U.S. Nuns Facing Sweeping Vatican Investigation

The New York Times:

The Vatican is quietly conducting two sweeping investigations of American nuns, a development that has startled and dismayed nuns who fear they are the targets of a doctrinal inquisition.

Read the whole story: The New York Times

Comments

[cordyc]

"Witness to Integrity" by Anita Caspary is a good read for those who are interested in nuns roll in the American church. Ms. Caspary led the Immaculate Heart community out from being under the thumb of the Vatican. They have flourished on their own as a lay community.

You can buy the book at Amazon or read it at Google books:

http://books.google.com/books?id=opz4YhDT23EC&dq=Anita+Marie+Caspary&printsec=frontcover&source=an&hl=en&ei=I_FMSqW4EoHWsgPTrtG5BQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5

[scjk67]

reapeat.....change of spelling munk to monk....lol...my bad

One day a new monk went to Vatican, he was a very special person who knew of all Latin languages. the Pope had him assigned to the basement to study the books that were written many thousand years since Christ had risen. this monk was in the basement for weeks and nobody had heard from him, the Pope himself was worried and finally decided to visit the monk in the basement, when the Pope finally got down there and open the secured door finding the monk bawling his eyes out. the Pope felt compassion and asked the crying monk what was the matter, the monk looked up and wailed " we had it all wrong!!!..... the word celibate is all wrong....it means we should celebrate!!!! "

[martinchill]

we were able to figure that out the first time. i believe the joke actually said that the word celibate was misspelled and that the author meant celebrate, not celibate.

[oregonbird]

Oh, there's a far better joke. The word interpreted as "witch" by the original scribes was actually "poisoner." Deliberately, by order of King James' advisors. Political reasons.

It would be a lot funner, I suppose, if it wasn't true. And if thousands of women and children hadn't died in agony over the centuries -- and practitioners of a legitimate religion were still not being maligned -- just to give politicians a focus for the hatred of the citizenry.

[pepa]

I'm waiting until they investigate the boy molesting priests.

[who38]

In your dreams!

[offred]

Nope, because of the vow of poverty they take, nuns can't have frivolous possessions. I'm pretty sure a shotgun or a rifle or a handgun would fall into that category. Sarah needs her some guns.

[offred]

This is in reply to the very first comment shown on the last page.

[kindGSL]

They wouldn't be frivolous if they were used for hunting. Even nuns have to eat.

[wm1066]

When I was very young I worked for a Catholic school that had nuns as teachers. One nun was moving to a different school in a different state and they didn't make provisions to move her stuff, she had aquired robes and vestments and all sorts of stuff, plates, silverware.... and the administraror of the school made me throw all her stuff in the garbage because the nun hadn't been able to pay for moving it herself.....man they treat their nuns bad!

[Retrofuturistic]

The nuns better watch out. The Church knows how to whip, burn, guilt, and denigrate women into line. And it that doesn't work, it will take away their birth control and force them to breed.

[windup]

Let the good women leave the church and form their own order. It will weaken the male-dominated conservative, outdated institution. The nuns seem to be doing the kind of work that religion is supposed to be about.

[kindGSL]

Maybe the priests are afraid of compassion?

No, now I think that is mixing religions. It is the Baptists who are anti-compassion.

[Retrofuturistic]

That's a good idea, forming a female-dominated institution. Hmmmmmm.

[John Horner]

Great idea, and they should call themselves Wiccans just to make the abusive paternalistic male power order of the Catholic Church angry.

[morefromLA]

Am I alone in seeing parallels between the 21st century Catholic Church and the 21st century Republican Party?

[Retrofuturistic]

Fascism by any other name is still fascism.

[kindGSL]

No, you are not alone.

[helonias]

I will take the pope seriously when he sells the Vatican's art treasures and gives the money to the poor.

(Lk 12:15) "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions."

Matthew 6:19"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.

Jesus answered, 'If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.'"
-Matthew 19:21

[offred]

What's the one about a camel going through the eye of a needle sooner than a rich man would enter heaven?

Take that, capitalist Republican freemarket thugs.

[Retrofuturistic]

Ha. Good comment.

[offred]

Ratzie, a true disciple of Christ would sell the red silk slippers by Prada and go barefoot, like St. Francis of Assisi. Or wear sandals with soles made out of tires, like the missionary priests in Central and South America.

[BurtR]

Reiki is both unscientific and nonChristian!
that is quite an accomplishment

[HPdevotee]

LOL
Great observation.

[sheputstheLinPAIN]

So now we're supposed to feel sorry for these women in their Christ burkas, their sanctimony and sacrifice? They willingly joined an organization that thrives on teaching self-hatred to women and children, when they're not dishing out the abuse themselves. They allow themselves to be walking examples of how much the Catholic church loathes women. They are a crime against women everywhere. You don't need to teach hatred to do charitable work. Don't they know that the charitable work is only a distraction from their true purpose: a living celebration of male power over and hatred towards women?

