Obey or Leave

And so a nun quits

"In my heart, I'm still a nun." So said Agnes Mary Mansour last week as she announced plans to leave the Sisters of Mercy of the Union rather than step down as Michigan's director of social services.

Appointed to the job last December, Mansour, 52, originally had the blessing of Detroit's Archbishop Edmund Szoka, even though her agency would administer $5.7 million a year for abortions. But Szoka insisted that the nun state her opposition to such outlays, since the church holds abortion to be an "unspeakable crime." Although personally against abortion, Mansour declined to do so because she thinks that in fairness, poor women should get aid if abortion is legal. In February, Szoka demanded that she resign; when Mansour and her order resisted, the archbishop took the issue of disobedience to Rome.

Under orders from Pope John Paul II, the Vatican appointed Auxiliary Bishop Anthony Bevilacqua of Brooklyn, N.Y., a canon-law expert, to inform Mansour that she must obey Szoka and quit the state post.

Last week the bishop delivered the message in person. Mansour, who had hoped to solve the matter by getting a leave of absence from the order, pondered the situation for 80 minutes; she then received permission to leave the Sisters of Mercy in order to keep the state position.

Abandoning her 30-year vocation, Mansour protested: "Neither I nor my superiors were ever given the opportunity to appropriately present our case. I do not feel that I should or could witness to an obedience which, for me, would be irrational and blind." Added Mansour's former superior, Sister Maureen Mulcrone: "All men are making decisions. All women are being decided upon." Saying that they were "deeply saddened" and "profoundly disturbed" by the Vatican's decision, national leaders of the Sisters of Mercy are considering some sort of appeal, although chances of success are slim.

Rome's ruling on the Mansour case might raise a question for the president of the U.S. hierarchy, Archbishop John Roach of St. Paul-Minneapolis. In February he gave approval "at this time" for Sister Mary Madonna Ashton to become Minnesota's health commissioner.

Although she has nothing to do with abortions, Ashton does run a program on birth control, a practice that also violates Roman Catholic doctrine. But the ultimate issue in the Michigan case was simple obedience to the hierarchy, and Roach has not demanded that Ashton denounce public funding of birth control. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.