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Vatican Attempts To Erase Images Of Modern Service To God

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clevernamehere
07/02/09

In reply to Vatican Attempts To Erase Images Of Modern Service To God
I've only read a little about this and I do know some nuns are really upset, but I feel like the post is pretty misleading.

They are selling convents, but a lot of that has to do with the decline in vocations (aka people who want to be nuns). The numbers have plummeted and a lot of these convents were nearly empty, so they're consolidating. It isn't like nuns are being kicked out of their homes. The child molestation lawsuits are having a bigger impact on Catholic schools. The money has to come from somewhere and Catholic schools were often heavily subsidized.

The other thing is that most orders have a mission statement, women pick an order partly based on how they want to serve. There are teaching orders, there are orders that work with the poor, and there are less common cloistered orders.

There are lots of messed up things about the Catholic Church, but I'm not ready to call this a witch hunt yet.
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J.D.Regent
07/02/09

@clevernamehere: I feel like the biggest red flag is the fact that they have not identified the alleged infraction they are investigating, which the article says is an anomaly.
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J.D.Regent
07/02/09

@clevernamehere: and then why not also examine the cloistered orders?
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clevernamehere
07/02/09

@J.D.Regent: The cloistered orders literally don't do anything but pray. There is nothing to watch. They don't even leave.

I do think it is a little fucked up, but I don't think they are going to ban nuns from teaching or stop them from working with the poor.
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J.D.Regent
07/02/09

@clevernamehere: I don't believe that for a minute. I have way too many religious friends, priests and nuns who have been excommunicated and forced from communal religious life. They are impoverished and alone and yet still consider themselves people of the cloth. This Vatican has aggressively threatened for example Father Roy Bourgois for presiding over the ordination of some women. His status is unknown at the moment. I think peoples livelihoods are really at risk here. If nothing else it has a chilling effect on innovation in religious life from the left, while new forms of consecrated life from the right, like Opus Dei, get designated special status, when their interpretations are just as unorthodox as liberation theologians or nuns who agitate for womens ordination. I refuse to ratify the current conservative mood at the Vatican as the permanent truth of the church. The church is not only the Vatican, it is also the lived realities of the religious, what the church calls the Body of Christ. The vision they are pursuing is not unamiguously authentic Catholicism either.
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clevernamehere
07/02/09

@J.D.Regent: Ordaining women is at this point really radical. I wouldn't be surprised if they were going after things like that because it is in direct contradiction of Vatican teachings and everyone but the Jesuits swears their loyalty to the Pope.

I do think that's fucked up, but there is a big leap between that and forcing every nun to be cloistered or leave.
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NewsBunny
07/02/09

@clevernamehere: Perhaps the money could come from Pope Benedict not purchasing Prada loafers?

Or from the Pope not living in a Palace?

Or from the Catholic Church melting down and getting rid of all that gold?

Or...mmmm, so many things.

Jesus Christ did not in a palace. Jesus led a life of poverty, administering to the lowest members of society.

One of the reasons I left the Catholic Church is because of the fabulous among of do as I say, not as do-ism there.
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thebigm42
07/03/09

@clevernamehere: Thanks Clevernamehere. I agree that this post is really misleading, and I've been reading these comments desperately hoping to find someone else who agrees. Also, thanks for all the counterpoints you addressed. You said it much better than I ever could.

@NewsBunny - I'm sorry but that's not entirely a relevant point. Maybe the Prada loafers, but that's like a drop of water in an ocean.

Jesus Christ was attacked during his own time for not giving enough to the poor - don't forget the woman who anointed him with extremely expensive oil, which caused many to be upset that she wasted all her money on it. Jesus' response was that her actions were proper.

The money, gold, palaces, fabrics, paintings, etc. do not exist for the glory of those who use them. They exist to glorify God in their usage. As Catholics, we believe that we should glorify God above all things. And that includes helping the poor. I'm sorry if that rubs you the wrong way, but that's what the religion teaches.
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NewsBunny
07/08/09

@thebigm42: I'm not with you on that, big. Many times in religious writings, God asks us to glorify him thorugh our actions. Not through errecting palaces.
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JudastheObscurest
07/02/09

In reply to Vatican Attempts To Erase Images Of Modern Service To God
I don't understand... if women want to be outside of the church, why be nuns? No one is making you be a nun.
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J.D.Regent
07/02/09

@JudastheObscurest: they don't want to be outside the church. they want to be in it. they just want to be respected while they are there. i don't think it's fair to say we should just cede all institutions to their worst elements. It's sort of like, America: love it or leave it, you know?
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emilyanne
07/02/09

In reply to Vatican Attempts To Erase Images Of Modern Service To God
Good piece. This whole situation is crazy but what really fascinates me is the obsession the Vatican appears to have with America. There are nuns in Italy who teach at universities, there are nuns in the UK who teach, who work in hospitals, who work in the communities, I've interviewed them and my own former headmistress held a phd in child psychology and lectured at Surry University in addition to being headmistress of my school - and no one is telling them to stop, so what exactly is going on here? And why?
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J.D.Regent
07/02/09

@emilyanne: they are OBSESSED with us!!!! I don't know if it is just our insanely conservative Bishops inviting them over, or what. I feel like they don't even get involved in abortion debates in Europe. But here it's like their number one issue. Leave us the fuck alone, right?
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emilyanne
07/02/09

@J.D.Regent: they don't get involved or barely. It's insane.
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clevernamehere
07/02/09

@emilyanne: All of what you said is common in the US too. I tend doubt that's who they are concerned about. There are some more radical nuns out there, I think nuns are to the 00s as the Jesuits were to the 60s.

