The freedom of conscience of health care providers in Australia is threatened by aggressive secularism, the Archbishop of Melbourne has said.

Archbishop Denis Hart, preaching at Mass to open the clinical year at Melbourne’s St Vincent’s Hospital, warned that an increasing number of Australians were beginning to believe that a person’s right to any form of medical intervention, including abortion, took precedence over the conscience of the professional from whom the care was expected.

Catholics must resist all attempts to marginalise their faith to the sanctuary or to “politically acceptable good works”, he said.

“We face an increasingly aggressive secularism whose objective is to prevent religion from having any influence in public institutions, including that of health care,” he said.

He said: “In a world held in thrall to what the Holy Father has called the dictatorship of relativism, Catholic health care workers must be free to live concretely Christ’s message in their professional lives: to be witnesses to the One who is the Way, the Truth and the Life. 

“Without such freedom we can pursue neither our personal nor our collective mission to ensure the presence of Jesus’ healing ministry in our world.”

Catholics, he said, faced “an increasingly aggressive secularism whose objective is to prevent religion from having any influence in public institutions, including that of health care”. 

This version of secularism strove to “confine the influence of religious faith to worship, socially acceptable charity, and work for justice”. 

But he said that “obliging people of faith to keep their opinions to themselves is in itself, if you think about it, an undemocratic way of buying harmony among citizens”. 

Archbishop Hart said: “It is in fact a thinly veiled way of curtailing the freedom of expression of religious believers. While it may present practical advantages, it is unacceptable in principle.

“We are citizens and work in the area of health care, which was a concern of the Church long before the rise of the nation and state. We must resist all attempts to marginalise our faith to the sanctuary or politically acceptable good works.”

Christians, he insisted “should not have to lead a double life: one in the privacy of the home and church, the other at work, in hospital, clinic, doctor’s office or health care institution”. 

“A society which fosters the authentic common good encourages its citizens to act in a way that is faithful to the moral principles that God has engraved on our hearts,” Archbishop Hart said.

Religious believers had as much right as anyone to function in their profession according to their beliefs; likewise, religious institutions have as much rights as non-religious institutions, he added.

He said: “An increasing number of our citizens are beginning to believe that a person’s right to medical care supersedes respect for the conscience of the professional from whom the care is expected. We would be blind to ignore the grave assaults on the freedom of conscience which we have at present.

“When faced with coercive laws and regulations we need to recognise and reinforce at every turn the right of health care professionals to conscientious objection; that no person, hospital or institution should be forced, held liable, or discriminated against in any act which violates his or her well-formed conscience.”