With Catholics/Dominicans like this, who needs NARAL?

In what way, exactly, is Sr. Donna Quinn fulfilling her vows and vocation as a Dominican, and which of her beliefs, in any, can be squared with Catholic teaching?

For decades, Sister Donna Quinn has championed the rights of women to use contraception, seek ordination and end unwanted pregnancies.

The Dominican nun has picketed for abortion rights in Washington, petitioned the pope for a female archbishop and escorted women into abortion clinics.

Why not just leave the Dominicans and work for NARAL or Planned Barrenhood? Because, of course, a wolf among poorly shepherded sheep can always satiate its ravenous, disordered appetites.

"I am disappointed that the process agreed upon was circumvented," she said. "As a peacekeeper, my goal is to enable women to enter a reproductive health clinic in dignity and without fear of being physically assaulted. ... I am very worried that the publicity around my presence will lead to violations of every woman's right to privacy and expose them to further violence."

Are you as moved by her humble contrition and public remorse as I am? Peacekeepers don't help escort babies to their deaths. And what is dignified about going to have your child killed? These are obvious questions, it seems apparent,  but Sr. Quinn is far more interested in the "right to privacy" then the "right to life." As Dr. Janet Smith has noted, the "right to privacy" has "come to mean that each of us should be allowed to do whatever we want whenever we want. It is autonomy gone wild."

"On the other hand," wrote Screwtape to Wormwood, "we do want, and want very much, to make men treat Christianity as a means; preferably, of course, as a means to their own advancement, but, failing that, as a means to anything-even to social justice. The thing to do is to get a man at first to value social justice as a thing which the Enemy demands, and then work him on to the stage at which he values Christianity because it may produce social justice. For the Enemy will not be used as a convenience.” Sr. Quinn believes she is working for social justice. Yet her's is a truly perverse, demonic perspective.

The sudden rebuke highlights the tension in America's women's religious communities, now targeted by two sweeping Vatican investigations. Quinn's activism was no secret. But in years past, Dominican leaders have come to her defense.

The primary example was in 1984 when the Vatican instructed religious orders to dismiss nuns who refused to retract their claim that Catholics held a range of opinions on abortion rights. Instead, the leaders talked to Vatican officials and resolved the issue with no ousters of nuns.

But that was a different era, said Sister Beth Rindler, co-coordinator of the National Coalition of American Nuns, a group of nuns who push for women's ordination, gay rights, abortion rights and an end to war.

"We're standing with her very much. We consider her one of our prophets," said Rindler, a Franciscan Sister of the Poor. "She's standing with women who she believes can make good moral decisions."

A prophet? A true prophet speaks the words of God. "The prophets proclaim a radical redemption of the People of God, purification from all their infidelities, a salvation which will include all the nations," says the Catechism. The false prophet proclaims radical relativism, purification from objective morality, and a secularized "salvation" that destroys lives, marriages, families, and nations.

"But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their licentiousness, and because of them the way of truth will be reviled" (2 Pet 2:1-2). And people wonder why there is a Vatican investigation of women religion in the U.S.?

Comments

[sarah]

umm, how are these sisters able to remain in the religious life? I would think that the Church would do something about it. They need to cancel the organization and repent. They will remain in my prayers.

[PNP, OP]

There's nothing Catholic or Dominican about Quinn's nonsense...

Fr. Philip, OP

[Carl E. Olson]

I completely agree, Father Philip. Unfortunately, her rotten actions smear the good name of the many good Dominicans who receive little or no attention for holy lives. But this situation begs the question: why has this woman been able to parade around for decades as a Catholic and a Dominican? It is now reported that "Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, Bishop J. Peter Sartain of Joliet, Ill., and Bishop Robert Morlino of Madison, Wis., will meet to discuss the scandal and what remedial steps to take." But Sr. Quinn's dissent from Church teaching has been known since at least the 1980s, if not earlier.