Referrals to Nun’s Shelter End Over Abortion Stance

Catholic social workers in Los Angeles County have been ordered to stop referring homeless women to a shelter operated by a nun who signed a newspaper advertisement in October saying that committed Catholics disagree on abortion.

In a memo dated Jan. 14 and sent to the archdiocese’s four directors of Catholic Social Service in Los Angeles County and their supervisors, Msgr. John P. Languille, director of charities for the Welfare Bureau of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, said:

“As of today no referrals, under any circumstances, are to be made to the House of Ruth because of the pro-abortion position of Sister Judith Vaughan, director.”

Vaughan, 39, a member of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, has been a director of the House of Ruth shelter in East Los Angeles for three years.

In a brief telephone interview Thursday, Languille said: “The Holy See (Vatican authorities) said there was a need for retraction. Until decisions have been made to resolve the issue, that’s our position.”

Vaughan, who said Thursday that she had been unable to persuade Languille to lift the prohibition, added that the term pro-abortion does not reflect her position. “People struggle with the issue and faith-filled people hold a diversity of opinion. That needs to be respected,” she said in an interview earlier this month.

In telephone conversations with Languille and at a subsequent meeting with him Wednesday night, she said, he told her there was “nothing to discuss.”

“ ‘Sister, I have no relationship to you, but only to the Holy Father’ (Pope John Paul II),” she quoted Languille as saying. “. . . Until the matter is resolved to the satisfaction of the Holy See, Catholic Social Services will not make use of your facility,” she said she was told.

Vaughan said that although the House of Ruth has sheltered women referred there by archdiocesan social services agencies, the ban on referrals “will not impact the work of the house because there are 50,000 homeless in the Los Angeles area and we’re always filled.

“But it clarifies how the power structure works,” she added. “Msgr. Languille, without trying to check anything out . . . is punishing the very women the pro-life people say they are for and are trying to help.”

Languille said Thursday that he had been aware that Vaughan was one of 24 nuns to sign a newspaper advertisement about abortion that appeared in Oct. 7 editions of The New York Times. He said he delayed prohibiting referrals to the House of Ruth because he wanted to review Vaughan’s situation.

His memo was issued the day a story based on an interview with Vaughan about her views on abortion and the right to dissent appeared in the Los Angeles Times.

In December, the Vatican ordered the 24 nuns, one priest and three religious brothers to retract their support of the advertisement or face dismissal procedures. The statement said that “a diversity of opinion” exists among committed Catholics about abortion and that “a large number of Catholic theologians hold that even direct abortion, though tragic, can sometimes be a moral choice.”

The ad appeared during the presidential campaign at the height of debate over abortion, when vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro was being criticized by church authorities for saying that she personally opposes abortion but would not work to make it illegal.

Vaughan was the only member of her order and the only nun in California to sign the ad, sponsored by Catholics for a Free Choice, an unofficial and independent group that supports legal abortions. The Vatican, in demanding the public retractions, called publication of the statement “a flagrant scandal.”

The House of Ruth has been in existence for six years. With a staff of three, it can accommodate up to six women and their children. Its $66,000 annual budget is funded by private contributions and a $7,500 grant from the Cardinal McIntyre Fund for Charity.