Thursday, April 19, 2012

Inquisition cracks down on wymyn

It turns out that the Vatican intends to reform the LCWR, the flagship organization of the gray and dying liberal American nuns. The press has cast it in the terms of my post's title, of course. "Coralling nuns", as one headline put it. But really, what have the girls been thinking?

Focus in reports will be on their thundering silence of abortion and homosexuality, which the report mentions. But the heart of the whole thing will get lost, which is that Rome has discovered that as far as this group is concerned, Christ is either a cipher or an afterthought. As the document says,
the Assessment reveals serious doctrinal problems which affect many in
Consecrated Life. On the doctrinal level, this crisis is characterized by a diminution of the
fundamental Christological center and focus of religious consecration which leads, in turn, to a loss of a “constant and lively sense of the Church” among some Religious.
The Church, on most of their websites, is either The People of God or a sinful patriarchal institution which needs the reforming benefit of the sisters' "prophetic" critique, based on "the signs of the times." And the Mass, because it requires a male priest, is something of a disputed question, or an optional form of devotion. The organization will now have the benefit of three bishops to oversee their "renewal".

A lot of these women really are ecofeminist Democrats who have a lot more in common with Unitarian Universalists and Episcopalians --save for the ethnic thing. with the old Catholic or Christian shell just there for convenience and sentiment.

And whilst under investigation by Rome, who do they invite to be their upcoming Keynote Speaker? A contemporary version of Madame Blavatsky.

Do these ladies not know what the word Catholic means? 

PS A lot of commentors accuse Rome and the bishops of hypocrisy because of their catastrophic handling of the clergy sex abuse mess. No doubt they failed bigtime there and gave the Church's enemies a freebie that keeps on giving.  But what a lot of people don't understand is that, despite its big moral code, Catholicism --if I may speak of it as a mythic organism-- cares a lot more about doctrine and sacraments than about human bad behavior. Bad behavior is a constant. But perhaps precisely because of this, Catholic identity --same for the Orthodox-- is rooted in dogma and in sacraments, which means the centrality of a doctrinally and sacrally empowered priesthood. The Church authorities will always take this more seriously than bad behavior. If you don't accept that, then sooner or later you'll be a Protestant, either overtly or covertly. All that blather about The People of God --which usually sounds like Thirty of the  Good Folks Of St. Finbar's Parish-- is public relations.

PPS. NPR and the nun head of the lefty social justice org see this simply as patriarchs unable to deal with strong women. Well, that explains everything.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

... I'm kind-of book'd (perplex'd js943) that the Holy Office doesn't let the sisters keep on evapourating.

Nuns who prefer to say "Let's enter the Cosmic Mystery Together" (from the [black widow spider?] website of the reincarnation of Madame Blavatsky you link to) have little or no prophetic power over their target white middle-class Americans.

In contrast, when a spokesperson quotes from the Bible and the 'social encyclicals' she or he can make white Christians expiate their guilt by voting Democrat. »The disciples ask unto him, Doth post-Christian Caesar have an individual mandate according to the Law? And Jesus commanded, Render unto Caesar an individual mandate, and unto God some change He can believe in.«

The ongoing non-ordainability of women no doubt must continue to affront social-justice nuns, but this affront too is useful for propheticness against the capitalist patriarchy. The nuns can continue to point to their exclusion in dismay, and this protest will 'make sense' in general cultural terms when even Republicans don't say that women mayn't have careers in what William Whyte, C. Wright Mills, Charles Reich, et al deem "Organization Man" "Consciousness II" "Repressive Desublimation" "Iron Cage" etc — the Calvin's vocation work ethic without the vocation and without Calvin. ... It must only seem unholy that women mayn't be ordain'd to a priesthood that traditionalist Catholics are pleased to deem 'counter-cultural.'

Anonymous said...

What about the large numbers of lesbian sisters? Is that the real reason for these investigations?

OreamnosAmericanus said...

I don't think it's about sisters being lesbian. It's more about the disappearance of Christ and Catholicism from the LCWR's programs and policies in favor of a ecoFeminist spirituality in chronic conflict with the official Church.

Unless the behavior if public and scandalous, the Church is more interested in doctrine and sacraments.

lax-goalie said...

From Barbara Marx Hubbard's web site:

"She is a Fellow of The Club of Budapest, and has received an honorary PhD in Conscious Evolution from the Giordano Bruno GlobalShift University. She has established a Chair in Conscious Evolution at Wisdom University and is member of many progressive organizations, including Evolutionary Leaders Group, Global New Thought (AGNT), as well as, The World Future Society."

Oh, puke. How many organizations can one create to play make-believe?

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