Whatever You Do… Don’t Tick off the Nuns!

Orginally published on Tuesday, December 06, 2005 at 2:00 PM
by Todd Rhoades

Interesting story... it seems a group of nuns were fired recently from a New York school because the diocese wanted "younger 'peer' ministers who would be more evangelical and attract more students to Mass.  This article comes from Newsday.com, and was written by Ridgely Ochs...

When Kathy Riordan took her final vows in 1965 to become a Sister of St. Dominic in Amityville, she imagined a life in education. Over four decades, she taught every subject, although math and religion were her passions. She worked with every age group -- from kindergarten to college.

But what she couldn't envision is that after 40 years of service, she would be fired by the diocese.

"I never expected to be at odds with the bishop," she said of Bishop William Murphy. "It never would have occurred to me."

Riordan, 63, had been a campus minister at Hofstra University in Hempstead for a decade, when she and two nuns at other campuses learned in March they were fired by the Diocese of Rockville Centre. The diocese said it wanted younger "peer" ministers who would be more evangelical and attract more students to Mass.

But all three sisters were -- and remain -- popular and their firings prompted hundreds of letters, petitions and a demonstration. Speaking for the first time nine months later, the sisters said negotiations with the diocese are at a standstill and they are still angered by what they see as the diocese's discrimination against women, especially older women.

Sister Kathy Hickey, 54, who had been chaplain at New York Institute of Technology in Old Westbury, said she is considering a suit against the diocese -- a move that, while not unprecedented, would rattle an institution still reeling from scandal.

"It would be a sad commentary if we as women and sisters had to turn around and sue the bishop in order to protect or assert our rights. Are we there? I am praying about it," said Hickey, a sister of St. Joseph of Brentwood.

Sean Dolan, a spokesman for the diocese, said the dismissals were not prompted by age or gender but by the bishop's desire to institute a different, "more traditional" campus ministry. "We needed to try a new approach, one that focuses on the sacramental," Dolan said.

He said the chaplains where the ministries are "vibrant" -- including Sister Margaret Landry, 73, at Stony Brook University -- were kept.

Moreover, Dolan said, the bishop, who met with the sisters in September, offered to rescind their terminations, keep them on the diocesan payroll and the diocese would find them a job -- but not in campus ministries.

"It's really not rescinding if you're not offering us a position within campus ministries," Riordan said. "This is the job we wanted to do and we didn't want to take away other people's jobs in the diocese."

For the nuns, who received a $29,000-a-year stipend that went to their orders, "it was not about a pay check and never was," said Hickey, who like Riordan is now unemployed and supported by her order.

"I think speaking out against injustice [the firing] is still in service to the church," Hickey said. "I am greatly disappointed in the leadership of the diocese ... Especially having been involved in campus ministry, no way am I going to turn around and say this is the way it's got to be, especially for young Catholic women."

She said priests and deacons were left in their campus posts. "We just wanted the same treatment as our colleagues," she said.

Dolan said the three women were asked by the Rev. Brian Barr, the head of campus ministries, whether they could embrace the more traditional approach that emphasizes Catholic sacraments, which, Dolan said, they made clear they couldn't. The sisters deny they were given the chance.

"We didn't have that opportunity," said Beth McGarvey, 52, a Dominican, who said the first time she heard of the new vision was at a meeting with Michael Monahan, the diocese's head of human resources, months after she and the other sisters were fired.

McGarvey, who has a master's degree in social work and is working several days a week as a social worker at Farmingdale, said she and her fellow sisters don't want to work directly for the diocese and will seek jobs elsewhere. "I don't need the boy's club," she said.

Some Catholics understand her position. "It struck a chord with a lot of people," said St. James resident Pat Schecher, who started a petition in March on behalf of the nuns. "The church is so patriarchal and down on women. ... The nuns never get too much credit. I think a lot of women are fed up."

"It turns me off to Catholicism ... it is gender and age discrimination and it is so discouraging," said Louise Napolitano-Carman, associate professor of English at Farmingdale.

For Sister Margaret Mayce the issue is not so much what happened to the nuns as it is the manner in which it was done.

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Hi... I'm Todd Rhoades. I'm a Christ-follower, husband, father and I love to connect leaders with other leaders. Hopefully you'll find something here at MMI you like and will return often. If you want, you can find out more about me or follow my every step on Twitter.

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