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The 59,000 “Nuns” For Obamacare
March 18, 2010
Progressive Catholic social workers are not nuns
OMSNBC talk show hostess Rachel Maddow and liberal columnist E J Dionne have temporarily been reborn. Long time critics of the Roman Catholic Church, Maddow and Dionne suddenly find themselves full of admiration for “nuns”. A stunning 59,000 “nuns” who, in defiance of the US Conference Of Catholic Bishops, have come out in favor of the abortion promulgating senate healthcare bill.
Maddow, at her “perkiest” best, asks “Who would you pick in a fight? Congressman Bart Stupak or 59,000 nuns?” Dionne titled his Washington Post Op-Ed column today “On Health Care, Listen To The Nuns”.
Well there are nuns, designated as such by the Catholic Church. And there are vocational sisters. And then there are “progressive Catholic” vocational sisters. Anyone care to guess which classification fits the Maddow and Dionne ideal of “nuns”?.
Though both nuns and vocational sisters are addressed as “sister”, there is a major difference between the two in regards to their official affiliations and obligations to the Roman Catholic Church. And there is no massive rally of nuns lobbying America’s Catholic Bishops to sanction Obamacare.
True nuns are members of Vatican recognized religious orders who have taken solemn vows, live in a communal environment and recite the Liturgy Of The Hours and other prayers together as a community. The Benedictines, Carmelites, Poor Clares and Dominicans are examples of orders whose members are recognized by the Catholic Church as nuns. Most orders of true nuns still dress in traditional “habits”. Few, if any, true nuns support the senate healthcare bill.
Sisters, in contrast, simply dedicate themselves to living a vocational life, usually in service of the poor or the sick. These are noble vocations and many vocational orders, but far from all, are officially recognized by the Vatican. But living a vocational life does confer the title of nun.
Since the Vatican II Council in the 60s, many nuns have discarded their habits, abandoned their convents or cloisters, and begun living vocational, secular lives while still referring to themselves as nuns. Last year the Vatican initiated an “Apostolic Visitation”, an investigation of women in Catholic religious life in America, to determine whether they are “living in fidelity” to the religious life as prescribed by the Vatican. The Apostolic Visitation will also evaluate “the soundness of doctrine held and taught” in the name of the Church.
Many lapsed nuns, and a majority of vocational sisters, are members of the “progressive Catholic” movement who stand in outright opposition to the official Magisterium of the Catholic Church and the authority of the Pope to govern Catholic life in America. Progressive Catholics consider themselves free to disregard Church teaching on “social justice issues”- women in the priesthood, homosexuality, homosexual marriage and “reproductive rights”.
Progressive they may be, but nuns they are not
Putting the P in progressive Catholic are the members of NETWORK- A National Social Justice Lobby. This is the group that purports to represent 59,000 “nuns” supporting the senate healthcare bill.
A quick look at the NETWORK website will quickly dispel any worries that the Catholic faithful might have over thousands of traditional nuns, in habits with rosaries dangling from their waists, storming the offices of the Conference Of Catholic Bishops demanding support for Obamacare.
NETWORK is a progressive voice within the Catholic community that has been influencing Congress in favor of peace and justice for more than 30 years
NETWORK Mission – a Catholic leader in the global movement for justice and peace – educates, lobbies and organizes for economic and social transformation
Sister Simone Campbell SSS (Sisters Of Social Service), Executive Director of NETWORK, and self proclaimed spokesperson for The 59,000, is described on the NETWORK website as an “attorney and poet with extensive experience in public policy and advocacy for systemic change.”
The issues that NETWORK focuses on include Economic Justice, Peacemaking, Comprehensive Immigration Reform and “Ecological Justice”. No mention of abortion, which the Catholic Church has designated as an intrinsice “moral evil”. Not even a sentence in reference to the greatest social justice issue of our time, the slaughter of 50 million American boys and girls under the auspices of Roe v Wade.
Progressive Catholic “social justice” communities, organizations or lobbies have never been in the vanguard of the Catholic Church’s fight for the right to life of America’s unborn children. And the women following the NETWORK banner on healthcare are not true nuns who live in accordance to the governance of the Catholic Church.