Many nuns entered their prison willingly. Many are lesbians who chose to run away from the world. Many ran away from sexually abusive households (they are Catholic!) Many are self-loathing and actually believe they help the world by bloating the egos of priests and honoring an institution that makes tax-free profit by enslaving them, abusing children and amassing fortunes for themselves. They are nothing more than co-conspirators.

They made their bed. Let them lie [sic] in it.

[offred]

I come from a Midwestern German Catholic family. I have a half dozen older relatives in the religious life. Three of them are nuns. I think in one instance, one nun went to the convent because it was the only way to get out cooking and keeping house for the men on the family farm. In another instance, I'm pretty sure another nun entered the convent because she had a horror of geting married to a man. The third I know became a nun because there were only three ways for a woman to get respect: be a mother, be a teacher, be a nun.

They ran away from the world because they didn't think they had any other options. Sad. And hopefully a thing of the past.

[HPdevotee]

...and others went for educational reasons. Poor families have a hard time winging the tuition to good schools. And for some it was the only way they could justify college instead of marriage and kids straight out of high school. Indentured servitude is what it amounts to.

[kindGSL]

In the middle ages those were the choices, or even more limited. LOTS of people, both men and women went into the clergy because there was no other viable economic option.

[Retrofuturistic]

I never thought of it, but you're exactly right: The nun's habit is a burka!

[NoSillyName]

No quite; their faces are not hidden.

[ez duz it]

You write that, "Many are lesbians..." What source did you use to substantiate this claim? I would love to read it. Thanks!

[sheputstheLinPAIN]

http://www.amazon.com/Lesbian-Nuns-Breaking-Rosemary-Curb/dp/0930044622
check out this book to start.

I have no problem with lesbians, but I do have a problem with women who turn a blind eye to the chuch's corruption in exchange for refuge. I find it spiritually dishonest and have little sympathy for it. I think it also perpetuates the stereotypes of women that the church profits on.

[marignymitch]

Why are they stunned? Have they just discovered they work for the notoriously mysogynistic Catholic church?

[who38]

Good point.

[NWNHNM]

I was amazed to learn that there are 60,000 nuns still left in this country. I would have been surprised to learn that there were even 6,000 left.

These women have been treated like virtual serfs. As they age, they are left with little or no retirement security; if their particular religious order is not doing well financially (and how could they, as their members age?), then it's too bad for the retiring nuns.

Any conscientious Catholic should stop giving money to their parish church and instead donate the money to these nuns for their upkeep in old age.

(And don't even get me started on the wealth that parish priests can accumulate. They didn't just r*pe the children.)

[offred]

Such as wealthy parishioners being encouraged to start hefty retirement funds for a particular priest who isn't retiring for another decade.

[meko]

Priests are given their rectory, with someone to clean for them, someone to cook their meals, someone to do their laundry, etc, etc.

The nuns don't do that any more, so now they are mad that they have to do these things themselves. I've known of lay ministers who've had their hospice budgets slashed in order to pay for renovation and redecoration of rectories.

Priests are why I left the Catholic Church. Nuns are the ones who reach out and help people and are the only aspect of the Church that I respect anymore.

[MizLiz]

Yes, I used to prepare tax returns for a local priest. Hhe wasn't hurting at all, financially. Until, of course, his extra-curricular activities were found out.

[Paulied]

There are 60,000 nuns left in the US; only 27 are under the age of 70.

[rssrai]

I can see that the catholic church wants to do away with nuns in the catholic church. If they try to make nuns go back to strict conservative policies the decrease of nuns in the catholic church will only continue. You have to wonder why the catholic church hates women. The catholic church is a lot like the Islamic religion where they think women should be seen but not heard. I will neve go back to church until women can serve as priest.

[kindGSL]

Oh right! Like either religion would get anywhere without women. LOL

[martinchill]

my wife is of the notion that the proportion of gays to heterosexuals in the church and in the military is probably waaay more evenly balanced than in society. except for the fact that they are all hiding it and living a lie.

i say this because i'm guessing this may also be an investigation into homosexuality among nuns.

[offred]

Martinchill, I think you and your wife may be right.

Next on the agenda, I think, is an investigation into openly gay priests, in an effort to weed them out. Not that the church can afford to lose any more religious.

Not unlike the U.S. military discharging patriotic members of the military with important skills, such as speaking Arabic or being successful platoon leaders, all because they're openly gay. Better you work with the second best, rather than the best who are openly gay.

[who38]

Thank you.

[NoSillyName]

The thought that they were trying to root out lesbians crossed my mind as well.

[kindGSL]

Oh yeah, I agree. I think of it as a safe place for them to hide, historically I mean.

[KataVideo]

pope ratzinger is living up to fears that he would be a regressive pope. the problem is, as the catholic church loses influence, there are other crazier, harder-to-track religions all in line to start eating those "wayward souls".

[kindGSL]

Do you think he might be gay?

[who38]

Nah, he is too sexually repressed for that. Probably asexual. Or likes horses.