Nuns on the Bus: Dispatches From a Papal Road Trip

“I have practiced immigration law for over 30 years, so I’ve heard a number of heartbreaking stories,” says Sister Bernadine. “But to hear different stories, just to hold it up in prayer…. What can we do about this? How can we make it a country where everyone can grow?”

After St. Louis, the sisters head west to Kansas City, where they stop at St. Anthony’s, a church with a long history of serving immigrants. There, resident Mikela Houston tells the sisters about how she earns $11.25 an hour at Taco Bell. “Even though it is above the minimum wage, I’m still not able to pay my bills like I want to,” she says. “Instead I rely on government assistance.”

Another resident, a caregiver, tells the sisters about how she works 90 hours a week and, short of a hospital stay, never has a day off. 

Kansas (September 12)
After two events in Kansas City, the nuns head to the Topeka Rescue Mission Distribution Center, where they learn the center is full.

“This is a wonderment of mine, why a government would not expand Medicaid for people who don’t have it,” says Sister Richelle Friedman, a policy analyst, referencing the fact that the state’s governor had refused to expand Medicaid under Obamacare. Some 60,000 working Kansans are in the so-called coverage gap in the state – they earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to qualify for a subsidy to purchase insurance through state exchange. Around the country, 4.2 million Americans are without health insurance because they live in states where Republican leaders have refused to expand Medicaid.

“I really believe it’s because it was one of the president’s signature accomplishments,” says the sister.

In Topeka, the nuns encounter protesters from the Westboro Baptist Church. A gray-haired woman holds two signs, one reading “priests rape boys,” and the other, “dyke nuns.” A burly man smiling behind sunglasses holds a “Christians caused fag marriage” poster.

“It was pretty amazing,” says Sister Simone. “A couple of us walked over to them. We preach ‘bridge the divide,’ so we should practice what we preach…. I said, ‘God doesn’t hate,’ and they said, ‘Oh yes, god does hate.'”

Arkansas (September 13-14)
Sister Simone vividly remembers watching TV news reports about the Little Rock Nine – the African-American students who in 1957, three years after the Supreme Court’s Brown v. The Board of Education ruling, entered Central High School amid throngs of protesting white students and the National Guard.

“I’d never forget it, watching on black-and-white television, these kids’ courage to integrate the school for the sake of a better education,” Sister Simone says. “[That] was the beginning of realizing my white privilege…. I [had] just this teeny difference, this sliver of white skin, and I could go any place. It was the beginning of realizing privilege and responsibility, and it’s part of the reason I became a sister, actually.”