Progressive, liberal or otherwise, women living vocational lives in service of the poor and the sick do reflect some of the highest values espoused by the Catholic Church. But as social workers, they are completely unqualified to advise Catholics, or anyone else for that matter, on abortion or government legislation.
Whether it was the idea of NETWORK, or the two touts for anything Obama – Maddow and Dionne – to designate The 59,000 as “nuns”, the clearly orchestrated intention here is to aid and abet progressive Catholic Nancy Pelosi in further misleading pro-life democrats in the House Of Representatives, and Catholics in general, on the Catholic Church’s position on Obamacare.
Blind faith in the faithless
The “healthcare reform” bill which NETWORK and its followers urge American Catholics to accept, contains over 2,000 pages of far reaching legislation. Legislation that was drawn up in secrecy and passed in the senate with virtually no debate, and is now scheduled to be “deemed as passed” in the US House Of Representatives without an actual vote.
In intentionally overlooking the loopholes within loopholes on abortion funding which America’s Catholic Bishops have pointed out in the senate healthcare bill, The 59,00 are in essence asking fellow Catholics to have faith in the assurances of Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Kathleen Sebelius that there will be no federal funding or expansion of abortion as healthcare “services or benefits”.
Trust in God is one thing, but get serious sisters.
Stay tuned to OMSNBC for this weekend’s rally of 118,000 “conservative evangelicals” for Obamacare, led by Reverends Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.
Category: "Obamacare, The Catholic Church And Abortion
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October 18th, 2010 at 7:02 pm
you guys are not even catholic so don’t throw stones. whose patsy are you really? and did you ever takes vows of poverty,chastity & obedience?
your selfrighteousness is apalling !
October 19th, 2010 at 12:20 am
Thanks for the comment Philip
Though RadiantCross.org is a non-denominational Christian website, we are in fact Catholics
To most people, Catholics included, nun implies the traditional habited member of a Vatican sanctioned religious order who is 100% faithful in word and deed to the magisterium of the Church.
The point of the article was anti-Catholic Maddow and Dionne’s misleading usage of the term nun, which implied the Catholic Church’s support of the pending healthcare bill. The self-styled “nuns” in this case were progressive Catholic social workers who live basically secular lives and were speaking in defiance of the USCCB. Our bishops opposed the bill for its expansion of abortion in America, including loopholes which would enable the use of federal tax dollars to fund abortions.
As it turns that the bishops were right. Under Obamacare, “high risk insurance pools” in PA, MY, and NM are accessing $5 billion dollars in federal taxpayer funds to provide coverage for elective abortions. More states are sure to follow.
We have no personal quarrel with vocational sisters who, as we pointed out in the article, dedicate themselves to service of the poor and the sick and do reflect some of the highest values espoused by the Catholic Church. But they were completely unqualified to advise Catholics, or anyone else for that matter, on abortion or government legislation.
And frankly, it is hard to believe that intelligent, well informed women like Sister Carol Keehan, president of the Catholic Health Association and Sister Simone Campbell of Network could really believe that any healthcare bill promulgated by abortion zealots Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Kathleen Sebelius would not include a massive expansion of abortion.
Thanks again for taking the time to comment
April 19th, 2012 at 8:26 pm
Dear Friends,
I am not and never have been a Roman Catholic. I am a Christian who, by God’s grace, has been born again and I stand shoulder-to-shoulder with you against this perversion emanating from the Obama administration.
This is nothing more than part of the same process that Hitler ushered in in the late 1930′s and has exactly the same potential for terrible social upheaval.
Unlike the German people of that infamous era, he will not separate us from our God or our guns!
April 20th, 2012 at 7:13 am
Thanks for the comment Don
Though we are Catholic, RadiantCross.org is a call for Christians of all denominations to stand together in opposition to the moral evils that are destroying our nation
We appreciate your words of support, and to paraphrase Father Benedict Groeschel of EWTN, we will take a pious Protestant such as yourself over a Nancy Pelosi style Catholic anytime
Your point is well made. Through his puppet Barack Obama, George Soros hopes to profit from an economic and societal crisis in America similar to the one the National Socialists engineered in Hitler’s Germany
Unfortunately, similar to many German Jews in the 1930s, many Christians naively do not view Obama’s war on Christianity as a serious threat
God’s Blessings and thank you again for your pertinent comment