By James Tillman

HINSDALE, IL, December 10, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Sr. Donna Quinn of the Sinsinawa Dominican community, already notorious for volunteering as a clinic escort at a local abortion facility, has now come in out praise of the failure of the Nelson/Hatch/Casey amendment in the Senate, which would have restricted federal abortion funding. In addition, Quinn has described the Virgin Mary as “one of the first women in the New Testament to express Choice.”

On December 8, Sr. Quinn sent a thank-you note to those who lobbied their senators to vote against the Nelson-Hatch-Casey amendment, according to the Chicago Tribune.

“The Amendment lost today but now the work will be to take this Bill and come out with the same good news when the Senate and House work together,” Quinn stated.

She furthermore noted the date of the amendment’s defeat, the Catholic feast of the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, as propitious. “I was reminded of being with men and women from the Unitarian faith tradition last year,” Quinn said, “as they celebrated Mary who by her assent, they believed, was one of the first women in the New Testament to express choice.”

Responding to Quinn’s statement, Joseph Scheidler of the Pro-Life Action League told LifeSiteNews (LSN) that “to see any kind of connection between the Blessed Mother and abortion is not only heresy, but is a major insult to the attitude the Church has towards the Blessed Mother as the mother of our Savior.”

“The Blessed Mother is the pinnacle of life. She brought us the life-saver, the soul-saver.”

Sr. Quinn is well known as an advocate for legalized abortion and other liberal issues. She co-founded the feminist organization Chicago Catholic Women and is a coordinator in the radical National Coalition of American Nuns, which opposes the Catholic Church’s position on abortion, homosexuality, contraception, and the male priesthood.

More recently, she has been reprimanded by her Dominican community for acting as an abortion escort. She nevertheless remained defiant following the reprimand, claiming her actions kept women from “being physically assaulted” by pro-lifers, a claim pro-life counselors at the abortion facility have called “unbelievable” and “without basis.”

Defending her opposition of Catholic doctrine, Quinn’s letter quoted an article by writer Jeannine Gramick in the magazine “Conscience,” published by the pro-abortion organization “Catholics for Choice.”

“Faithful and respectful dissent is vital to the life of the church,” she wrote. “It enables the church community to think, to deliberate, to debate and to grow in relationship to one another and in relationship to God. We cannot afford to let our dissenters be silenced. They are a gift to our church.”

The article that Sr. Quinn quotes approvingly mentions Sr. Quinn’s own advocacy of abortion and radical feminism. Jeannine Gramick has herself refused to obey an order from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith silencing her for her attitude towards homosexuality; an award-winning documentary praised by several critics and shown at several film festivals casts her as a courageous rebel against the Church.

Nevertheless, to view such “dissent” as valuable is fundamentally misguided, according to Schiedler.

“She’s an example of a person who has replaced God with her own God,” he said of Quinn. “The first commandment says thou shalt not have strange God’s before me. He’s not talking about gold calves; he’s talking about people who become their own Gods, make up their own theology, and then follow it, probably with more determination than many people follow the true God.”

Further more, it is the very fact that she claims to be Catholic that garners her publicity: “If she were out of the Church she would be totally unknown – she stays in the Church to get publicity.”

An email to Sr. Quinn’s prioress had not been returned at press time.

To respectfully contact:

Cardinal Francis George
Office of the Archbishop
Archdiocese of Chicago
PO Box 1979
Chicago, IL. 60690-1979
Phone: 312-534-8230
E-Mail: [email protected]

Sr. Patricia Mulcahey, OP
Prioress – Sinsinawa Dominicans
E-mail: [email protected]

See related stories on LifeSiteNews.com

Nun Defiant Following Rebuke, but Stops Abortion Escorting
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/nov/09110501.html

Updated: Nun Abortion Clinic Escort Reprimanded – Dominican Congregation Apologizes for Scandal
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/nov/09110302.html

Nun Volunteering as Abortion Clinic Escort in Illinois
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/oct/09102302.html