WSJ columnist calls New York mandates a new front in ‘war on nuns’
John J. Miller argues that efforts to force Catholic sisters to act against their faith threaten religious freedom far beyond their ministries.
Catholic sisters caring for the poor, sick, and dying have become recurring targets of progressive officials wielding state power to impose their vision of virtue on ministries that refuse to compromise their faith, a Wall Street Journal columnist argued this week.
In an Aug. 11 opinion piece, John J. Miller focused on New York’s demands on the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne, arguing that the state is attempting to force the sisters to violate their religious principles. The sisters provide free care to poor patients with terminal cancer at the privately funded Rosary Hill Home.
“Woke progressives have chosen to tyrannize [the sisters] because the left has so much to gain,” Miller wrote. “If it can make nuns abandon their religious principles and kneel to the state, then it can force anybody to submit.”
As Zeale News previously reported, the sisters filed a federal lawsuit April 6 challenging New York requirements concerning preferred pronouns, room assignments, and restroom access based on residents’ stated “gender identities.”
Miller attributed the state’s demands to what he called the “cult of transgenderism,” pointing to letters the New York Department of Health began sending the sisters two years ago directing them to comply with their requirements.
“Rather than thanking the sisters for their kindness to the dying poor, the letters demanded that the sisters respect the ‘gender identity or expression’ of their patients,” Miller wrote. “It told the sisters not to keep males out of the ladies’ room or separate bedrooms by biological sex.”
He added that the state directed the sisters to use preferred pronouns, permit cross-dressing, recognize a “right to consensual sexual relations,” including outside marriage, and complete “cultural competency” training.
The sisters risk fines, loss of Rosary Hill’s operating license, and possible imprisonment if they refuse to comply, according to the piece.
As Zeale News previously reported, the sisters sued New York seeking a religious exemption from the state’s requirements after an earlier request went unanswered, according to Miller.
Miller called the Dominican Sisters’ case “a new front in the left’s forever war on nuns,” pointing to years of legal battles over government mandates that conflict with the sisters’ Catholic beliefs.
Among them, he cited the Little Sisters of the Poor’s challenge to an Obama-era requirement that their health plan cover contraception.
“The sisters eventually prevailed at the Supreme Court, in what should have been a decisive victory and a happy ending,” Miller wrote. “Yet their legal battles have dragged on.”
Those disputes now include a separate lawsuit brought by the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne, the Little Sisters of the Poor, and two other religious orders challenging New York’s assisted-suicide law.
As Zeale News previously reported, a federal judge July 30 temporarily barred the state from requiring the Catholic plaintiffs to counsel patients about assisted suicide, help them qualify for the practice, or refer them to participating institutions while the case proceeds.
Miller closed his argument by returning to the care at the heart of the sisters’ ministry, citing words from the congregation’s founder, Mother Mary Alphonsa.
“We cannot cure our patients,” she said, “but we can assure the dignity and value of their final days and keep them comfortable and free of pain.”
