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
October 23, 2009
LifeSiteNews.com

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." 

Amy Keane, a pro-life witness for 11 years, says Quinn has acted as escort for "six years, at least."  Keane described one incident in which Quinn began shouting at the pro-lifers as they spoke to a woman about to enter the abortion facility. 

"[Quinn] was so angry, and burst out very loudly so everyone could hear: 'Look at these men, telling these women what to do with their bodies!'" said Keane.  "She was so angry, that it really took all of us aback."  Keane says that the group was peaceful, and that the men present were not among those engaging the woman.

"For those of us who are Catholic, to have a member of a religious order so blatantly - it is so disheartening. It really is," said Keane.  "She's participating actively in abortion.  That is what is so disturbing for us."

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.

While LifeSiteNews.com (LSN) was unable to reach Sr. Quinn for comment, NCAN's Sr. Beth Rindler confirmed to LSN that Quinn is still a member of their group, which favors unrestricted legalized abortion and disagrees with the teaching that abortion is intrinsically evil.  "We respect women, and believe that they make moral decision, and so we respect their decisions," Rindler explained.

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.'"

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, 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.

Joe Scheidler of the Pro-Life Action League says Quinn came in contact with his own office in 1982, when she and a group of other pro-aborts picketed his building on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade.

"She figures it's part of her religion to take these women in and protect them, and get them abortions," said Scheidler of Quinn's recent activity.  "Something dreadful has happened to make a Catholic nun become an escort at an abortion clinic - that's the lowest form you can reach, where you escort a woman with a living child in her into a place to have the child killed, and to ruin that woman's soul." 

"If I didn't even believe in the humanity of the child - which of course would be crazy - even if I didn't, I would fight abortion for the sake of the women," Scheidler added.  "They miss that baby, and they can't get it back. They never can."

To respectfully express concern (See: LSN Guidelines for Effective Communication):

Cardinal Francis George
Archdiocese of Chicago
835 N. Rush St.
Chicago, IL 60611-2030
312-534-8200

Sr. Patricia Mulcahey, OP
Prioress - Sinsinawa Dominicans
E-mail: Spatmul@aol.com

LifeSiteNews ...

Liberal source not recommended, but here's an interesting excerpt:

In a newspaper ad paid for by Catholics for Choice and published in the New York Times on October 7, 1984, Catholics (including 24 nuns, 2 priests, and 2 brothers) ran under the headline “A Diversity of Opinions Regarding Abortion Exists Among Committed Catholics” and argued that Catholic politicians who disagreed with the official position should not be punished.

Signers included nuns who were members of the National Coalition of American Nuns who had come out in favor of public funding for abortion in 1976. Prominent among them were Srs. Margaret Traxler, Marjorie Tuite, and Donna Quinn; the three had impressive histories of civil rights activism. Traxler had marched with Dr. King; opposition to US imperialism in Central America was Tuite’s passion and grassroots activism for women on welfare drove Quinn. Quinn and I shared some Grand Marnier at a Religious Coalition for Reproductive Rights organizing conference a couple weeks ago. While breathing in the fumes, she expressed disdain for the Notre Dame anti-Obama protest and remembered her own picketing of Reagan at Notre Dame. Sister Maureen Fiedler, who had fasted for the ERA and five other sisters of Loretto signed the CFFC ad as well.

Academic theologians Daniel Maguire (who co-wrote the ad, along with me and his then-wife Marjorie) and Rosemary Ruether were signers, as were Srs. Margaret Farley and the late Ann Carr. Farley, an ethicist, had analyzed the issue of sterilization in Catholic hospitals and rendered the opinion that ethics required the hospitals to offer the procedure postpartum, as it would subject women to greater risk if they waited and had a sterilization months later. The order was threatened with “receivership” by the Vatican if they implemented the opinion and they backed down.

The Vatican also threatened the signers of the NY Times ad and demanded the nuns, priests, and brothers retract or face dismissal from their orders. The men immediately requested that their signatures be removed. The nuns stood firm; only one requested her name be removed.

Complex negotiations ensued—most of the nuns wrote something reassuring to the Vatican and none were dismissed. They have by and large continued to be publicly pro-choice.

The Best and the Brightest of the Catholic Bad Girls

Wow. She's a doozy!

 
"Sister" Donna Quinn, O.P.

