IRELAND
The Irish Sun
By David Kearns
23rd April 2017
The National Maternity Hospital must obey Church doctrine if plans to hand over the site to the Sisters of Charity go ahead, claims Bishop Kevin Doran.
The bishop of Elphin believes any healthcare organisation “bearing the name Catholic… has a special responsibility to Catholic teachings… [including] the value of human life and the dignity and the ultimate destiny of the human person.”
“Public funding, while it brings with it other legal and moral obligations, does not change that responsibility,” he told the Sunday Times.
Mr Doran believes that canon law “obliges a hospital on Catholic land to operate by Catholic rules”.
In his statement to the Sunday Times, he refers to canon law which decrees that land held by religious institutions is “ecclesiastical property” over which the Pope has “primacy of governance”.
His comments this weekend seem to confirm warnings by many groups opposed to the Sisters of Charity’s ownership of the new national maternity hospital.
Already over 87,000 people have signed a petition calling on Minister for Health Simon Harris to prevent the religious order from taking ownership of the facility.
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