The Little Sisters of the Poor are back in the news.
Yes, it’s true that, for the third time, the order’s legal team is back at the U.S. Supreme Court. This is, of course, a case linked to the Health and Human Services mandate requiring most religious institutions to offer employees — even students — health-insurance plans covering sterilizations and all FDA-approved contraceptives, including "morning-after pills."
The issue, of course, is whether leaders of the Little Sisters of the Poor, and others, can be forced to cooperate with government programs that violate the doctrines that define their work.
This raises a question that few SCOTUS-beat reporters have answered. Who are the Little Sisters of the Poor and what do the members of this order do to help others?
That brings us to a must-read feature at The Atlantic (by religion-beat pro Emma Green) that ran with this dramatic double-decker headline:
Nuns vs. the Coronavirus
At a Catholic nursing home in Delaware, one-fifth of residents have died. The nuns who run the facility are grappling with their calling.
This story isn’t about politics and SCOTUS, although it might have helped to have included a sentence or two pointing to this order’s role in that First Amendment fight. This feature offers an inside look at the work that the Little Sisters of the Poor are doing during the coronavirus crisis.
As it turns out, they are doing what they have always been doing — but this work now requires them to risk their lives on a daily basis. Here is a crucial early summary:
In many ways, the Little Sisters were founded for a moment like this: The nuns take a special vow of hospitality, promising to accompany the elderly as they move toward death. But like other long-term-care facilities in the U.S., the Little Sisters home in Delaware was blindsided by this pandemic. Even those most at peace with death have been deeply shaken by COVID-19.
