Its the Priests Vs the Nuns Again, Melinda Henneberger, Politics Daily, March 18, 2010

It's the Priests Vs. the Nuns -- Again

By Melinda Henneberger
Politics Daily
March 18, 2010

http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/03/18/its-the-priests-vs-the-nuns-again/

On the issue of health care reform, it's the priests vs. the nuns, with a coalition of the Catholic sisters who lead 60 different religious orders backing the proposed law, and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops opposing it. Both camps are strongly anti-abortion, mind you, yet read the reform differently on that issue.

The split along gender lines -- an echo of the old Catholic school system of seating the girls on one side of the room and the boys on the other -- is certainly nothing new; in fact, women have been challenging their brothers in Christ at least as far back as Catherine of Siena, and in our own time and place for as long as I can recall. (Remember Sister Teresa Kane and her posse of 50 fellow nuns personally standing up to John Paul II in 1979 on the rule that only men may be ordained as priests?)

Through the years, they've also paid a price for their outspokenness, and in fact are currently under investigation by the Vatican for what Rome's lead inquisitor said were "certain irregularities" in their obedience to the church as well as what he called "a certain 'feminist' spirit."

Frankly, I think the sisters -- and the church -- could use a little feminist spirit. When I was growing up, the nuns in my parish cleaned the priest's house -- a responsibility on top of their day jobs teaching and running the school. In seventh grade, when I asked our lay teacher why, if Jesus washed his friends' feet and the priests were the living representative of Jesus, they didn't wash the nuns' floors instead of the other way around, she just shook her head.

Although we have had the Catholic sisters to thank for running inner-city schools and hospitals in neighborhoods that are not exactly overserved, the gratitude from the guys has not always been obvious. But perhaps the silver lining in the sisters' lack of political clout is that this has left them freer to speak truth to power.

To me, what we see in two of the biggest news stories right now -- health care reform and the German priest sex abuse scandal tapping right on the door of the Vatican -- are two illustrations of the importance of women's voices in the church. If health care reform passes, it will be in no small part because Catholic nuns respectfully but plainly made themselves heard.

Whereas in case after case of clerical sex abuse, we hear how sisters -- like the ones who were busy cleaning the priests' house -- were not heeded when they tried to make known their concerns about inappropriate behavior. As a columnist in L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican's own daily, put it last week, more women in decision-making roles in the church might have helped remove the "veil of masculine secrecy" that covered up abuse cases. (The writer was, no surprise, a woman.)

On health care, the bishops still have the opportunity this week to do what they are so often accused of not doing -- listening to women. But will they take this opportunity to change that, um, habit?

It's not looking good: The bishops continue to argue that the Senate version of the proposed health care reform "expands federal funding and the role of the federal government in the provision of abortion procedures.'' That's in direct contradiction to the nuns, who represent tens of thousand of sisters, many of whom are care providers. They sent a letter urging members of Congress to "cast a life-affirming 'yes' vote when the Senate health care bill...comes to the floor of the House."

Sister Carol Keehan, who heads the national association of Catholic hospitals, stated that while she shares the concern of the bishops, she does not share their conclusions: "We said there could not be any federal funding for abortions, and there had to be strong funding for maternity care, especially for vulnerable women," she said. "The bill now being considered allows people buying insurance through the exchange to use federal dollars in the form of tax credits and their own dollars to buy a policy that covers their health care. If they choose a policy with abortion coverage, then they must write a separate personal check for the cost of that coverage." To her, this does not add up to federal financing of abortion.

As Politics Daily's religion writer, David Gibson, has reported, the bishops aren't budging "despite the decision of their onetime allies, the national association of Catholic hospitals, to endorse the legislation, and in the face of mounting evidence that the basis of their opposition -- a belief that the bill would finance abortion -- is faulty." ("If anything," Sara Rosenbaum, a professor of health law and policy at George Washington University, told Gibson, the Senate language "bends over backwards to make it clear that there is no abortion funding." And a new study published in the latest New England Journal of Medicine shows that abortion rates declined during the first two years that Massachusetts implemented a near-universal health coverage program much like the nationwide plan currently before Congress.)

It would be hard for the bishops -- hard for anyone, for that matter -- to reverse themselves on a position they've taken so publicly and argued so passionately -- and I hope that that's not what's keeping them from following the sisters' lead on health care. But as they have been pushing for health care reform for decades, they wouldn't be doing the nuns' bidding. They'd just have to be willing to take "yes" for an answer.