Hospitals sponsored by the Roman Catholic Church: separate, equal, and distinct?

For centuries, the Catholic Church has been a major social actor in the provision of health services, particularly health care delivered in hospitals. Through a confluence of powerful environmental forces at the beginning of the twenty-first century, the future of Catholic health care is threatened. Although Catholic hospitals are a separate case of private, nonprofit hospitals, they have experienced environmental pressures to become isomorphic with other hospital ownership types and, on some dimensions, they are equal. To keep pace with the changing demands of religion and the social role of the hospital, Catholic hospitals continue to redefine themselves. To justify a distinct and legitimate social role, more research should be conducted to develop and measure indicators of Catholic identity.