David Quinn - State has turned into a big bully, picking on religious institutions

'Mater says it will perform abortions' is a headline no Catholic hospital should want to see, but it is what the Mater Hospital got after it announced that it will comply with our new abortion law. 

Strictly speaking, what the Mater's announcement means is that it is willing to perform abortions on women deemed to be suicidal, despite the lack of evidence that such a drastic action would save the life of even one woman.

It is probable that the Mater believes this situation will never arise in practice. 

Perhaps it believes it has no staff who would be willing to perform an abortion under these circumstances, even if its psychiatric unit deemed a pregnant woman to be suicidal.

Nonetheless, its statement was unambiguous. It flagged no problem with the new abortion law, no ethical qualm at all. 

Quite the contrary.

The statement said: "The Mater Hospital has carefully considered the Act. The hospital's priority is to be at the frontier of compassion, concern and clinical care for all patients. Having regard to that duty, the hospital will comply with the law as provided for in the Act".

Frankly, James Reilly could have written that. What it says in effect is that the only way to be at "the frontier of compassion, concern and clinical care for all patients" is to perform abortions under the terms of the new law.

Lest there be some misunderstanding, let's be clear that before this law was passed, pregnant women referred to the Mater by the Rotunda were not in danger. If they were, the Rotunda would have referred those women elsewhere.

If a pregnant woman was brought into the Mater with a life-threatening infection like Savita Halappanavar had, the Mater would have been free to bring the pregnancy to an end. The problem in University Hospital Galway where Savita was treated was not the law, but the fact that her team didn't spot her infection in time.

Therefore, the chief change this new law will make to clinical practice in the Mater is that the Mater is now willing in theory to perform abortions on women deemed to be suicidal because they are pregnant.

The Mater probably believes acceding to the law was the only course open to it, practically speaking. 

Or perhaps it was simply the line of least resistance. 

But that's not good enough. 

It should have kept faith with its ethos and defended it.

It could have issued a statement saying that it will continue to give pregnant women the best possible care, just as it always has, but that it will not perform abortions based on the suicide ground.

That would have put the ball firmly into James Reilly's court. 

Would he make life awkward for the Mater? Certainly. 

Would he close it down? Obviously not.

The whole sorry tale of the Mater and its capitulation to the Government is part of a bigger story, namely the enormous pressure the State is placing on religious institutions generally to compromise their beliefs, and the failure on the part of those institutions to stand up for their rights.

Earlier last week, it was announced that the Department of Education will consult parents to find out how they think their local Catholic schools can be made more "inclusive". 

A leaflet is being sent to parents' associations.

That leaflet lists the recommendations of the report of the Forum on Patronage and Pluralism in Primary Schools. 

Those recommendations, if accepted, would effectively turn denominational schools into multi-denominational ones.

One recommendation is that the religious symbols on display in denominational schools should represent all the different faiths in the school. Another is that prayers should be "inclusive".

Does this mean the 'Our Father' or the 'Hail Mary' would be deemed insufficiently inclusive and need to be replaced by generic prayers?

In many countries, church-run schools receive public funds, but in very few if any countries are conditions undermining the ethos of those schools imposed on them. 

We are becoming a very strange place.

Essentially, the State is using its might to impose its will on anything in its path. 

Hence, Catholic hospitals must perform abortions under certain conditions and church-run schools must conform to the ideology of "multi-culturalism". 

This should be a concern to civil society as a whole.

The Catholic community must decide how to respond. 

Does it, and the other religions on this island, simply capitulate as the Mater (and St Vincent's Hospital) have done, or do they defend their rights, if necessary by legal action?

If they are not prepared to defend their rights and their beliefs, it would probably be better to withdraw from their various institutions now, rather than have them become Catholic or Christian in name only.

But if they think Catholic and Christian schools and hospitals have something to offer, they must decide what their red lines are and at what point they will defend themselves.

The Mater lost a golden opportunity to set down a marker and defend not only the rights of religious institutions, but the independence of civil society generally. 

The State has become a bully. 

The Mater should have stood up to it.