The reason the Vatican cares so much about the US is there are a millions of well off Catholic in the US who still donate a lot of money but used to donate a lot more.
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taranwanderer
07/02/09

In reply to Vatican Attempts To Erase Images Of Modern Service To God
Holy shit, I was seriously JUST reading this in the times and wondered if Jez would cover it.

I am BEYOND angry. Pope FAIL. Way to work on disproving how the catholic church oppresses women. Awesome. Going after your own women? Seriously?!

I know so many amazing, strong, progressively-minded, kickass nuns and I would wholeheartedly leave the church faster than you can say "Jesus H Christ" if the Pope beat the spunk and strength out of them.

This is all colors of wrong. And the church wonders why there are no new nuns. Seriously displeased.
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envirodesigner
07/02/09

In reply to Vatican Attempts To Erase Images Of Modern Service To God
I think the Catholic needs to to rise up and give women a better voice in the matter. When I was a practicing Catholic I would see more women in church than men, and more women doing the charitable work, than men.

*sigh*
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J.D.Regent
07/02/09

@envirodesigner: I have actually heard priests argue that the reason women can't be priests is because the church is already so feminized because of lay women's leadership on those kinds of activities. It takes balls of steel, or absolutely no sense of shame whatsoever, to make the claim that an all-male priesthood is a form of affirmative action for men in the church.
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maeella
07/02/09

In reply to Vatican Attempts To Erase Images Of Modern Service To God
Ladies, this is a time when you might want to consider gathering your skirts and moseying over to the Episcopal Church. We'd be GLAD to have you, and, psst, you could totally be Priests!

But seriously, nuns do AMAZING work, and this is downright disrespectful.

But seriously, seriously, holla a the Episcopal Church.
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J.D.Regent
07/02/09

@maeella: I know I need to consider it seriously. I recently went to a Church of England mass for the first time though and nearly puked. I'm sooooo culturally Catholic it really pains me to go anywhere else, but probably not as much as it pains me to stay.
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Callipegian
07/02/09

@maeella: Heh. I've actually thought about that, mostly when I went to a few Masses at the National Cathedral, an Episcopal church. The homily was a discussion amongst the parishioners on that morning's gospel, moderated by the priest, who was married. It was brilliant. "What did today's reading mean to you? What do you think Jesus meant by that?"

And then I remember I don't believe in the divinity of Christ and I feel sad and confused again.
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J.D.Regent
07/02/09

@Callipegian: Its true, I thrill to see women priests but then it feels so austere, and in America so kind of waspy, compared to catholicism. and do they do mary and the saints?
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maybeimamazed02
07/02/09

@maeella: My uncle totally converted last year, after 60some years of being Catholic. He just got really fed up with a lot of Catholicism.

I thought it was cool, and I was really glad that no one in my family gave him crap about it. (At least, they didn't in front of me.)

Can't stand the Pope. John Paul II promoted peace and love. This guy wants pre-Vatican II back, it seems.
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J.D.Regent
07/02/09

@maybeimamazed02: don't believe the JPII hype. Benedict is where he is because JP put him there. JP was the one who stated for all time that the church would never ordain women. I think he put the cause of gender equality in the church back farther than anyone has.
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ratz
07/02/09

In reply to Vatican Attempts To Erase Images Of Modern Service To God
My teaching nuns reminded me of good parents - you didn't realize how good they were until much later when you wanted to say "thank you, and I'm sorry". They lived simple, poor, service driven lives. At that time, many of them had said it was one way a woman could get a great education and see the world! My biology teacher had 3 masters degrees.

Then you see the parish priests.. with housekeepers.. cooks.. luxurious housing... grrrr
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J.D.Regent
07/02/09

@ratz: my grandmother is over 90 and still cleans the fucking church every week. It makes me sick, even though she "likes" it.
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NewsBunny
07/02/09

In reply to Vatican Attempts To Erase Images Of Modern Service To God
It's too bad the Vatican didn't devote this kind of scrutinty to priests who were molesting children.
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J.D.Regent
07/02/09

@NewsBunny: actually the article says they did do this process then, but it was obviously several decades too late, and I think their main conclusion was that they have to make sure no one with gay tendencies slips under the radar. Ugh.
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NewsBunny
07/02/09

@J.D.Regent: I should have said when said molestation was happening. Thanks, JD.
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nellicat
07/02/09

In reply to Vatican Attempts To Erase Images Of Modern Service To God
God, how I hate the Catholic Church. One of my cousins is a kick-ass nun, and she went to a parish to serve. Time went by, and the priest there retired. So, she just kind of quietly started administering the sacraments - weddings, baptisms, first communions, those things. Her parisioners were THRILLED to have a hands-on, active, involved person of the cloth to minister to them. The diocese got wind of it and my cousin was exiled. Now her parish gets once-a-month visits from a priest who serves 3 counties. Booooooooo, Catholic Church!
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bluebears
07/02/09

@nellicat: how sad. its so frustrating.
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J.D.Regent
07/02/09

@nellicat: ggggrrrrr.

