In the same week as Catholic Archbishop of Sydney Cardinal George Pell criticised the $77million contract, Archbishop Mark Coleridge said Canberrans were unhappy with the secrecy surrounding the agreement.

''I also shared that sense of things going on behind closed doors, secret deals being done and also the sense of inevitability that was being generated, or the illusion of inevitability that there was no point of putting up any resistance or asking questions,'' he said.

Their views have put them into conflict with ACT Health Minister Katy Gallagher who accused the two senior clergymen of putting pressure on the sisters of the Little Company of Mary to halt the sale. ''The archbishop and the cardinal have chosen their time to come out and lobby and I think, from where I sit, that is to place maximum pressure on the nuns as they contemplate this,'' Ms Gallagher said.

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