Funny how no one ever talks about the nuns.
I suppose it makes sense. After all, Catholic nuns are so rarely embroiled in sex scandals. They are never caught pants down in the rectory with a 10-year-old altar boy, teaching him of the "mystical secretions" of the Lord. They never cost the church billions in litigious payouts for rape, abuse, millennia of pedophilic atrocity and shame. For that, you gotta look to the priests.
The nuns, they keep to themselves. They work quietly, faithfully in the background, the humble and resolute handmaidens to the patriarchy, performing their work without media glare, without need to draw obnoxious battle lines around every sexual or moral issue under the sun. Or so it would seem.
If we imagine them at all, we imagine them smacking schoolchildren's wrists with rulers. We imagine them as the Mother Theresa types, ministering to the sick and the infirm, changing the bloody bandages on the soldiers in WWII. We imagine them helping out the Von Trapps. We can see them today, piloting a beat-up Ford Escort around the Office Depot parking lot, picking up supplies for the convent, looking sweet and awkward and deeply out of place in the real world. Adorable!
But until recently, I had not the slightest clue as to what American nuns did all day. Delivering meals to the poor. Knitting giant crucifix cozies. Cleaning up after sloppy priests. Feeding hungry squirrels. Facebooking with angels. No idea.
Until now. Until I discovered that a great many American nuns, some 57,000 of them to be exact, have been actively and frequently pissing off the Vatican, nearly every single day, in all sorts of delightful ways, for years. Isn't that grand?
How are they doing it? Why, the very same way the tastier gender has always annoyed the sour patriarchy: by daring to think for themselves (just a little), by following their own code of conduct, by asking humble but firm questions of the orthodoxy, by pushing back eversoslightly against the dogma the Vatican likes to throw down like stale oatmeal made of concrete and death. Damn fine work, really. I wholly endorse it.
Have you heard? The Leadership Conference of Women Religious, the umbrella group representing those 57k American nuns, they've been accused of having "serious doctrinal problems" and promoting nothing short of some "radical feminist themes" (!) which apparently consist of gently supporting Obamacare (free health care for the poor? Nuns are all over it), endorsing the idea of female priests, ministering to the underprivileged and being way too nice to gay people.
Horrible! You can see why the pope is furious. Some nuns are even accused of spending so much time working in local politics to help the needy, they leave themselves no room to bash gay marriage, wail about abortion, attack humanity for enjoying sex, or scold their own gender for having vaginas in the first place. I know! Those wenches.
So now, it's come to this: The men are taking over. The ever-unhappy pope reportedly assigned Seattle archbishop Peter Sartain to whip the LCWR back into shape, reform the entire organization and slap that "radical" feminist agenda right out of their presumptuous little habits. Because that's what the Vatican does.
Which is another way of saying: womenfolk getting uppity again? Females starting to think for themselves? Showing a modicum of spirit, fire, individuality? This will not do. This way anarchy lies. What's next, lesbianism? Birth control? Acknowledging the Virgin Mary was a nasty myth designed to suppress 10,000 years of hotly fertile, goddess-based pagan belief? Oh wait.
Time for some changes. Time for the angry manhammer of fear to come down. The Vatican has given the LCWR five years to shape up, and it put a man in charge of the process. Because, being mere women, they obviously cannot think, act or figure it out by themselves. And God simply does not abide uppity females. Just ask Eve.
Is it not sort of amazing? Is it not all flavors of classic and timeless in its barely veiled misogyny? It's like 1884 all over again. Or was that 1484? 484? When were the witch trials? When was Hypatia beaten to death for liking math? I get confused.
To be perfectly honest, I can sympathize with the Vatican. Women are dangerous things. Unnerving. They can mess with your head, overwhelm the body, make you feel all sticky and tingly inside, like you just ate a giant chocolate cake made of lighting and orchids and MDMA. They throw you for a loop and take you for a ride and confuse all reality, so much so you can't help but see something as inane as organized religion as completely idiotic and small. It's something about their smell.
No wonder the Vatican is nervous...
Read the rest of this column by clicking here.
Mark Morford is the author of The Daring Spectacle: Adventures in Deviant Journalism, a mega-collection of his finest columns for the San Francisco Chronicle and SFGate. He recently requested that you please join his Tantric yoga sex cult, discussed how to be outraged in America and begged you Oh my God please do not eat this. Join him on Facebook, or email him. Not to mention...
Follow Mark Morford on Twitter: www.twitter.com/markmorford
Jim Wallis: Having the Sisters' Back
http://www.usccb.org/loader.cfm?csModule=security/getfile&pageid=55544
I think what many who are nonCatholic do not understand is the "Chain of Command" in the church which can be traced historically back to the Apostle Peter and Jesus. It has survived for more than 2000 years. The Catholic Church is not a democracy and as adults we have freewill to decide if we want to be Catholic. Nuns after a years long process take vows which include one of obedience. A vow is a sacred promise and is made as an adult of your own free will.
My point is if you don't like the rules of the church and accept the authority of the church you are free to leave. Recently a Marine was "censured" for speaking against his Commander-In-Chief, he will soon be "Excommunicated"(discharged) for failure to obey the rules of the Marine Corps.
This is a Leadership Group originally set up by the Vatican to provide training and leadership for U.S. Nuns. Certainly a requirement would be to insure your speakers, classes etc are in line with the teachings of the Catholic Church. This is what this whole to do is about.
Your idea of a military organization is funny because many early Christians refused military service. No vow of obedience is so sacred that it excuses a person for violating the Ten Commandments, the lessons in the Gospel like the Sermon on the Mount, the Woman at the Well or the Good Samaritan.
You are right this is a fight over authority. Please study history and you may get a different perspective.
I've never understood why so many women are so self-hating.
This month is 800 year anniversary for the founding of the Poor Clares. Clare of Assisi did not get her order approved by the MEN until she was on her death bed. She fought Rome and won.
Men never really understand women and are foolish to try and control them. My bet is on the nuns of LCWR.
Chaucer wrote rollicking tales about adultery.
Entertainment has NEVER been all classical music and uplifting poetry.
I think these nuns in question are holding mass in their homes. Question is, why do they need a pope? Quakers have held services in their homes forever. Seems childish to fight an unnecessary fight, but maybe it's all about money, as things of this nature usually are.
l
I love my sisters in humanity, I love what they have to offer. This is one man who has no fear of a totally empowered woman.