Donna Quinn (Natl Coalition of American Nuns/Edu), (Zip code: 60465) $250, SCHAKOWSKY FOR CONGRESS on 04/20/07
http://www.city-data.com/elec2/elec-PALOS-HILLS-IL.html

Donna Quinn, Retired Not Employed, Palos Hills, IL, $260, Hillary Clinton Campaign
http://fundrace.huffingtonpost.com/neighbors.php?type=city&city=Palos+Hills

Donna Quinn, Not Employed/Retired, Palos Hills, IL, $200, Hillary Clinton for President
http://www.campaignmoney.com/political/contributions/donna-quinn.asp?cycle=08

She's been discussed before at FreeRepublic.  In 2004:
http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/1123215/posts

Benedict’s Benediction
by Bill Hennessy
April 13, 2008
www.Hennessyview.com

Pope Benedict XVI will receive the highest honor the United States can bestow upon on a visiting head of state: the President will meet him at the airport.  Afterwards, the White House will host the largest gathering of Bush’s presidency, as over 12,000 guests will receive His Holiness.  Quite an honor. 

Sadly, Catholic hate mobs will be out in force, too.  Excommunicates who believe they know God’s designs for the church better than the Pope will travel from St. Louis to embarrass themselves and the church they refuse to obey.

Why would a Methodist president show more respect for the Pope than cradle Catholics? 

Pride.  Donna Quinn, a former nun excommunicated recently by St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke, wants to be a priest.  Her pride drove her to separate from her church.  Presidents are proud men at some level, but this one is not so proud as to blind him.

Benedict continues a rejuvenation of the church that John Paul II began.  In this reform, the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s begin receding.  The old prayers are returning as the church remembers that ancient admonition:  lex orandi, lex credendi.  

Fr. John Corapi, a preacher every Catholic should know well, tells of a meeting late in the Second Vatican Council.  The Cardinals took turns extolling the virtues of "fresh air."  The idea was to renew the church by opening the windows, metaphorically. 

As Corapi tells it, an old French Cardinal sat and listened for hours.  As the proceedings neared a close, he rose to speak.  He said, "Openness is good, and we could all use some fresh air.  But be careful.  When you throw open the windows, you might let in fresh air.  You might let in every stench from the gutter, too."

Donna Quinn’s perverted, disordered views, her self-importance, her pride, result from those gutter stenches that wafted into our churches when we threw open the windows.  The poor woman never received the education, the formation that the church knows to give.  Like so many modern Catholics, she learned a disordered catechism penned by men, not by God.  The spirit that moved the church’s leaders were not of Heaven, but of profanity.

Thank God that our president will give Pope Benedict his due.  May the world, and particularly Catholics, see his visit as the chance to return to the church Christ ordained, following the shepherd He left to tend His flock.  And may Donna Quinn and I be in that number.  

HennessysView ...

Planned Parenthood's Day of Prayer
By Jill Stanek
September 17, 2007

...  A person of interest to my Catholic friends would be Donna Quinn, a feminist Dominican nun, who achieved infamy in Chicago Catholic circles in 2005 for breaking a communion wafer just handed her by a priest at Holy Name Cathedral and handing half to a Rainbow Sash homosexual protester.

Poking around a little, I found most members of this group are long-standing allies of PP and its agenda, such as promoting comprehensive sex ed, fighting religious hospitals that do not want to distribute the morning-after pill, etc. This is apparently the usual list of suspects PP calls on when it wants to put a collar around abortion.  ...

Jill Stanek ...

Update: Nun Abortion Clinic Escort Reprimanded - Dominican Congregation Apologizes for Scandal
By Peter J. Smith
November 3, 2009
LifeSiteNews.com

HINSDALE, Illinois, November 3, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A congregation of US Dominican nuns has publicly apologized for the scandal caused by one of its members acting as a volunteer escort at a Chicago area abortion facility, who now faces severe canonical penalties including excommunication and the possibility of dismissal. 

LifeSiteNews.com (LSN) first broke the story about Sr. Donna Quinn, O.P., a Dominican nun who is outspokenly in favor of legalized abortion, who had been identified by pro-life witnesses as an escort for the ACU Health Clinic.

Sr. Quinn's religious community, the Wisconsin-based Sinsinawa Dominican Congregation, admitted in a press release posted on their website that they were informed of the allegation several months ago, and, after having completed a period of investigation, the Congregation's leaders have informed the pro-abortion sister that "her actions are in violation of her profession as a Dominican religious."

The congregation reports that its leaders "are working with Sr. Donna to resolve the matter appropriately" and regret the public scandal caused by her actions.

The Sinsinawa Dominicans took the opportunity to re-affirm unequivocally their commitment to the Catholic Church's core teachings, as well as the necessity to witness to the sanctity and dignity of all human life from conception to natural death.

"We as Sinsinawa Dominican women are called to proclaim the Gospel through the ministry of preaching and teaching to participate in the building of a holy and just society," read a statement issued on behalf of the congregation.

