Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm v. Letitia James

A legacy of compassionate care rooted in faith

For millennia, Catholics around the world have operated healthcare ministries to serve the sick and dying. Rooted in Christ’s command to care for the “least of these,” these ministries put their faith into practice by offering excellent medical care, spiritual support, sacramental care, and end-of-life accompaniment to the most vulnerable. Even when a patient is facing a terminal illness and cannot be cured, Catholic providers give their all to surround them with the greatest love imaginable, to alleviate their suffering, and to ignite in them a hope for the world to come.

New York has long benefited from this compassionate service. For decades, the Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm have cared for the elderly New Yorkers at Ozanam Hall in Queens, guided by their philosophy that “the difference is love.” They provide skilled nursing, dementia and palliative care, daily prayer, and loving presence so that no patient dies alone. The Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne have spent more than 125 years at Rosary Hill Home caring for the poor patients with incurable cancer with dignity and love in their final days. The Missionary Sisters of St. Benedict, after escaping persecution in war-torn Europe, founded St. Joseph’s Home for the Aged, which offers elderly New Yorkers a religious and spiritual haven as they live out their final years. Since 1868, the Little Sisters of the Poor have welcomed low-income New Yorkers to their homes, where the Sisters live alongside them in spirit of hospitality, companionship, and trust in God’s providence.  

Likewise, the Diocese of Rockville Centre serves hundreds of thousands of Long Islanders each year through hospitals, nursing homes, home health, hospice, and other care services including comprehensive cancer care.

New York tries to strong-arm nuns into helping their patients commit suicide 

In 2026, New York passed its Medical Aid in Dying Act, allowing terminally ill adults to obtain lethal drugs to end their lives. Yet the law does not merely permit assisted suicide: it also forces healthcare providers across the state into its machinery by creating a “Suicide Counseling Mandate” that requires New York doctors to counsel their terminally ill patients about the so-called benefits of killing themselves. Religious healthcare institutions, doctors, and nurses must now inform and counsel terminal patients about the “benefits” of suicide and qualify them for the drugs used to end their lives, or else refer them to a “willing” provider. Refusal invites significant fines, license revocation, or even time behind bars. In practice, New York is making it unlawful to care for terminally ill patients without also offering them suicide pills—regardless of whether the patients want them or not. 

That is something Catholic healthcare ministries cannot do. Their faith forbids them from prescribing life-ending drugs, directing patients to obtain them, or helping facilitate a patient’s suicide in any way. The Church teaches that when a person is suffering deeply, the proper response is loving accompaniment—not abandonment to death. Rather, they accept death as the natural end to a life well-lived: to accept it as it comes, neither artificially hastening it through any means, nor artificially prolonging it through burdensome technological and medical advancements that provide no reasonable benefit.

Rather than respecting these decent and honorable beliefs—beliefs that are shared by many of their patients and residents—New York is now putting Catholic healthcare ministries and other religious caregivers to an impossible choice: betray their deepest convictions or shut their doors.  

Catholic ministries fight for their freedom to care

With Becket’s help, the Carmelite Sisters, the Dominican Sisters, the Benedictine Sisters, the Little Sisters, Bishop John Barres of the Diocese of Rockville Centre, and Catholic Health filed a federal lawsuit challenging New York’s assisted-suicide mandate. The lawsuit asks the court to protect their freedom to continue caring for the sick, elderly, and dying in accordance with the Catholic faith. The lawsuit also seeks to protect the rights of patients who want the freedom to choose care providers who will not offer them suicide.

On July 30, 2026, Becket secured temporary relief for these Catholic healthcare ministries, allowing them to remain free to serve the sick and dying according to their faith. The order forbids New York from enforcing its assisted suicide mandate while the court considers the healthcare ministries’ motion for a preliminary injunction.

New York’s actions violate core constitutional protections for religious freedom and freedom of speech. The government cannot force Catholic ministries to violate their faith by helping patients obtain suicide pills. Nor can it compel Catholic doctors, nurses, and caregivers to deliver the state’s preferred message about suicide. And it cannot interfere with Bishop Barres’ responsibility to guide Catholic healthcare institutions in his Diocese according to the teachings of the Catholic Church. Federal law further protects these providers by banning the use of federal health care funds for assisted suicide and by forbidding New York from discriminating against those who, like the sisters, refuse to participate in assisted suicide.

For generations, Catholic healthcare ministries have offered sick and dying New Yorkers a place of peace, prayer, and love at the end of life. New York should stop trampling religious freedom and forcing its message of death on vulnerable patients. 

Importance to Religious Liberty: 

• Individual freedom: Religious individuals and organizations are free to follow their faith in all aspects of their lives, including in the workplace and not just in houses of worship.

• Religious communities: Religious communities have the right to organize and operate according to their beliefs without the government discriminating among sincere religious beliefs.