briefly acknowledges Catholic history.
asserted
column → acknowledge → history
It praises the Augustinian Sisters and admits that Catholic hospitals provided most health care in Canada for three centuries.
asserted
hospitals → praise → centuries
It even notes that faith and ritual can play a key role in healing.
asserted
faith → note → healing
It admires what the church created but rejects the faith behind it.
asserted
church → admire → it
This way of thinking has deep roots in Quebec.
asserted
way → have → Quebec
The Quiet Revolution kept the church’s institutions and set the church aside.
asserted
Revolution → keep → church
The province’s hospitals, schools and colleges were built on the foundation of religious orders — orders that moved out when a new secularism moved in.
asserted
secularism → build → orders
Quebec still marks the feast day of Saint John the Baptist as its national holiday but doesn’t remember why.
asserted
Quebec → mark → holiday
Jeanne Mance came to Ville Marie in 1642 to care for the sick.
asserted
Mance → come → sick
Marguerite d’Youville and the Grey Nuns took in Montreal’s poor and dying.
asserted
d’Youville → take → poor
The Sisters of St. Martha opened their hospital in Antigonish in 1906.
asserted
Sisters → open → 1906
None of them did this at the behest of the government.
asserted
None → do → government
They did it in faithfulness to Christ’s lesson: “inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.”
asserted
you → do → Me
Faithfulness to Jesus’s lessons also means discerning the limits of real care.
asserted
Faithfulness → mean → care
Faithfulness means nurses and doctors in these hospitals will not perform abortions.
asserted
nurses → mean → abortions
Faithfulness means they will not provide MAID.
asserted
they → mean → MAID
These choices for a faith-inspired vision of care and thoughtful moral limits come from the same root.
asserted
choices → inspire → root
You cannot keep one and remove the other.
asserted
You → keep → other
The column’s main point is that only individuals have conscience and rights, not institutions.
asserted
individuals → have → conscience
We certainly expect our institutions — corporations, universities and courts — to display moral fibre and moral leadership.
asserted
institutions → expect → fibre
We rightly criticize them when they fall short.
asserted
they → criticize → them
Canada’s Catholic hospitals were founded on the nuns’ faith-based moral vision.
asserted
hospitals → found → vision
They were staffed and funded for generations by the Catholic faithful and have thrived under governance informed by Catholic teaching.
asserted
They → staff → teaching
If these have no conscience and no rights, who and what does?
asserted
who → have → conscience
People do not live only as individuals.
asserted
People → live → individuals
They belong to families, parishes, congregations and groups.
asserted
They → belong → families
Edmund Burke called these the “little platoons” of society.
asserted
Burke → call → society
Nurses, doctors, donors, volunteers and religious sisters all share a belief about the purpose of medical care.
asserted
Nurses → share → care
If you deny the hospital the right to act on that belief, you deny it to each of them, too.
asserted
you → deny → them
The Supreme Court of Canada has recognized this.
asserted
Court → recognize → this
In Loyola High School v. Quebec, it held that religious freedom has a communal dimension.
asserted
freedom → hold → dimension
In Mouvement laïque québécois v. Saguenay, it ruled that state neutrality means government “must neither favour nor hinder any particular belief,” including “non-belief.”
asserted
government → rule → belief
Taking away funding from hospitals because they are Catholic does not meet that standard.
asserted
they → take → standard
It puts the government on one side of a moral issue and punishes those who disagree.
asserted
who → put → those
…and 13 more, not listed.
The Aporia
