For more than 125 years, the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne (also known as the Dominican Sisters of the Sick Poor) have cared for the poor and terminally ill, particularly those with cancer.
Rosary Hill Home, which ministers to the most vulnerable in society, is a 42-bed, licensed hospice and skilled nursing facility in Hawthorne, New York. The sisters do not take insurance, government funds, or payments from patients or families. The care is free to those who need it.
But radical New York Governor Kathy Hochul and her administration want to put woke ideology above caring for those in need, forcing the Sisters to sue.
At issue is the LGBTQ Long-Term Care Facility Residents’ Bill of Rights (codified in Public Health Law § 2803-c-2) and enacted in 2024. The law applies to nursing homes and long-term care facilities, including religious ones, and requires facilities to:
- Assign rooms based on a resident’s self-identified gender identity (not biological sex), even if a roommate objects.
- Allow residents to use bathrooms and facilities consistent with their gender identity.
- Use residents’ preferred names and pronouns (including when the resident is not present).
- Provide “cultural competency training” on gender identity and diverse sexual orientations/expressions.
- Permit consensual sexual relationships among residents without restriction based on the facility’s moral or religious views.
The state Department of Health has sent warning letters to facilities, including Rosary Hill Home, about potential violations, such as segregating rooms or bathrooms by biological sex or failing to use preferred pronouns.
Failure to comply could garner fines of up to $2,000 for a first offense, $5,000 for subsequent ones, or $10,000 for willful violations. Further punitive action could include loss of license, injunctions, or even jail time for repeated willful violations.
The Sisters are suing Hochul, saying the law forces them to choose between their faith and their mission.
“We are consecrated religious Sisters and have one mission,” Mother Marie Edward, O.P., told Fox News Digital in a statement. “It is to provide comfort and skilled care to persons dying of cancer who cannot afford nursing care. We do not take insurance or government funds or money from our patients or families. The care is totally free.”
“We are supported by the goodness of our benefactors,” she continued. “We do this without discriminating on the basis of race, religion, or sex. We do it because Jesus taught us that, when the least among us are sick, we should care for them, as if they were Christ himself.”
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Edward told Fox News Digital that “New York’s gender ideology mandates not only violate our Catholic values, they threaten our existence with fines, injunctions, license revocation, and even jail time. This is why we were forced to go to court to seek protection of our religious exercise and freedom of speech so that we can continue our ministry to the poor.”
Catholic Benefits Association, which is helping the sister receive relief in federal court, shared the following:
New York Requires Nuns Serving Dying Cancer Patients to Use Gender Ideology
For over 125 years, the Dominican Sisters located in Hawthorne,New York have provided comfort and nursing care for patients who are poor and suffering from incurable cancer. But if they do not comply with the State’s transgender mandate, the sisters face fines, court orders, potential loss of licensing, and jail time.
The New York State Department of Health sent the first in a series of “Dear Administrator”letters to the Hawthorne Dominicans’ 42-bed facility Rosary Hill Home on March 18, 2024. These letters listed the state’s demands and were accompanied by a
training curriculum requiring the sisters to align patient care and the training of their sisters and employees with the State’s gender ideology.
Mother Marie Edward, General Superior of the Hawthorne Dominicans, said that the first reaction was disappointment. “We Sisters have taken care of patients from all walks of life, ideologies, and faiths. We treat each patient with dignity and Christian charity. We have never had complaints. We cannot implement New York’s mandate without violating our Catholic faith,” she explained.
The New York gender ideology mandate requires Rosary Hill Home and other long-term care facilities to house biological men in women’s rooms even over the opposition of a female roommate, to permit residents and their visitors of one sex to access bathrooms set aside for those of the opposite sex, to use false pronouns, to use language and “create communities” affirming patients’ sexual preferences, and to accommodate patients desire for extramarital sexual relations. Long-term care facilities are also required to ensure that their staff members are trained in “cultural competency” informed by the State’s gender ideology.
The Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne and Rosary Hill Home are members of the Catholic Benefits Association (CBA). They have, through legal counsel provided to them by the CBA, asked the New York State Department of Health for an exemption from these mandates because they infringe upon their Catholic values, burden their exercise of religion, and compromise their free speech rights.
After waiting two weeks and not receiving a response from the State to their exemption request, the Hawthorne Dominicans filed a lawsuit on April 6, 2026, in federal court to protect their religious freedom and their ministry to the sick poor.
Martin Nussbaum of the First & Fourteenth law firm and counsel for the Sisters, said,“this was especially disappointing because New York’s law provides religious exemption for long-term care facilities affiliated with the Christian Science Church but not for similar Catholic facilities. The Sisters were left with no choice but to file suit in federal court, and the Catholic Benefits Association has helped them do that.”
Sister Stella Mary, O.P., Administrator of Rosary Hill Home commented, “our foundress, Mother Alphonsa Hawthorne, charged us to serve those who are ‘to pass from one life to another’ and to ‘make them as comfortable and happy as if their own people had kept them and put them into the very best bedroom.’ We intend to continue honoring this sacred obligation but need relief from the Court to do so.”
The post New York Preparing to Punish Catholic Nuns Caring for Dying Patients for Refusing to Follow Woke Gender Identity Rules appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
IT’S OFFICIAL: President Trump confirms he’s going FULL VENEZUELA on the Strait of Hormuz and Iran
UPDATE: Sabrina Carpenter clearly heard the noise regarding the now-viral moment … ’cause she hopped online to clear the air and issue an apology. 
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