People have told me that it is possible to be Catholic and pro-choice. People have told me, with straight faces, that the Church has not ruled on this yet. People have told me that the Gospel of Life is just an encyclical, from the Pope, true, but still just an encyclical. But I think maybe this situation takes the cake: a Dominican nun has been acting—volunteering, no less!—as a death-scort for an abortion clinic for six years.* Six years! She’s been outspoken in her opposition to key Catholic teachings and now I hope the bishops are going to do something that’s been needing to be done for a long time: take strong steps to denounce and punish such shameless and public defiance.
Formal cooperation with abortion is considered a grave sin in the Catholic Church that carries an automatic penalty of excommunication or excommunication latae sententiae as it is called within the Church’s canon law (Canon 1398)…[W]itnesses informed LifeSiteNews.com that Sr. Quinn has acted as escort for “six years, at least” and they were finally able to identify her after her picture appeared in an article for the Chicago Tribune.
Sr. Quinn has also spoken out in favor of legal abortion for decades and is a coordinator of the National Coalition of American Nuns (NCAN), an organization which opposes the Catholic Church’s position on abortion, homosexuality, contraception, and the male priesthood. —From the article on LifeSiteNews.com
Read the full article on LifeSiteNews.com
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Notes:
*Death-scort: an escort for those who are seeking entry into abortion mills; said death-scorts are often seen in groups of three or more and act to shield their potential victims from pro-life witnesses to the dignity and value of life. I have seen death-scorts surround their victims to keep them from being able to see or hear the message that might keep them from making the mistake of their lives…by taking the life of another. As volunteers, these folks often honestly believe that they are serving the best interests of the misinformed people they take by the hand to lead into the death mills. I have actually seen fear on their faces, which is only fueled by their insistence on thinking of us as “anti-abortion” instead of what we are, which is pro-life.
Catholic Heart and Mind 
But -??? she has been doing that for 6 years??
and her community has just said something about it — after the fact?? I’m not sure I understand that. It seems to me she would HAVE to TELL her superior what she is doing all along. >> “After investigating the allegation, congregation leaders have informed Sister Donna that her actions are in violation of her profession as a Dominican religious,” << I'm confused!!!!
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Hi, Betty. Yeah, I don’t know what’s going on in that community. The article says that it was pro-life workers who had seen her numerous times, but finally identified her from an article in a newspaper. Well, didn’t anybody have a camera, for heaven’s sake?!
Good grief, I find it hard to believe that it took this long for it to come to the congregation’s attention. Makes me wonder how faithful to the Church and her pro-life teachings those congregation leaders are. Lord, grant us vocations. We need religious who are serious about their spirituality and about being real followers of Christ!
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Also, I’m glad the Roman Catholic church is taking such a hardlined stance!
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Me too! I am proud of the bishops from what I know so far of the story. I’m not excited about anyone being excommunicated, but that step is never taken lightly and it isn’t necessarily permanent. It’s meant to be remedial in that, as the article itself states, the penalty is meant to drive home the seriousness of the offense committed.
I’m not writing this for you, JW, but for others who might read it: Excommunication is not, as I have heard people describe it, like being thrown out of a club. It’s more like being exiled from a family, in this case, from the Body of Christ. One who is excommunicated can no longer receive the Body and Blood of Christ. To a Catholic, this is truly an awful penalty. I would be brokenhearted.
But I would be so sorry for having done something so serious and so harmful to my soul as mortal sin, and so offensive to my Lord, my God and King, that I would rather walk across broken glass than to continue in my sin or to receive Holy Communion in such a state of mortal sin, which act only serves to compound the already serious and grave sin I had already committed. But I wouldn’t want to offend the Lord further. How could I do such a thing to my God and my King?
The Mass is the source and summit of our faith and the Eucharist is the heart of the Mass. Excommunication means no communication, no receiving of Holy Communion, no being a communicant. I like to receive Holy Communion every day. I can’t imagine how painful exclusion from the source and summit of my faith would be. Makes me want to cry to think about it.
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There is some hope out there, don’t be disheartened:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,571215,00.html
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Hi, JW :)
Don’t worry, I’m not really worried or disheartened. I just keep learning that the situation is larger and more, well, just more than I had realized. Blows my little mind all the time to hear people just absolutely not get it, just not get it at all, no matter how many times the Church speaks out and no matter how many things get written, no matter how COMMON SENSE one might think it is that IT’S WRONG TO MURDER A BABY.
Sorry, didn’t mean to shout, JW. I’ll check out that link you posted. (I’m behind on my news gathering, you know. It’s NaNoWriMo time and I’ve been lost in my own little world even more than usual today.)
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