31.   The directives also take into account Catholic hospitals that are in partnership with secular facilities.

32.   The report found that Catholic hospital chains have recently been growing at a faster rate than even the largest for-profit hospital chain.

33.   The vast majority of Catholic hospitals were founded by congregations of religious women, like the Daughters of Charity and Sisters of Mercy, both of them prodigious builders.

34.   The Ukiah Valley dispute has been watched closely by labor organizers and management at other religious hospitals, including Catholic hospitals facing union drives in Sacramento and Los Angeles.

35.   They were both juniors at Roman Catholic high schools in Westchester and went to a formal benefit for a Catholic hospital.

36.   Thus Catholic hospitals could exclude contraception as part of their employee health-care benefits.

37.   This week, he jumped into a local controversy and urged a Buffalo managed-care company to include among its providers a popular network of Catholic hospitals.

38.   Place said Catholic hospitals offer some of the best care, treating the poor and those least able to care for themselves.

39.   Part of the problem arises from the culture clash inherent in merging Catholic hospitals - which prohibit abortions and some other reproductive services - and secular institutions.

40.   Place said Catholic hospitals may perform operations that result in sterilization if doctors are protecting the health of a woman, as in the case of ovarian cancer.