I’m not Catholic, but looking at the current discourse among social media influencers and the media, the focus is either on…
1. The Media Left – Outrage over Catholic Charities losing an $11 million refugee housing contract. President Trump ‘insulting’ Pope Leo.
2. The Woke Tucker Wing – Outrage over bombing Islamic terrorists in Iran and Lebanon. Trump insulting Islam.
… meanwhile left behind is this story that actually involves religious persecution of Catholics by the government.
A group of nuns who offer hospice care in New York is suing the state over its gender identity mandate, citing concerns that their employees are facing fines and jail time under the law because they cannot violate their religious beliefs.
The Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne offer end-of-life care for the needy at their Rosary Hill Home in Hawthorne, NY. They’re fighting the state’s 2023 LBGTQ+ gender mandate with the help of the First & Fourteenth religious liberty law firm and the Catholic Benefits Association.
Martin Nussbaum, a partner at First & Fourteenth, told CBN News, “The Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne have for 125 years engaged in one apostolate or ministry, that is to provide comfort and skilled nursing care to indigent individuals suffering from incurable cancer.”
He points out that the nuns perform their ministry entirely as an act of religious charity, accepting no government funds, no Medicare, no Medicaid, no insurance, and no payment from the patients or their families.
“They just love them, and they view their patients and their work as serving Christ. When they serve the patients, they are serving Christ, just like set forth in the 25th chapter of Matthew’s gospel,” he said. “They have Catholic values and beliefs that call them to this work and guide the contours of this work.”
Nussbaum is a member of the Federalist Society. I wouldn’t be hugely surprised if he were Jewish.
This kind of case is a traditional religious liberty case. It goes right to the question whether you can be a practicing Catholic (or any kind of religious person) and still function in a society going woke, where leftist identity politics isn’t just there in the background, but that everyone is being forced to bow to.
Credible Catholic civil rights organizations like the Catholic League are standing strong on this, but unfortunately the media and social media noise machine is insisting that illegal aliens and Iran are more of a Catholic cause than the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne.
I’m not Catholic, but that seems very wrong to me.
