The Little Sisters are living the Gospel, but the government — federal and state — is fixated on sex.
The Little Sisters of the Poor are still asking for Obamacare relief — 15 years later. In 2020, the Supreme Court did rule in their favor — protecting their religious liberty — but Pennsylvania and New Jersey are not on board. (Yes, despite some Philadelphia Declaration of Independence celebrations a few days ago that might have suggested otherwise.) So today, there was another court hearing — in the Third Circuit, in, yes, Philadelphia.
After appearing in court for the Little Sisters, Mark Rienzi, president of the nonprofit Becket law firm, issued this statement:
For fifteen years, government officials have stepped into the ring with the Little Sisters and gotten pummeled every time. . . . You’d think Pennsylvania and New Jersey would know better by now—but some bureaucrats are just gluttons for punishment. We’re confident the court will deliver yet another victory protecting the Little Sisters’ ministry to the most vulnerable.
You know, if it weren’t for the sexual revolution and the chaos it unfurled on humanity, the Little Sisters, who care for the elderly poor, wouldn’t have this ordeal ongoing. The Little Sisters are living the Gospel, but the government — federal and state — is fixated on sex.
We could be heralding the Little Sisters and learning from them — experts on elder care and palliative care. Remember Covid, when so many lost loved ones in the mess of those first few weeks — including in Pennsylvania. Calls were made that put elderly patients in danger — and dead — in senior-care centers.
Not so at the Little Sisters’ homes.
Let the Little Sisters of the Poor be the Little Sisters of the Poor. They are Catholic nuns serving the Lord they’ve given their lives to radically, and His people. Why do we have to be stuck on contraception and abortion-inducing drugs? Why can’t religious liberty simply be our unified rallying cry, and here, behind women who make the world better?
The treatment of the Sisters reminds me of the cruelty toward Amy Coney Barrett and her family. And, today, I can’t help but think of Lyndsey Fifield, too. There is a common misogynistic root here, one that is at the essence of the abortion industry.
There are women in America who are not represented by Planned Parenthood. (There are also women who were never born in America because of Planned Parenthood.) They have voices, too. Their freedom matters, too. And we might just be better off on many fronts listening to them.