Irrespective of one’s religious or political leanings, Dr Ruairi Hanley believes that the medical profession must fight for the right to practise medicine independently
I am not a religious fundamentalist. I can honestly say that my recent Mass attendance has been at best infrequent. I feel the need to make this point because I am about to say some nice things about the Catholic Church and those of my colleagues who support it.
The trouble with our nation is that we all profess tolerance for other opinions, so long as they concur 100 per cent with our own. When somebody expresses a view contrary to the Modern Ireland consensus, the usual response is to attack them and accuse them of belonging to a movement that is innately hostile to progress.
Thus, if you dare to point out that the Orange Order is a sectarian organisation that forbids Catholic membership and expels those who marry Fenians, you will be invariably accused of being an IRA sympathiser.
If you point out that all over Northern Ireland, the loyalist community annually hold massive bonfires topped by tricolours bearing the letters ‘KAT’ (‘Kill All Taigs’), Modern Ireland will assure you this is a ‘cultural tradition’. Indeed, we should apparently congratulate the rugby lads for abandoning the national anthem of our sovereign Republic in order to make some of these KAT (and Orange Order) people feel less insecure about supporting a team in a green jersey. Those who question this ‘gesture’ are clearly closet terrorists.
Yes, Modern Ireland is very tolerant — unless you are a practising Catholic.
I accept it is open season on the Roman faith. The revelations of child abuse and cover-ups are truly a disgrace to our nation. It is understandable that people feel distraught at what occurred over the past six decades. Those who are guilty must be severely punished and substantial compensation should be paid to all victims.
However, the reality is that bishops have now taken all possible measures to ensure that clerical sex abuse is never allowed to happen again. They are doing their utmost to ensure child safety. I believe their efforts should be acknowledged rather than dismissed in a crescendo of angry screams for vengeance.
For some, child safety is no longer the issue; their agenda is the destruction of Irish Catholicism. I cannot escape the suspicion that these scandals have been a most welcome development for those with a lifelong axe to grind with our religious establishment.
Health and education
We must never forget that for decades, religious orders effectively ran our health and education systems. Our fledgling nation was incapable of providing these services. Were it not for the Catholic Church, a generation would have grown up illiterate. Thousands of adults today owe their lives to the existence of hospitals run by those who wore a clerical uniform.
Unfortunately, such historical truth is of little interest to those spokespeople for Modern Ireland, who live in eco-friendly D4 mansions, sing the pseudo anthem ‘Ireland’s Call’ and send their Vhi-positive children to expensive fee-paying schools.
These citizens regularly indulge in righteous professions of tolerance for all fashionable faiths, except of course the one into which they were born. In my opinion, this mindset represents nothing more than prolonged teenage rebellion.
Of course, there are also doctors who bring their Catholicism to their medical practice. I have in the past worked with colleagues who refuse to prescribe the contraceptive pill. Although I greatly admire them, I vehemently disagree with their stance. Nonetheless, they may be assured that I will passionately defend their fundamental right to practise medicine according to their conscience.
Fitness to Practise
I fear I am now becoming a member of a tolerant minority. Modern Ireland regards medical independence as an anachronism that must be crushed.
Dr Phil Boyle, who runs a Catholic fertility clinic in Galway, was recently made to appear before a Medical Council Fitness to Practise inquiry. His alleged wrongdoing was apparently to refuse his services to an unmarried couple. He was cleared, as the couples involved never became his patients.
Whether you agree with Dr Boyle or not, it appears that a medical practitioner, who has placed no patient at risk, can now be threatened with crucifixion for practising medicine according to his conscience.
Will those opposed to social abortion, under a future government regime, find themselves facing potential career destruction for refusing to support such a procedure?
The Medical Practitioners Act potentially opens to door to this type of scenario. Under the new legislation, the lay-dominated Council can be subjected to the direct policy orders of the Minister of the day.
I fully recognise that there are those anti-Catholic readers of this column who are probably delighted that doctors can now be persecuted for following the strictures of their faith.
Contraceptive pill
These people might remember that in the 1970s, when contraception was restricted to married couples, many colleagues blatantly flouted the rules and ensured that single young women obtained the pill.
They acted according to their conscience and the independence of our profession allowed them to do so. Now that the shoe is on the other foot, we should not be celebrating the potential destruction of this same independence.
