Here we see something really scandalous and outrageous; an American Dominican nun who acts as an abortion clinic escort, guarding women against the possibility that pro-life demonstrators might encourage them to change their minds.
I am not sure of the exact status of the Sinsinawa Dominicans; I believe they are a federation whose motherhouse is in Miluwakee, but don't know if they are independent or nominally answerable to the archbishop there.
Fr. Zuhlsdorf relays the story from Lifesite. American Papist also has it but I couldn't get that link to work
wdtprs.com/blog/2009/10/reason-74659-for-the-apostolic-visitation-of-us-women-religious/Nun Volunteering as Abortion Clinic Escort in Illinois
Sr. Quinn’s prioress said in an email response to LSN that the nun sees her volunteer activity as "accompanying women who are verbally abused by protestors."
By Kathleen Gilbert
HINSDALE, Illinois, October 23, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A Dominican nun has been seen frequenting an abortion facility in Illinois recently – but not, as one might expect, to pray for an end to abortion or to counsel women seeking abortions, but to volunteer as a clinic escort.
Local pro-life activists say that they recognized the escort at the ACU Health Center as Sr. Donna Quinn, a nun outspokenly in favor of legalized abortion, after seeing her photo in a Chicago Tribune article.
"I’ve called her sister several times, and she never responded," local pro-lifer John Bray told LifeSiteNews.com (LSN). "But it’s her."
[...]
Sr. Donna Quinn, OP, is renowned in the Chicago area as an advocate for legalized abortion and other liberal issues.
In 1974 she co-founded the organization Chicago Catholic Women, which lobbied the USCCB on a feminist platform before it dissolved in 2000. She is now a coordinator of the radically liberal National Coalition of American Nuns (NCAN), which stands in opposition against the Catholic Church’s position on abortion, homosexuality, contraception, and the male priesthood.
[...]
In a 2002 address to the Women’s Studies in Religion Program at Harvard Divinity School, Sr. Quinn described how she came to view the teachings of her Church as "immoral": "I used to say: ‘This is my Church, and I will work to change it, because I love it,’" she said. "Then later I said, ‘This church is immoral, and if I am to identify with it I’d better work to change it.’ More recently, I am saying, ‘All organized religions are immoral in their gender discriminations.’" [Then why not just get out?]
Quinn called gender discrimination "the root cause of evil in the Church, and thus in the world," and said she remained in the Dominican community simply for "the sisterhood."
Sr. Patricia Mulcahey, OP, Quinn’s Prioress at the Sinsinawa Dominican community, [UGH…. I always recoil in disgust when I see the name "Sinsinawa". We were tortured by a man-hating Sinsinawa OP in seminary. I am not surprised this other pro-abortion sister is from their group. I am sure their founder, Ven. Fr. Mazzucelli – who cause for beatification is waiting for a miracle – is at high rpm’s in his tomb. That would be a miracle! Convert his errant daughters to Catholicism!] said in an email response to LSN that the nun sees her volunteer activity as "accompanying women who are verbally abused by protestors. Her stance is that if the protestors were not abusive, she would not be there."
Though Sr. Mulcahey claimed that her sisters "support the teachings of the Catholic Church," she declined to comment on Quinn’s public protest of Catholic Church teaching.
[...]
American Papist also notes the story
www.americanpapist.com/2009/10/outrageous-nun-volunteers-at-abortion.htmlEd Peters outlines what action might be taken under canon law. Note his comment on his experince of such "escorts" at the end:
www.canonlaw.info/2009/10/canonical-options-in-sr-donna-quinn.html...Chances are slim that anything will be done about her because, well, such are the times we live in: a Catholic religious can act for years as an abortion clinic escort and cause barely a ripple in her religious community, the local church, or in Rome. History won't believe it.
But a slim chance is still some chance, and the moral poverty of the age is no bar to our doing what we can in response to such conduct. I can at least point out the possibility of canonical consequences for Sr. Donna.
1. Canon 695 calls for the mandatory dismissal of a religious guilty of the delict of abortion described in Canon 1398. A case can be made, I think, that Sr. Donna is an accomplice to abortion under Canon 1329, which, in turn, might bring her within the scope of the dismissal provision of Canon 695. The novelty of nuns serving as murder mistresses at abortion clinics means that there is not much jurisprudence for such cases, I grant, but it is still a theory worth exploring.
If, however, a more direct process is desired, Canon 696 seems a better place to start.
2. Under Canon 696, dismissal from religious life can be imposed against one who gives "grave scandal arising from culpable behavior". This unusually broad language allows superiors to move against a religious whose specific conduct could not have been predicted when the revised Code was being drafted (perhaps, like Sr. Donna's, it could scarcely have been imagined!), but which we now know can be both imagined and committed. So, to the extent that conducting babies to their death is scandalous behavior for a religious woman, Sr. Donna deserves dismissal.
3. Various provisions of penal law, for example Canon 1369 (authorizing a "just penalty" against those who use the means of social communication to gravely injure good morals or to excite contempt against religion or the Church) are applicable, I suggest, in response to the kind of verbiage that Sr. Donna directs from time to time against religion in general and the Catholic Church in particular. But again, all of this seems self-evident.
Or it would, in any other age. +++
Over at AmericanPapist, a good question was posted: "The motherhouse (commonly called 'The Mound') is located in Sinsinawa - the Diocese of Madison. Donna Quinn lives in the Archdiocese of Chicago and the abortion clinic she is 'volunteering' at is located in the Diocese of Joliet. So that leaves a question, Which Bishop should take action?"
Of course, religious superiors should take action regarding a member's basic status, but if they fail to act satisfactorily, arch/diocesan authority can still move in regard to potential delicts. Penal jurisdiction is in the alternative, so all three arch/dioceses would have jurisdiction to proceed here, Madison (because Sr. Donna has domicile there per cc. 103 and 1408), Chicago (because she has at least quasi-domicile there by cc. 102, 103, and 1408), and Joliet (because it is the place of the delict to which she might be an accomplice per c. 1412).
The problem is never one of finding an authority able to act - - canon law can always do that; the problem is finding an authority willing to act.
Post Script, October 29: In an exchange over at Jimmy Akin's website, I posted something that might be of interest to my blog readers. The context is the ridiculousness of Sr. Donna's claim that people need protection from pro-lifers. My comment was as follows:
The most hateful, foul, vitriolic harangue ever -- and I mean ever -- launched on me was delivered by an abortion clinic escort while I stood with literature in the parking lot outside of an abortion clinic, oh, must have been 30 years ago now. As the venom (I have no other word for it) spewed forth, I'd have sworn, I saw EVIL in the woman's eyes. It deeply frightened me. I thought I was in a scene from The Exorcist, facing Satan. Several people who saw it happen ran over to help me walk away. I slumped down on some steps for several minutes, and I couldn't even think. I don't think I have ever gone to an abortion clinic since without asking for the special protection of my Guardian Angel.