Undercutting a Catholic legacy

In November 1885, six women from the Little Company of Mary sailed into Sydney Harbour aboard the SS Liguria. The Catholic sisters’ reputation for compassion for the sick, poor, and dying earned them invitations to care for vulnerable people across Australia. Today, the group operates numerous residential and retirement facilities, palliative care homes, and 14 public and private hospitals around the country.

Calvary Public Hospital Bruce, serving Australia’s capital, was one of those facilities—until now.

In late May, the government of the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) passed a bill to forcibly acquire the Catholic hospital, based in a suburb of Canberra, on July 3. The Canberra government plans to invest more than 1 billion Australian dollars in a new hospital on Calvary’s site. The takeover follows an ACT legislative committee report that recommended expanding abortion in the ­territory: Under Calvary Hospital’s Catholic administration, staff did not perform abortions except in cases of emergency.

Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith told the legislative assembly that the compulsory takeover of the hospital was about “control,” not about religion or efficiency. But many opponents view the government’s takeover as an attack on religion and say it sets a dangerous precedent.

The Little Company of Mary Health Care operates Calvary as a Catholic healthcare provider. The ACT government provides funding to the hospital as part of a public-private agreement.

But after last summer’s U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, a legislative standing committee commissioned a report examining abortion access in the ACT. The report concluded “it is problematic that one of the ACT’s major hospitals is, due to an overriding religious ethos, restricted in the services that can be provided to the Canberra community.”

Two days after the report’s release in April, the government announced it would provide free abortions at the territory’s Marie Stopes abortion center while “negotiations continue to expand the scheme to other providers in the near future.”

Senior doctors at Calvary, the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation, and the Australian Medical Association have all criticized the government for its lack of communication. Many staff members found out about the takeover on social media. The announcement came just 33 days before the acquisition was to be completed.

For its part, the government says it had to move quickly to ensure certainty for the hospital’s 1,800 workers, who have the opportunity to merge into the state system once the acquisition proceeds. The government hopes 85 percent of the staff will transfer to Canberra Health. As of June 15, only 10 percent of Calvary’s staff had completed the voluntary transition forms.

The expansion of free and later-­term abortions in Australia’s capital presents obvious threats to women and unborn children. But the government takeover of the hospital could also set an unhealthy precedent in property seizures.

Calvary Hospital task force chairman Father Tony Percy admits that governments have a right to compulsory acquisition. “But it’s got to be done according to the rule of law and according to just terms,” he said.

Xavier Boffa, executive director of the Australian constitutional research group Samuel Griffith Society, says Australia’s constitution lacks a framework for property rights protection. The constitution is “a document that’s designed to be a sort of rulebook for the government. It deals with issues between the colonies, which became the states. It doesn’t deal with rights,” Boffa says. It does not include a section analogous to the U.S. Bill of Rights.

The concern is that other religious groups whose beliefs are inseparable from philanthropy or charity might also fall prey to legislative whims. “If this is the precedent that has been set, it highlights the fact that the government actually has a very large scope to do this to anyone,” says Boffa. Catholic hospitals deliver only 10 percent of Australia’s total hospital services, but faith-based schools educate about one-third of all students.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese lent his support to the Calvary takeover but said, “It is not seen as providing any precedent by the ACT government and should not be by anyone else.”

Canberra’s Supreme Court dismissed Calvary’s request for an injunction against the takeover but did not reveal its reasons for siding with the government. That delays any attempt at an appeal. The case could end up in the federal High Court of Australia. Meanwhile, the Australian Senate is considering a bill that would force the ACT government to review the matter.

Besides the takeover of the hospital, Health Minister Stephen-Smith stated that the Little Company of Mary–owned Clare Holland House for palliative care will also be seized. Euthanasia is expected to be legalized in the ACT later this year.

Chris Rule, a member of the conservative Christian lobby group National Civic Council, calls the situation a wake-up call: “We’ve got to be prepared to fight, and we’ve got to be prepared to pray.”