ABOUT
The Project
Canadian Catholic Nurses 1864. Catholic Health Alliance Canada
In Canada, there are approximately 129 publicly funded hospitals and long-term care homes that are accountable to the Catholic Church. While this corresponds to a bit more than 5% of overall healthcare institutions (Hoskins, 2017), this percentage varies from province to province. In Ontario for instance, 15% of health services are affiliated with the Catholic Church, while in Alberta 12% of acute-care beds and 27% of palliative care-beds are managed by Catholic institutions (Glauser, 2022).
The Healing Christ Statue, Providence Healthcare, Toronto
What does it mean to be a public Catholic healthcare institution in Canada? How does this Catholic identity evolve and adapt with the increased secularisation and diversification of society, and with the rising awareness of the complicated legacy of Catholicism and colonisation in Canada? This SSHRC-funded project explores those questions drawing on archival and document analysis, as well as more than 60 interviews with doctors, healthcare practitioners, managers and former nuns. The project seeks to document how Catholic healthcare institutions navigate multiple normative realms, including transnational canon laws and ethics, human rights law, provincial law and hospital norms. In so doing, we situate Catholic healthcare in a web of national and transnational legal regimes. We also analyze how this navigation takes different forms to adapt to societal changes. For example, the legalisation of Medical Assistance in Dying in 2016 has made visible some of the tensions and contradictions between Catholic ethics and Canadian law. We hope that by shedding light on some of the efforts to uphold, negotiate and question the Catholic identity of publicly funded institutions in Canada today, we also excavate the ways in which Christianity continues to play a subtle, at times invisible, but still constant presence in our society. This project is a contribution to our understanding of the complex relationships and entanglement between state and religion in Canada, and directly debunks tropes that construct this relationship as one of clear separation.
Principal Investigators
The ongoing research undertaken by Dr. Amelie Barras and Dr. Andrea Paras is dedicated to exploring the significance of Catholicism within hospital settings. In their roles as principal investigators, they extensively examine the customs, faith principles, and effects of Catholic practices in healthcare institutions. Their primary goal is to elucidate the ways in which religious doctrines impact the delivery of patient care, the decision-making processes of healthcare professionals, and the overall encounters within the hospital environment. Through meticulous inquiry and analysis, Dr. Barras and Dr. Paras aspire to offer profound perspectives into the amalgamation of religion and healthcare, thus enriching the broader comprehension of the intricate dynamics at play in this domain.
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Dr. Barras is Associate Professor in the Department of Social Science (Law & Society Program) at York University. She conducts research on the intersection between law, religion and politics. She has published on the politics of secularism in Turkey and France, including Refashioning Secularisms in France and Turkey: The Case of the Headscarf Ban(Routledge, 2014). She has also written on reasonable accommodation and Islam in Canada. Her publication on the topic includes a book written with Jennifer Selby (Memorial University) and Lori Beaman (University of Ottawa): Beyond Accommodation. Everyday Narratives of Muslim Canadians (UBC Press, 2018) and a co-edited volume: Producing Islam(s) in Canada. On Knowledge, Positionality and Politics(UTP, 2022). Finally, she is interested by the intersection of Christianity, human rights and secularism. She explores this in her forthcoming book: Faith in Rights. Christian-Inspired NGOs at Work at the United Nations (Stanford University Press). And continues to document this relationship in the project she co-leads with Andrea Paras on the Politics of Catholic Healthcare in Canada.
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Andrea Paras is the Director of the Guelph Institute of Development Studies and an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Guelph in Canada. Along with Amélie Barras, she is leading the research project on Catholic healthcare in Canada. She has over 20 years of experience conducting research on humanitarian organisations. Her book Moral Obligations and Sovereignty in International Relations (Routledge, 2019) examines the history of humanitarianism from the 16th century to the present and includes extended analyses of the role of religious actors in humanitarian initiatives. Other SSHRC-funded research examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Small and Medium Organisations (SMOs) in Canada’s international development sector.S he has also published research on Canadian faith-based development NGOs, examining how these religious organisations position themselves in relation to public institutions. Her research has been published in the Canadian Journal of Development Studies, Voluntas, Journal of Development Studies, Intercultural Education, and Frontiers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad. She teaches and supervises in the areas of international development, international relations, decolonial and critical pedagogies, human rights and humanitarianism, religion and politics, community-engaged research, experiential learning, and intercultural competence. She is the recipient of several teaching and research awards, including the 2016 Award for Teaching from the College of Social and Applied Human Sciences at the University of Guelph, and the 2016 Panorama Award for Outstanding International Education Program from the Canadian Bureau of International Education.
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Students
Josiah Neven
Josiah Neven is a student in York University’s religious studies program. He is interested in this project as he is also curious about the role and internal psyche of Catholic institutions in an ever-secularising Canada. He is eager to pursue a career that blends his passion for religious studies with his other interest, library science.
Sonya Mungal
My name is Sonya Mungal (she/her) and I am entering my first year of a master's in public policy. I am passionate about uncovering barriers in accessing healthcare for Canadians and researching various public healthcare policies such as MAiD and reproductive health. This project continues to be a great learning experience for me in this regard.
Reem Salloum
I am a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) student studying Criminal Justice and Public Policy at the University of Guelph, completing my final year. As an incoming JD student at Osgoode Hall Law School, I am deeply interested in the intersections of law, policy, and faith. Currently, I am completing a thesis project on Medical Assistance in Dying policy in Canada, taking a closer look at the potential inclusion of Mental Disorders as sole underlying conditions.
Élisabeth Sirois
PhD student in Religious Studies at University of Ottawa, Canada. I hold a bachelor's degree (B.A.) and a master's degree (M.A.) in Religious Studies from Université Laval, Québec. My work focuses on Québécois' relationship with religion, nonreligion and laïcité, the secularization of Quebec society, religious indifference and discourses of opposition to religion in Quebec and in Catholic societies.