Exclusive: The Little Sisters Talk Faith, Strategy and Liberty With The Stream

By Dustin Siggins Published on May 18, 2016

Hours after speaking to a record 1,300 attendees of the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast, the spokesperson for the Little Sisters of the Poor told The Stream that her order “haven’t really sat down and made a plan” for what to do if they lose their fight for religious liberty. “To have an elaborate contingency plan, what does that say about your confidence in God’s Providence?” said Sister Constance Veit, communications director for the Little Sisters.

In her speech at the annual breakfast, Constance described how faith has been at the center of the her order’s lawsuit against the Obama administration’s mandate that the nuns participate in insurance coverage for contraceptives and sterilization — including the contraceptives that double as abortion-inducing drugs.

“A kind archbishop told us early on, ‘Don’t let anything rob you of the joy of the Gospel. Dare to be of good cheer,'” she told the audience. A legal advisor “encouraged us to be happy warriors, and to look upon each person we encounter as Christ would.” She also mentioned a good friend who “gave me advice recently in the form of a question: ‘As Catholics, we have the full deposit of the faith,’ she said. ‘But do we really have faith?'”

God Is Always There

“I won’t deny that, in the end, we’re looking for a win, as humans define it, because a loss would mean $70 million in fines,” Constance told The Stream, citing the mandate’s daily fine of $100 per employee if the sisters do not provide the coverage. “But we believe that God has always been involved in human history, in very active, even miniscule ways, and God’s Providence intervenes in our lives in human ways, and through human intermediaries.”

“So we look upon those who help us, and support our mission, as instruments of God’s Providence because they’re signs of his love and support for what we’re doing” explained the 27-year nun, mentioning the Becket Fund in particular. “God’s love is manifest in very human ways. So the course of this case — yeah, that’s an expression of God’s Will and God’s Loving Plan for us.”

Constance explained that even a loss wouldn’t harm her faith, or those of her brethren. “If it were to go another way, we would likewise try to see God’s plan in that, as well. It’s not that God’s only on our side if we win.”

“We don’t really have a plan [if we lose the case], and we have not really discussed, as far as I know — I’m not on the leadership team — what we would do. We have been confident that things are going to work out in the end.”

“What was the very good news for us was that by their decision, the Supreme Court acknowledged what we have been saying all along, and what the Solicitor General finally admitted in his supplemental brief — which is that [the government] can achieve their goals by some other means,” said Constance. “And there are actually many possibilities other than involving us and having the Little Sisters provide services that violate our faith. So that is the most important thing.” The sisters are also happy that the decision saved them from having to pay the fines.

Constance said that, contrary to the criticisms of opponents, “our case has never been about preventing anybody from getting anything that they want. Women have always been, including our employees, free to go out and get those services. But we have never included them in our health care packages. We’ve never actually faced any issues with our staff over it, and we’re not really trying to impede — we’re just saying, ‘Please leave us out of it. Please allow us to live according to our convictions.”

“We realize that in a pluralistic culture, there are going to be things we don’t agree with, and things that violate our faith that will go on. We’re not trying to control that.”

Being “A Leaven” for Society

Some supporters of the Little Sisters have said fighting for carve-outs from laws like the mandate are just a bastion, and that the Sisters, Priests for Life, Oklahoma Wesleyan University and the other 34 plaintiffs that sued to the U.S. Supreme Court aren’t going far enough to protect life and liberty.

That’s “sort of apples and oranges,” Constance explained. “We’re talking about a legal battle over our legal rights.”

They defend their rights because they’re concerned with evangelization. “We as committed Christians have a very important, serious responsibility to be a leaven in our society. To try to — first of all, how we live our lives and our example — try to influence the culture for good, to live according to God’s laws — natural law — to God’s laws in the Gospel.”

“I realize in our culture today, though we the Little Sisters have traditionally and historically relied on the living it, and the example, now we need to talk about it, and we need to be able to get out there and articulate it to our contemporaries. So, definitely there’s a place for that — to be that leaven to bring the Good News to my brothers and sisters of this time.”

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