"As Dominican religious, we fully support the teaching of the Catholic Church regarding the dignity and value of every human life from conception to natural death. We believe that abortion is an act of violence that destroys the life of the unborn. We do not engage in activity that witnesses to support of abortion."

ChicagoCatholicNews.com reports that three Catholic hierarchs are meeting to discuss what remedial action must be taken to correct Sr. Quinn: Cardinal Francis George of the Archdiocese of Chicago, Bishop J. Peter Sartain of Joliet, Illinois and Bishop Robert Morlino of Madison, Wisconsin. An anonymous aide to Morlino said the three were involved since Sr. Quinn's motherhouse is located within Bishop Morlino's territory, but Sr. Quinn resides in the Chicago Archdiocese, while the abortion clinic where she gave formal assistance to abortion as an escort is situated within Sartain's diocese.

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). Earlier in July, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith reiterated the penalty of excommunication applied to all parties formally cooperating in abortion, emphasizing that the penalty was an act of mercy, because in that way the Church "makes clear the gravity of the crime committed, the irreparable harm done to the innocent who is put to death, as well as to the parents and the whole of society."

All three prelates will have to take that matter into consideration when they consult, but canon lawyer Edward Peters on his blog says that Sr. Quinn faces the possibility of dismissal from her order if matters are not reconciled.

"Canon 695 calls for the mandatory dismissal of a religious guilty of the delict of abortion described in Canon 1398," writes Peters. The case would be made that Sr. Quinn is an accomplice to abortion under Canon 1329, which would then make Canon 695 applicable.

"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," Peters remarked.

Another possibility would then be Canon 696, Peters continues, "dismissal from religious life can be imposed against one who gives 'grave scandal arising from culpable behavior.'"

That leaves either Sr. Quinn's superiors or the three bishops with the option to pursue Sr. Quinn's dismissal in the Church's courts. With American Archbishop Raymond Burke as the head of the Apostolic Signatura, the Church's supreme court of appeal for canon law cases, it is doubtful that Sr. Quinn could acquit herself of the charges in light of long-standing evidence regarding her support for abortion.

Chicago-area pro-life witnesses 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.


See previous coverage by LifeSiteNews.com:

Nun Volunteering as Abortion Clinic Escort in Illinois 

On procured abortion - Clarification from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith

LifeSiteNews ...

You are absolutely correct.  When you consider that the intent is not merely premature birth, but death of the child, the appropriate term would be feticide or infanticide.

Webster's 1913 dictionary:
A*bor"tion (#), n. [L. abortio, fr. aboriri.]
1. The act of giving premature birth; particularly, the expulsion of the human fetus prematurely, or before it is capable of sustaining life; miscarriage; It is sometimes used for the offense of procuring a premature delivery, but strictly the early delivery is the abortion, "causing or procuring abortion" is the full name of the offense. Abbott. [6]

Webster's 1913 dictionary:
Fe"ti*cide (? ∨ ?), n. [Written also fœticide.] [Fetus + L. caedere to kill.] (Med. & Law)
The act of killing the fetus in the womb; the offense of procuring an abortion.

Webster's 1828 dictionary:
INFANT''ICIDE, n. [Low L. infanticidium; infans, an infant, and coedo, to kill.]
1. The intentional killing of an infant.
2. The slaughter of infants by Herod. Matt.2.
3. A slayer of infants.

Letters to the Editor - Nun Abortion Clinic Escort
November 4, 2009
LifeSiteNews.com

If you believe for one second that the Sinsinawa Domincan religious sisters, the community of the pro abort Sr. Donna Quinn, are truly repentent over the years of involvement of one of their own in the blood trade of abortion, you have been deceived.

I was the president of the parish advisory council at St. Patrick Cathedral Parish in Ft. Worth, Texas in 2004. I am very familiar with the Sinsinawa Domincan priory and its deep involvement with abortion and radical feminism.

A representative of the Sinsinawa Dominicans was scheduled to come to the cathedral in August of 2004 to give an appeal allegedly for the priory's mission work. A few weeks prior to the date of the appeal, several council members did some research  on this group of sisters, much of it coming form the community's own web site.

We discovered that the Sinsinawa Dominicans were public supporters of abortion (especially through their very public institutional support of the Convention To End Discrimination Against Women  i.e. CEDAW), radical feminism, the gay rights movement, and an assortment of other positions in conflict with Catholic moral teaching. The Sinsinawa Dominicans, as largely revealed by information which they put out themselves on their website, are in sad shape morally.

The parish council pleaded with the then pastor to cancel their appearance at the cathedral since to allow them to ask for money for their causes would be deceptive at best, and fraudulent at worst. We produced an entire file of documents to prove the involvement of the Sinsinawa Dominicans in everything we alleged. The evidence was tight, and was never controverted. But the pastor would have none of it. The then bishop of this diocese also refused to cancel their appearance.

