I was just thinking about this and how weird and fucked up it is. Imagine a country where 13% of schools were owned and operated by the Flat Earth Society, and nobody questions it.
Unless they have Jesus there healing the sick just what the hell is the big idea? There must be some reason or history to it. Maybe they built hospitals where none were for the community?
Originally, hospitals were pilgrim’s hostels (“domus hospitalis” literally means “guest house”), and extended there service to ill, disabled, old and poor people over the time. All hospital foundations in Europe and America prior to the 19^th century and most prior to the 20^th were founded by organisations with a Christian background, aka Catholic orders, Protestant churches and charities.
There are/were quite a few Catholic orders entirely devoted to hospital work. The address “Sister” for a nurse is a relict from the time when all hospital nurses were nuns.
The idea, that the secular state could be responsible for the health of it’s citizen and invest into hospital building is quite recent.
I mean, it’s not bad if the church actually cares about the old and sick. Where it gets bad if they deny help for not being religious or if they interfere with the doctors. Christianity in its core values is good, but the church often forgets these.
Christianity in its core values is good
It really isn’t. It just has some values that people who like to see it as good pick to describe as core values but other people pick very hateful ones as its core values from the actual pool of very mixed values it contains.
There must be some reason or history to it.
Inherently ultra-authoritarian organization wants an effective way to brainwash and threaten children into joining their cult forever. Government officials ignore constitution as well as all common sense and decency to let them.
That’s the reason and the history in full.
Edit: oops, that’s the reason for catholic SCHOOLS! My bad.
The reason for catholic hospitals is that a super-rich multinational corporation talked government officials into letting them get free branding.