I though that the St John and Elizabeth Hospital affair was done and dusted, that the hospital had returned to Catholic principles but apparently not.
Fr John Boyle has the following report from something called the Restituta Group:
Hospital Board defy the Cardinal
In their edition of 14th December 2007 the Catholic Herald was announcing “A Catholic hospital is saved … thanks, in part to the leadership of the Cardinal”. Little did they or anyone else know that in a secret meeting of the Hospital Board two days previously, on 12th December 2007, the Board had voted to defy the Cardinal and to proceed with allowing the entrance of the St John’s Wood Medical Practice into the former Convent of Mercy, on 14th January 2008, in order to provide referrals for abortion, the full range of contraceptive services etc etc in total disregard of the Code of Ethics which they had accepted at their previous meeting albeit not to be implemented “just yet”.
The Board did announce some resignations and changes but these are now seen to have been merely cosmetic with a new acting Chairman whose track record has not been seen to be in support of Catholic ethics – instead he is to be supported by the former Chairman, Lord Bridgeman, who has been the chief architect of the ongoing plans to remove the Hospital from Catholicity.
It has been suggested that we, the Restituta Group, should apply for an injunction to prevent the entry of the St John’s Wood Medical Practice. However the law provides that this can only be done with the permission of the Charity Commission who are the body responsible for seeing that charities act within the law. We have now asked for that permission. If permission is not granted we will be applying to a Judge for such permission with a view to eventually applying for an injunction.
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No progress, such as it is, would have been made without the vigorous campaigning over the past two years of the Restituta Group, thanks largely to its wonderful secretary, the retired Catholic lawyer, Mr Nicolas Bellord. The Cardinal acted far too late in the matter - after the Hospital had entered into a contract with the NHS GP Practice - though he could have taken effective action three years ago.
The Restituta Group is named after Blessed Restituta Kafka, an Austrian nun guillotined by the Nazis for restoring crucifixes they had removed from a hospital in which she worked. Her conviction and courage serve to highlight the pusillanimity of the Cardinal in the whole affair of St John & St Elizabeth. All that was required of him was that he made it clear to the Charity Commission at a suitably early date that admission of the GP Practice was inconsistent with the Catholic character of the Hospital. The consitution of the Hospital gives him the role of determining what clinical practice is consistent with the Catholicity of the Hospital.
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