Please swallow your intolerance for Catholicism. Suppress your anger and your left-wing desire for state control of medicine. The independence of our profession must never be abandoned. And that fundamental principle will always include the right to practise medicine according to your conscience.
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Article hits the nail firmly on the head. We are living in a liberal/feminist fundamentalist society ; dominated by a type of D.4 Taliban. Unfortunately, this type have a virtual monopoly of the media. This is not easy to say in the present circumstances, but the late Gerry Ryan ( RIP ) was most indignant/intolerant of Dr. Boyle’s stance. For those of us who subscribe to a tolerant/open/pluralist society, ” modern/liberal ” Ireland is about as depressing as it gets !.
“His alleged wrongdoing was apparently to refuse his services to an unmarried couple.”
What right did he have to refuse this couple? He is allowed to believe that the couple should not seek treatment, but he is not allowed to impose his beliefs on them and deny them their rights. That would be a step back to the bad old days of Priest ridden Ireland.
I am a practising young catholic who happens to be a nurse, will my rights to use my conscience and moral judgements be called into question now also? when the nuns ran the hospitals long before my time you would not have problems like M.R.S.A, they would ensure wards were scrubbed EVERY DAY and no messing. You would not have old people dying from dehydration as the nuns had a moral duty of care because of their religious conviction. Mark my words it wont be long from now when people will wish they had catholics around when they go to hospitals.”Do on to others as you would have done on to you”etc…
I agree with Dr. Hanley. It’s a sad day for Irish medicine when a doctor is brought before the Medical Council for exercising his conscience according to his faith. I admire him and other doctors who put their faith into practice in their daily work. It’s a pity more don’t follow suit. If Catholics were true to their faith, they would not be taking the damaging pill in the first place.
Thank you Dr Ruairi for your article on “The crime of being Catholic”. I admire your clear thinking honesty in seeing how “Modern Ireland is indeed tolerant, unless you are a practising Catholic”. Indeed you are expected to be tolerant about almost everything in this country. However if it opposes your values/views as a Catholic and you make know your opposition, then you suddenly become an intolerant fundamentalist, which has all the negative connotations of a narrowminded bigot, instead of a conscientious moral objection to something which goes against your values. I fully support Dr Boyle for practising medicine in accordance with his conscience as he is entitled to do so. As a health professional I would do the same and I would not want to be part of a health service
which would force us to do otherwise.
Many thanks, Ruari for having the courage to protest, not so much at liberal consensus as at liberal complacency. I sense your discomfort at having to publicly explain your own religious position, but I think that with more people standing up, such free, independent, thought will be taken on its own merits.
Just a brief note to thank you all for your comments.
They are all very, very much appreciated.
Thank you
Ruairi Hanley
Thank you for standing up to be counted for freedom of conscience, which must be a human right,without this freedom, we would not any proper rights. How ever the right to life until natural death is the most important issue. I am concerned that it seems some medical professionals excluding you Doctor R Handley, do not seem to report medical nelect of some patients, elderely, disabled etc by some doctors, I noted,some have nelected chest infection untreated, unine tract infection and are left in a sad sick state, little to no (rehab) and some seem without fluids or norishment and die as result, passive euthanisia, is there no shame. We must stand up for the vunerable that every one equally must receive good stranded of health care with no discrimination of age of any person. Covering up for wrongdoer, nelect or bringing on deaths of some patients is against the constutation of the intire Island of Ireland is a crimnal act, therefore a disgrace to medicine and nursing care,and is an crime against humanity. We need people in the medical professioal to speak out and to protect all patients including the unborn child protection and their mothers afforded equal rights. report on those who break the law is was forward, most important is law of God as in scripture.
Joan
I am surprised that the use and prescriptions on the contraceptive pill, and the morning after pill used as abortion of human unborn baby. danger to the women health, this is not explained to patients by a Doctor,many implecations risk are life threating.
I very much believe in freedom of conscience
Joanne
Dear Editor What that came to my mind after reading Dr. Hanley’s column called ‘crime of being catholic’ was that should medical doctors practice Conscience based medicine instead of evidence based medicine? Ireland has the potential of becoming an test ground for the developed world to check the effectiveness of conscience based medicine as a way of treating patients.