CV NEWS FEED // Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut, is slated to host the controversial left-wing nun Sr. Simone Campbell, SSS, at its commencement ceremony on Saturday, May 11.
Campbell is the former longtime executive director of NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice (“Network”), a leftist activist group. She is also known for leading the Nuns on the Bus – an initiative aimed at boosting Democratic candidates.
Over her many years in public life, the heavily scrutinized nun has taken positions supporting abortion, the LGBTQ movement, women’s ordination to the priesthood, the Democratic Party, and the presidency of Joe Biden.
Following the announcement that Campbell will address Sacred Heart graduates this weekend, Tradition, Family, Property (TFP) Student Action circulated a petition calling on university President Dr. John Petillo to disinvite the leftist nun.
In less than two days, the petition has received over 11,000 signatures.
In a Monday column, TFP Student Action Director John Ritchie and Nathan Kinley listed several reasons why Sacred Heart “should reverse course and not host the dissident nun.”
“Campbell claims she cares about ‘social justice,’” Ritchie and Kinley wrote. “However, she favors perhaps the greatest injustice of all time: the sin of abortion.”
They also noted that Campbell “spoke at the 2017 Women’s March, a radical and vulgar pro-abortion march sponsored by Planned Parenthood and dozens of pro-homosexual groups.”
“Sister Campbell addressed the anti-family event in Washington, D.C., with a blasphemous innuendo against the Holy Spirit, suggesting that God inspired the pro-abortion march,” added Ritchie and Kinley.
>> NPR SHOWCASES PRO-ABORTION NUNS <<
The nun also spoke at both the 2012 and 2020 Democratic National Conventions, where pro-abortion presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden were nominated.
Campbell attended the Democratic National Convention in 2016 as well. There, she stated in an interview with a leftist group: “From my perspective, I don’t think it’s a good policy to outlaw abortion.”
Again from Ritchie and Kinley:
In a 2020 interview with the Catholic News Agency, Sister Campbell claimed ignorance on the clear-cut topic of abortion. When asked about her organization’s stance on protecting the unborn, she said: “It is above my pay grade.” Adding: “[Abortion is] not the issue that we work on. I’m a lawyer. I would have to study it more intensely than I have.
In June 2018, when Campbell was still leading Network, the organization released a statement announcing that it was observing so-called “Pride Month.”
Later that same month, Network published an article praising the work of the controversial LGBTQ activist group New Ways Ministry.
>> RAINBOW WOLVES: EXCLUSIVE REPORT ON NEW WAYS MINISTRY <<
In 2021, CatholicVote reported on a “glowing writeup of [Campbell’s] life and work” by the left-wing National Catholic Reporter (NCR). Per CatholicVote, the NCR profile “tells the story of a woman committed to thwarting pro-life politicians, bishops, and even the Vatican.”
“Campbell expresses pride in the fact that the Vatican repeatedly focused on her and her organization for its opposition to the interests of the Church,” CatholicVote reported at the time.
One month before the 2020 presidential election, National Catholic Register reported that Campbell and Network “launched a questionable new project … [titled] ‘Pope Francis Voter,’ complete with a website that proclaims ‘Catholics Cannot Vote for Trump.’”
The Register went on to describe the initiative:
Network’s rationale for this shameless politicization of the Holy Father is that Catholics must vote for the candidate who is strongest on all the life issues, not just a “single issue” — which is not named, but of course is abortion.
The [project’s] website proclaims: “The sacred issues the Pope asks us to bring into the voting booth include protecting people in poverty, the elderly, and migrants and rejecting racism.”
>> SR. SIMONE CAMPBELL’S CAREER AGAINST PRO-LIFE MOVEMENT <<
As a previous CatholicVote report indicated, Network’s voter guide “did not mention the Church’s teachings nor the pope’s own words against abortion.”
The “Pope Francis Voter” initiative was not the last time Campbell expressed approval for Biden’s candidacy and his subsequent presidency.
In March of this year, Campbell was one of the several controversial religious figures in attendance at the Biden White House’s “St. Patrick’s Day Brunch with Catholic Leaders.” The event’s attendees also included Jesuit priests Frs. James Martin and Thomas Reese, SJ.
In July 2022, President Biden awarded Campbell the Presidential Medal of Freedom – the highest honor a civilian can receive in the United States.
