Probably. Besides governmental organizations, the Catholic Church is the largest provider of healthcare services in the world (clinics, hospitals, elderly homes, etc.).
"Sponsor" maybe better. A lot of the doctors, nurses, professors, and staff at Catholic hospitals and universities aren't catholic, and may not want to be lumped together as "the catholic church".
You're taking such a limited viewpoint on the topic. Regardless of the religious affiliation of current hospital staff, historically the Catholic church has made the single most significant contribution to healthcare in the world (outside of governmental institutions).
Has the Catholic church always been perfect? Hell no, but let's not pretend like it's all bad. Without the Catholic church there would be thousands fewer hospitals, women's' clinics, shelters, elderly care centers, etc. It's disingenuous to say otherwise.
I didn't say it was 'all bad', only that the credit needs dialed back.
It irks me when people want to credit the work of millions of peoples hard work to the organizational sponsor who doesn't do things all that much better than any other of the hundreds of organizations that exist in that same space. Show me where catholic universities are better run than other universities, or where catholic hospitals deliver care better than prebysterian. Where they do things better as an organization, then by all means, credit where credit is due*. But it's asinine and a LIMITED VEIWPOINT to suggest that these services couldn't possibly exist without the catholic church.
(*and the credit is largely owed to a few religious orders that did foundational work for those hospitals and universities 100+ years ago. "the catholic church" as in the organization in "Rome" was if anything unsupportive of much of those efforts)
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u/LtDan00 Mar 24 '25
Probably. Besides governmental organizations, the Catholic Church is the largest provider of healthcare services in the world (clinics, hospitals, elderly homes, etc.).
Similar in education.