Our forever friend John J. Miller writes in the cool “Free Expression” section of the Wall Street Journal today about the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne and their current battle with New York State. They are one of the religious communities fighting for their right not to have to lead their patients to suicide under our new evil law.
The Dominican Congregation of St. Rose of Lima, as they are more formally known, were founded by Rose Hawthorne Lathrop, the daughter of writer Nathaniel Hawthorne. She was a Catholic convert, and she took the name Mother Mary Alphonsa when she entered religious life.
JJM writes:
The stakes are high for everyone. The sisters have a lot to lose. Woke progressives have chosen to tyrannize them because the left has so much to gain. If it can make nuns abandon their religious principles and kneel to the state, then it can force anybody to submit.
It’s tempting to wonder what Nathaniel Hawthorne would make of all this. Guessing how a person from the past would think about a modern problem is always speculative, but Hawthorne’s most famous novel has something to say about arrogant regimes. “The Scarlet Letter” describes the persecution of Hester Prynne — and the dangerous ways in which authorities who seek to impose their idea of virtue can sink to abusive coercion. It’s a cautionary tale for today’s secular puritans. Reading it could serve them well as an exercise in cultural competency.
(I talked with one of the sisters — and one of their Becket lawyers — by the way, here.)
Do share the link in gratitude to the sisters for their existence and their perseverance in this current religious-freedom battle with Albany and to the WSJ for running the piece.