On August 5, New York State’s assisted-suicide law goes into effect — and so four communities of Catholic religious sisters have petitioned for a halt until they can get an exemption. Otherwise, they would be required to help patients access assisted suicide.
Today, I talked with Sister Catherine Marie Kauth, a Hawthorne Dominican who works at Rosary Hill Home just outside of New York City, and Benjamin Fleshman, a lawyer at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, the public-interest organization that is representing the sisters.
The other communities involved are the Carmelites for the Aged and Infirm, the Missionary Sisters of St. Benedict, and the Little Sisters of the Poor — as well as the Diocese of Rockville Centre. Yes, that’s the same Little Sisters of the Poor who are still in court over the Obama administration’s mandate regarding the contraception-and-abortion drug. Once again, the good sisters are fighting for our first freedom.
As a sidebar, the Hawthorne Dominicans were founded by a convert to Catholicism, Rose Hawthorne, the daughter of Nathaniel. More information on their community can be found here.
And watch our conversation here:
