Speaking at the Democratic National Convention on Sept. 5th, 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 United States 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 definitely not true that the bishops or even most nuns in the U.S. support the ACA.
The ACA and its associated HHS mandate that will 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 U.S.
— Sister Mary Rose Reddy, Rochester, N.H.
