Saturday, April 21, 2012

Vatican crackdown on U.S. nuns was 40 years in the making

(Reuters) - When Pope John Paul II arrived in the United States in 1979, the president of the nation's most powerful organization of nuns met him with a challenge.

In a bold welcoming address, Sister Theresa Kane called on the pope to include women "in all ministries of our church," including the priesthood. The pope sat silent, his expression stony.

That moment did not change Vatican policy.

But it unveiled growing tensions between the Vatican and American nuns. The conflict would continue to mount for the next three decades, until this week the Vatican finally moved to reassert control over the aging but still ferociously independent conference of Catholic sisters.

Read the rest here.

This was a petty surprising story. No, I don't mean all of the details about decades of radical nuns thumbing their nose at Rome. That is hardly a news bulletin for Catholics of either the conservative or liberal stripe. Rather I am shocked, indeed almost stunned, by the at least somewhat balanced tone in the story. I can't imagine how it got by the editor.

2 comments:

  1. They don't represent all Catholic nuns, like the media makes it out to be.

    If you are going to be into pantheism and earth worship, they why live a lie and pretend to be Christian.

    The issue goes beyond women's ordinations into the denial of basic Christianity. Jesus is not God, he did not die for us etc.

    The sad part is a generation is missing thanks to so much bad teaching.

    I just can't believe that they are now playing the sorry victims, when they were informed of this 11 years ago.

    The good thing is that the traditional orders are growing.




    Savvy

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  2. I have avoided reading too many articles about this situation because I feel like the tone is always the same. Nuns being oppressed, evil Vatican, rinse, wash, repeat. This was balanced. I have met some amazing nuns, even of the more 'progressive' bent, but it was time to clean house. Granted, in terms of house cleaning, they could have started with USCCB.

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