However I was under the impression that non-priests can indeed administer the sacraments if a priest is not available, and if she or he has the backing of the congregation. I'll see if I can find a link. She should fight it on those grounds. So sad for the truly religious members of her congregation who have to wait months between communions and reconciliation...
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nellicat
07/02/09

@J.D.Regent: You may be right - I know she did everything by the book, but knowing her, she may have pushed beyond it a little, too.

I honestly don't know how she stays loyal to the Church, but then again I don't know how many of the people I love and respect are still Catholics. I don't pretend to know any better, but I have to say it confounds me.
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High_myopia
07/02/09

In reply to Vatican Attempts To Erase Images Of Modern Service To God
I read this piece earlier today, and it makes me incredibly sad that these women are being investigated by their own church. I was raised Catholic, and the people that devoted the most time to my spiritual well-being were the nuns. And yes, that included lots of volunteer work in community projects, not just attending mass.
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J.D.Regent
07/02/09

@High_myopia: a lot of people also talk about how nuns used to sort of keep the priests in line re: abusing kids, like in Doubt, and that the church has suffered a lot in sort of oversight by the diminution in the importance and power of women religious.
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angrychicken
07/02/09

In reply to Vatican Attempts To Erase Images Of Modern Service To God
The boyfriend's Aunt is a former Nun who left to care for her ailing parents. I always wondered why she never went back (she's still very active in the church and in the community - she spends at least twice a week working with abandoned children in DC). I wonder if she felt she wouldn't be welcomed back?
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Laulau
07/02/09

@angrychicken: I wouldn't be surprised. I know that rules vary by order, but I was shocked to learn about one cloistered order where the women would be allowed to attend their parents' funerals, but not to go visit dying parents.
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dj_chick
07/02/09

In reply to Vatican Attempts To Erase Images Of Modern Service To God
I'm not Catholic, so let me see if I'm understanding this... American nuns (aka the ones with vaginas) need to get their asses back to the convent, stat! All because they have vaginas? This is some ridiculousness. I admire these women's dedication to their faith, but at the same time, I wonder how they deal with the misogyny?
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morninggloria
07/02/09

@dj_chick: St. Peter was a real asshole with weird ideas about the value of men and women.
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wtfox?!
07/02/09

@morninggloria: Don't forget St. Paul, with his "STFU and sit the hell down, wimmin-types."
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morninggloria
07/02/09

@wtfox?!: Peter and Paul must have really resented Mary. Which is why the folk group's name doesn't make sense.
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J.D.Regent
07/02/09

@morninggloria: @wtfox?!: they were the original Romans of the church. I save my real hatred for some of those early bishops though. Fuck St. Irenaeus, seriously.
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collegelemur
07/02/09

@morninggloria: According to the History Channel's series "Banned from the Bible" right after Jesus died, different groups were created around each of the Apostles, and Mary Magdalene's was rather powerful as she and Jesus had been good friends. This turned into rivalry between the different groups, and Mary was the easiest target, as she was female.

And according to my "Catholic classes" at my Catholic University, the letters of Paul and Peter were meant to address specific concerns at specific congregations and not meant to be spread around.
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J.D.Regent
07/02/09

@collegelemur: did you also know that later editors changed female names in Paul's letters and accounts to male names, thus making him seem even more misogynistic than he probably was?
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TheUptightMidwesterner
07/02/09

In reply to Vatican Attempts To Erase Images Of Modern Service To God
Yes- lets worry about the American Nuns who might miss sacraments because they are out TRYING TO SAVE THE WORLD, and lets just ignore the poor nuns in Africa who are getting raped and murdered on a pretty regular basis.

The Catholic Church is officially my asshole ex-husband.
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J.D.Regent
07/02/09

@TheUptightMidwesterner: does it even accuse them of missing sacraments? hmmm maybe if you let them ADMINISTER SACRAMENTS THEMSELVES they wouldn't have to sit around the convent waiting for the priest to show up with his ziplock of wafers.
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TheUptightMidwesterner
07/02/09

@J.D.Regent: ".. are they attending Mass and keeping the sacraments? "
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J.D.Regent
07/02/09

@TheUptightMidwesterner: oh jesus christ. i guess i was too angry to read clearly. These are grown women of the church, they do not need fucking Papa Ratzi making sure they are doing their chores. So offensive.
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morninggloria
07/02/09

In reply to Vatican Attempts To Erase Images Of Modern Service To God
Someone please call Whoopi Goldberg. She'll know what to do.
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LadyFabulous
07/02/09

In reply to Vatican Attempts To Erase Images Of Modern Service To God
Where does this fit in?

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J.D.Regent
07/02/09

@LadyFabulous: as long as she doesn't do reiki!!!!

WTF??? Vatican, arbiter of science of course.
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