ACT Calvary Hospital cross crane pic angers Catholics and other Christians after government takeover

Images of a crane lifting a crucifix from the front entrance of a hospital are outraging Catholics and other Christians around Australia.

The religious symbol was taken off Canberra’s Calvary Hospital over the weekend as the ACT government took control of the facility in a controversial compulsory acquisition following a bitter legal battle with the Catholic church over ownership. 

Veteran Christian activist and National Director of the Family First Party Lyle Shelton likened what he saw to the actions of communist China. 

‘The forced removal of the cross of Christ from a Christian-owned hospital compulsorily acquired by a hostile secularist government,’ he tweeted on Sunday.

‘These are the actions of a totalitarian regime, the likes of which exist in Beijing, not normally associated with Canberra. Time to wake up!’

Canberra and Goulburn Archdiocese Archbishop Christopher Prowse also described the removal of the hospital’s main cross as the actions of a ‘totalitarian’ authority. 

‘The very first thing a totalitarian government does, when it seizes Christian assets, the very first thing they all do … they take down the crucifix,’ he said.

‘And right now today, over at the public hospital — today is Sunday, of all days they picked is the Christian gathering-time — they’re taking the very big blue cross from outside the public hospital down today.

‘There was a collective wrenching going on, but there was a sense of hope because they realised you can take down our physical crucifixes but you’ll never take away the cross, Jesus’s cross, inside my heart.’

However, the ACT government on Monday denied it ordered the cross removed and said the decision and the timing was made by a Catholic agency that previously ran the hospital. 

‘That was entirely a decision for Calvary Health Care – we’ve been very clear about that the whole way through, that any decision around any of those items, when and how they were removed, was entirely a decision for Calvary,’ ACT Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith said. 

Some likened the removal of the crucifix to the actions of a communist regime although it was later revealed the actions were ordered by a Catholic health agency

Later on Monday a spokesperson for the agency confirmed it had arranged and paid for the cross’s removal as ‘part of the transition’.

The spokesperson said a statue of Mary and other items of ‘heritage significance to Calvary’ were taken from hospital grounds and relocated.

‘This included the removal of the cross on Sunday, the statue of Mary previously located outside the Xavier building, and a number of other iconography items of heritage significance to Calvary, which have been removed from within the hospital.’

The spokesperson said the cost of the removal was ‘associated with the transition’.

‘The family, which donated the statue of Mary, and staff were advised about the removal and plans to identify a new location,’ the spokesperson said.

The takeover of Calvary, which will now be known as Northside Hospital, by the ACT government was finalised on Monday with 1,700 staff now being employed by Canberra Health Services.

Following Canberra’s ruling coalition of Labor and the Greens rushing through legislation in May to force the acquisition of hospital lands, the Catholic church – which had a 120-year lease to run the facility – mounted a legal challenge.

Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith (pictured) was forced to deny the ACT government had ordered the removal of the cross

The ACT Supreme Court dismissed the church’s claims in June that it would not get appropriate compensation and that the legislation forcing the sale from Catholic order Sisters of the Little Company of Mary was invalid.

Ms Stephen-Smith said on Monday the takeover was about providing a better health service and bringing the hospital into line with the rest of ACT health.

‘And we need that land to invest $1 billion in a new north-side hospital, that needs to be part of the best and most efficient system we can,’ she said.

‘We know from other jurisdictions and experience that a single networked hospital provider is the most efficient and effective system.’

Critics have claimed the takeover is part of an agenda for the hospital to practice euthanasia, which is set to be introduced to the Territory with a voluntary assisted dying in the works.

There are also claims the takeover was motivated by a desire to see the hospital offer abortions.

A government inquiry in April recommended health authorities pressure the hospital to provide ‘full reproductive health services in accordance with human rights’.