Sister Simone Campbell is something of a celebrity now. She’s the media’s most favoritest nun since Joan Chittister. While Sister Simone is at the Democrat Convention, appears on CNN and in every major newspaper, Sister Mary Rose Reddy of New Hampshire can only write a letter to the editor. So it’s up to us dopey bloggers to promulgate this wonderful message:
Speaking at the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday, Sister Simone Campbell urged her listeners to oppose the Romney-Ryan budget plan and to support the Affordable Care Act. She indicated that by doing so they would be agreeing with the bishops and standing with the nuns. While it is true that the US Conference of Catholic Bishops has criticized what they consider to be too severe cuts to services for the poor in the proposed Romney-Ryan budget, it is not true that the bishops or even most nuns in the United States support the Affordable Care Act.
The Affordable Care Act and its associated Department of Health and Human Services mandate, which would force all health insurers, even those of Catholic children’s homes, hospitals, and colleges, to cover contraceptives, sterilizations, and abortion-inducing drugs, is an assault on religious liberty. No Catholic sister can support it and support the church’s teaching at the same time.
Having been a professed religious sister for more than 29 years, I need to state clearly that Sister Simone Campbell is not speaking for me or for thousands of other sisters in the United States.
Sister Mary Rose Reddy
Rochester, N.H.
HT Pewsitter
