The Nun vs. the Archbishop

By Richard N Ostling

Sister Agnes Mansour supervises Medicaid abortions

She is one of Michigan's most respected Roman Catholic nuns. She is also head of the state's department of social services, which spends more than $5 million a year on Medicaid abortions. Obedient to the teachings of her church, Sister Agnes Mary Mansour believes abortion is sinful. She also recognizes that others disagree, and feels that poor women are entitled to have publicly funded abortions so long as they are legal.

Archbishop Edmund Szoka of Detroit insists that a nun in such a public post must, as a minimum, declare her opposition to public financing of an operation that the Second Vatican Council deemed an "unspeakable crime." The resulting test of wills between nun and Archbishop is embarrassing Governor James Blanchard, dividing the state's Catholics, and seems destined to land at the Vatican for final judgment.

Blanchard, a Unitarian who is pro-choice on abortion, had good reason to choose Mansour to run the state's biggest agency. Her order, the Sisters of Mercy of the Union, runs 21 hospitals as well as other public service agencies in Michigan. Sister Agnes, who has a doctorate in biochemistry from Georgetown University, is an adept administrator who boosted both enrollment and endowments during the past decade as president of Detroit's Mercy College.*

Sister Agnes and Archbishop Szoka first clashed last year when she ran unsuccessfully in a Democratic congressional primary. The Pope clearly indicated that priests and nuns should not hold public office, and those who do so should, according to current canon law, first get permission from their bishop. Mansour did not request permission, and says she did not know this was necessary. During the primary she tartly dismissed canon law as an "old set of rules that are invoked when somebody wants to invoke them, and ignored when someone wants to ignore them."

When Governor-elect Blanchard selected Mansour in December to be director of the public services department, she asked both her order and Archbishop Szoka for permission to serve. The order readily approved. So did Szoka, but he states that he gave his support only on condition that Mansour would clarify her position on abortion so that it was in line with church teaching. Szoka noted that the nun "cannot control the laws of the state," and added: "To make a big issue of this one thing seems a bit sensational."

Mansour did not shift her position, contending that it was acceptable under church doctrine. Szoka came under increasing pressure from conservative Catholics and right-to-lifers for being too tolerant. On Feb. 23, Szoka ordered Mansour to resign. Several hundred nuns, as well as some priests, attacked his stand; there was even opposition to the Archbishop on Detroit's pastoral council, made up of priests, members of religious orders and laymen.

"It really hurts and disappoints me to find that I can't even find support here," Szoka told the council. "This is not a personal issue. It's not a man-woman issue. It's not a question of my trying to flaunt authority. It is a question of my absolute duty to stand for, to protect and to defend the doctrine of the church which has to do with human life." Szoka said that all he wanted from Mansour was a simple statement: "I am opposed to Medicaid funding for abortions."

Mansour was not about to make that concession when she appeared last week at her confirmation hearing in the Michigan senate. The nun testified, "I recognize that we live in a morally pluralistic society that government must be respectful of, and that my morality may not be someone else's morality." Evoking the memory of John F. Kennedy, she asked, "Are all Catholics once again suspect and possibly denied the privilege of public service?" Sister Agnes also said she saw no ecclesiastical "obstacle" to accepting the post. The senate confirmed her nomination, 28 to 9.

Mansour's appointment has also been backed by Bishop Kenneth Po-vish, whose diocese includes the state capital, Lansing, where Mansour works. Said he: "I would rather have a Sister of Mercy exercising whatever influence she can over that department than some feminist floozy who is an abortion advocate." Szoka, however, has maintained jurisdiction over Mansour, since her home convent is in Detroit.

The nun's superiors in the Sisters of Mercy have refused Szoka's appeal that they compel her to step down. Unless a compromise can be worked out, the issue will end up at the Vatican's Sacred Congregation for Religious and Secular Institutes. The congregation's deliberation would take months, if not years, and by then the church's new code of canon law will be in effect. If the congregation goes by the book, it will back Szoka. New canon No. 285:3 "flatly forbids a nun or priest to hold public office in any circumstances.

- By Richard N. Ostling.

Reported by Barbara B. Dolan/Detroit

In New Hampshire, four members of a separate branch of the Sisters of Mercy are engaged in a struggle with Bishop Odore Gendron of Manchester; in January 1982, without any formal charges, he had dismissed them as teachers at a parochial school in Hampton. Rather than obediently bowing out, the sisters sued the bishop in a civil court for reinstatement, arguing that their contracts guaranteed an explanation and a hearing. The New Hampshire Supreme Court last December rejected the bishop's contention that secular judges had no business ruling on a purely ecclesiastical dispute, declaring that it was a civil matter with no bearing on doctrine. The supreme court remanded the case to a county superior court for a hearing to begin next month. Insists Sister Catherine Colliton: "The bottom line is the contract. The bishop is the employer, and I'm the employee." -

*The national superior of Mansour's order, Sister M. Theresa Kane, became famous during Pope John Paul II's visit to Washington, D.C., in 1979 when, on national television and with the Pontiff listening a few feet away, she politely but firmly criticized her church for barring women as priests.

With reporting by Barbara B. Dolan/Detroit This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.