Nuns for Obama

By Michael J.W. Stickings

More specifically, Catholic nuns for Obamacare:

A group of Catholic nuns is urging Congress to pass health care reform, breaking ranks with bishops who say the current bill does not do enough to block federal money from being used to fund abortions.

"We write to urge you to cast a life-affirming 'yes' vote when the Senate health care bill (H.R. 3590) comes to the floor of the House for a vote as early as this week," a group of nuns wrote in a letter to members of Congress released Wednesday by NETWORK, progressive Catholic advocacy organization.

NETWORK said the 55 signatories represent tens of thousands of Catholic nuns in the United States.

The letter argues that the legislation "will make crucial investments in community health centers that largely serve poor women and children."

"And despite false claims to the contrary, the Senate bill will not provide taxpayer funding for elective abortions," the letter reads. "It will uphold longstanding conscience protections and it will make historic new investments – $250 million – in support of pregnant women. This is the REAL pro-life stance, and we as Catholics are all for it."

The nuns are siding with the Catholic Health Association, a group representing Catholic hospitals, which offered its support for reform earlier this week.

Well, there you go. Those are some enlightened nuns, and while I may disagree with their views on abortion, I applaud them for breaking from "the powerful U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which stepped up its criticism of the bill in recent days."

The bishops, and the rest of the Roman Catholic Church, should get over it. Even without the Stupak anti-abortion amendment, the Senate bill isn't pro-choice legislation, it's legislation designed to make an unjust system more just and an unfair system more fair.

I realize there are elements of American Catholicism that are deeply loyal to the Republican Party and that generally have their heads up their asses (see, especially, William Donohue and the Catholic League), but shouldn't the Church welcome reform that, if enacted, would take life-and-death power away from the insurance industry and provide coverage, or better coverage to those who already have it, to tens of millions of Americans? Even with conservatives prevailing in the Vatican (Ratzinger et al.) and in the College of Cardinals (which turned Ratzinger into Benedict XVI), isn't there enough progressivism in the Church to guide it away from extremist American conservatism, much of which is some fanatical combination of libertarian and fundamentalist?

One would think. At least the nuns seem to get it.