So on a Sunday morning in August of 2004 one of the radical pro abort Sinsenawa Domincans stood at the lecturn in the sanctuary of the cathedral to lie to us and to filch money from the faithful at the cathedral to advance their heretical agenda that includes, among other things, radical feminism and international expansion of abortion on demand.

Sr. Donna needs to be booted out of the Dominicans, and the Sinsinawa community needs to be investigated. The prioress' claim of sorrow over the actions of Sr. Donna, whose actions have been fully known for years, are the sounds of a failed leader who has been caught in her failure and wants to avoid further investigation. Don' t believe it.

LifeSiteNews ...

Nun Defiant Following Rebuke, but Stops Abortion Escorting
By Kathleen Gilbert
November 5, 2009
LifeSiteNews.com

HINSDALE, Illinois, November 4, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Sr. Donna Quinn has reportedly ceased serving as an abortion escort at an Illinois abortion facility after receiving a reprimand from her Dominican community.  But according to statements published in the Chicago Tribune Wednesday, the nun remains defiant, claiming her abortion volunteerism protected women from "being physically assaulted" by pro-lifers.  At the same time, local pro-life advocates have responded by calling Quinn's portrayal of their peaceful protest activities "unbelievable" and "without basis."

Sr. Quinn has been active since the 1970s as a leading advocate of abortion, homosexuality, and ordination of women in the Catholic Church, and has been escorting outside the ACU Health Clinic in Hinsdale for at least six years.  When LifeSiteNews.com (LSN) learned of Quinn's activities as an abortion escort last month and contacted Quinn's prioress, Sinsinawa Dominican Sr. Patricia Mulcahey, Mulcahey defended Quinn's actions as "accompanying women who are verbally abused by protestors."   

After LSN's report received wide attention, however, the Sinsinawa Dominicans released a statement apologizing for Quinn's actions and indicating that Quinn had been told her actions were "in violation of her profession as a Dominican religious."

In a Wednesday Chicago Tribune article, Quinn said she is ending what she calls her "peacekeeping," insisting that "this is my decision."  "Respect for women's moral agency is of critical importance to me, and I look forward to continuing to dialogue with our congregation on these matters as a way of informing my actions as well as educating the community," she said.

She continued: "As a peacekeeper, my goal is to enable women to enter a reproductive health clinic in dignity and without fear of being physically assaulted. ... I am very worried that the publicity around my presence will lead to violations of every woman's right to privacy and expose them to further violence."

Quinn went on to urge pro-lifers who regularly witness at the Hinsdale Clinic, who she claimed to have "seen emotionally as well as physically threaten women," to cease what she called their "war against women."

Lynn Benz, who has been a sidewalk counselor at the Hinsdale clinic for nine years, had a very different account of the scene at the Hinsdale clinic, however.

Benz explained to LSN that, because the pro-life counselors are not allowed onto the clinic property, they cannot contact customers unless the customers themselves choose to approach them.  Benz says she usually stands in the middle of the driveway, which allows cars to drive by on either side or stop if they wish to speak to her.

"They can choose to talk to me, or they can pull in," said Benz.  "We don't enter the property.  How would we physically threaten them?  And why?  It would probably make them run faster for the door."

The other 25-45 people who regularly pray at the clinic, said Benz, peacefully pray the rosary off clinic property, and do not engage in shouting or protesting.  She called Sr. Quinn's statements accusing the group of intimidation tactics "unbelievable." 

"There are protests, there are different forms [of pro-life activism]," she said.  "We are not out there protesting.  We are out their praying and counseling - that's it.  It's not a protest forum.  That's not what we're about there. " 

John Bray, another regular pro-lifer at the clinic, agreed that "there's no way anybody has physically assaulted anybody going into the clinic," and called Quinn's claims "quite frankly without basis." 

"We are there to pray in a peaceful manner, which we do," he said. 

In terms of violence, Bray said that police have been involved, but not because of the pro-lifers' activities.  "About a year ago, we did call the police on one guy who got in my face and told me how many times he could kill me," he noted.

Bray says he considers his and other pro-lifers' presence as the true source of help for women, who often feel forced into abortions by their circumstances, or even by other people.  "We have witnessed some pretty sad situations over the years of the women crying and literally being dragged into the clinic by those who brought her," he said. 

See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:

Updated: Nun Abortion Clinic Escort Reprimanded - Dominican Congregation Apologizes for Scandal 

Nun Volunteering as Abortion Clinic Escort in Illinois  

LifeSiteNews ...