Hospital chapel controversy is much palaver about nothing

IT’S great the new Royal Adelaide Hospital’s prayer space will be called a ‘chapel’. Makes all the difference. But what about the Buddhists, asks Tory Shepherd.

TORY SHEPHERD

THERE’LL be a special prayer room for Muslims in Adelaide’s whiz bang new hospital. Good on ‘em.

Now, thanks to my irate mate Cory Bernardi, there will also be a chapel at the new Royal Adelaide Hospital.

The Liberal-turned-Australian Conservatives Senator was a little peeved that there would be a Muslim space with its own washrooms outside, then just a multifaith beigeish room that would do for everyone else.

He told The Australian that the set up was “tailor-made to accommodate to a tiny minority’’.

“We’re bending over to ­appease a minority for fear of causing offence while undermining our tradition and heritage,” he said.

“In a hospital environment, catering to all faiths is important, but what’s happened here is all faiths are supposed to share the space except for those of Islam, who once again want to exclude themselves and be granted ­special status.

“If you’re going to give priority to a particular faith, it should be to the Christian faith because that’s the overwhelmingly dominant ethos and part of our cultural ethos.”

We all worship differently. Here’s another one of Adelaide’s non-denominational prayer rooms. (Pic: Matt Turner)

And whaddya know, this morning it was revealed that the generic prayer space will be called a chapel. As it turns out, both spaces were designed by a range of chaplains and people of various faiths will be able to bring in their own symbols as they require.

What a palaver. As an atheist I’m eternally grateful that wine bars are in abundance in this town so I don’t have to go searching high and low for sacred spaces.

I reckon Senator Bernardi looks a bit too hard for signs there’s a Muslim takeover (see this thing I wrote here). But it does seem a little unfair to have two separate spaces, just for two religions. After all, there are more Buddhists in Australia than Muslims — at least, according to the last census (we’ll get some new stats soon).

Hinduism is the fastest growing religion, while there’s an ever-increasing number of the religion-free.

And Christianity itself is a pretty broad church, you have to admit.

Why can’t one space cater to them all? Bring your own prayer mats or flags, crosses or Ganesh statue. It could get a little chaotic, but everyone might also learn something. And if you need to be alone, well, the new hospital sits on the Torrens, which has myriad isolated green spaces looking over the water.

An entirely inclusive space, eh? Let us pray.

Tory Shepherd is political journalist for The Advertiser.