DON VINCENZO writes:

The subject of feminism within the “women religious” organizations in the Catholic Church, or, for that matter, the U.S. Forest Service, or the U.S. military, has been discussed before, but please allow  me to add several notable events that might serve as a coda to earlier commentary about its impact on the Church. Read More »

SISTER Margaret A. Farley, of the Sisters of Mercy of America, has been officially denounced by the Vatican for her 2006 book, Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics, which argues in favor of same-sex marriage, divorce and masturbation, reports The New York Times. The Congregation for the Doctrine of its Faith took two years to review the book. The wheels of Vatican censure grind exceedingly slow. Sister Farley said in response:

I can only clarify that the book was not intended to be an expression of current official Catholic teaching, nor was it aimed specifically against this teaching. It is of a different genre altogether.

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HERE IS a sickening glimpse into the worldview of feminist Catholic nuns. It’s an interview in the Minneapolis Post with Sister Brigid McDonald of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet. This is a woman seething with resentment and bitterness toward male authority. The Vatican’s recent disciplinary action against American nuns stems from a fear of powerful women, she contends in the interview:

Because [before] we were just school teachers and we just had nice little kids in front of us, you know, and we just emptied bed pans in the nursing homes and in the hospitals. But now they are right, we are out there in the different movements. We help with the Occupy movement and the right-to-choice movements.

It is giving us more credibility in the public. Lots of times people will call and seek out our opinions about certain issues, where it never was that way when I entered the convent. After we taught school, we went home, and said our prayers and ate supper and did our lesson plans and went to bed. Now we are out there.

Notice her contemptuous view of the work of nuns of the past, whose care for the sick and the young she considers demeaning, menial labor.

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MARK RICHARDSON at Oz Conservative further explores the leftist ideology of the nuns of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious.

DON VINCENZO writes:

In January, 2009, the Vatican announced that an Apostolic Visitation would be made to inquire about the state of “women religious” in the U.S. What this generally means is that Vatican clerics or their representatives are directed by members of papal “dicastries” or departments to investigate charges of serious and on-going irregularities in any Catholic organizational structure. The Vatican’s rationale for this particular visit was that for decades the traditional idea of “sisters religious” (the term “nun” is usually applied only to cloistered sisters, but often the words are used interchangeably) were arbitrarily discarding their religious duties for what they called their “social ministry.”

Two months after the announcement, Sister (Sr.) Sandra M. Schneiders (center photo), Professor of New Testament Studies and Christ Spirituality at the Jesuit School in Berkeley, California, in a comment to The National Catholic Reporter said that: Nuns should receive the representative of Rome politely and kindly for what they are, uninvited guests, who should be received in the parlor, but not given the run of the house.

Welcome to the new world of women religious! Read More »