Get Thee To A Nunnery! Pronto!

(via)

So, apparently the Catholic Church's hierarchy in the US, specifically the US Council of Bishops, hates everything fun, exciting, and awesome (to be fair, I already knew they hated everything fun and exciting, but they have now extended their hatred to awesome things as well). According to this article, which you should most definitely read (seriously, it's from the New Yorker, which is a step up from the Star Tribune or the Creation Science Association for Mid-America's news letter; this is a quality article that you're ignoring, Imaginary Readers), they have now decided that they don't just hate lay women and their issues like birth control, abortion, etc., but they also hate their own women, specifically nuns. The Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith has decided to investigate the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, the main organization of American nuns, for not being conservative enough on social issues. Basically, they seem to think that American nuns haven't been doing enough to discourage marriage equality, abortion, and the use of birth control in their ministries. Because apparently, respectfully not supporting something and advocating against it aren't the same thing, and in order to be against something you must yell about it all the time.

The shame in all of this is that nuns are really awesome, generally speaking. They are the members of the church who are really affecting change on a grass roots level, much more so than any other group within the church. It's nuns who are really helping the poor and disenfranchised, and who administer hospitals and teach in schools. They are the ones who are out in the community, who are getting arrested for protesting and advocating for those who can't themselves (yes, including fetuses, but I guess if you really believe that abortion is murder (which I don't, but that's a discussion for another time) do you have any choice but fight against it?). Nuns are the real agents of social change in the Church. Bishops sit in judgement of society and act as social commentators, but they rarely do anything other than that to change things (other than give gratuitous sums of money to political causes that promote discrimination, but I've already talked about that). And I don't think that the Church hierarchy respects the work that they do. They are actively discriminated against, as they can't rise in the ranks of the church above heading their own order, and they are treated much harsher than monks or priests (granted, when was the last time a monk did anything but read and sing?).

For example, in 2009, according to the above article, which you should totally read to understand what I am talking about, a nun who was an administrator at a Catholic hospital was excommunicated because she allowed the doctors at the hospital to terminate the pregnancy of a women who was about to die in they didn't. This means that the Church puts a higher value on the life of an 11 week old fetus than on the life of a 27 year old mother. Priorities people. And excommunication isn't the quaint antiquity that most people think of it now as. For someone who is truly faithful, like a nun or priest, being excommunicated, or not being allowed to receive communion until you repent, means potentially not being allowed into heaven, which is kind of a big deal if you believe in all that. This is from a Church that didn't do anything to punish priests who abused children, and just shuffled them around and covered it up. They excommunicated a nun for doing the right thing, but when an entire series of priests molested children they just tried to make sure no one found out and allowed them to remain vested. And now they're investigating the nuns because apparently actually living social justice isn't enough these days.

And now the Church is also considering readmitting the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), the super conservative group that split with the Vatican after Vatican II, because the Church was just too liberal for them. This is all indicative of a more conservative turn in the Church of late, precipitated by the election of Pope Benedict XVI in 2005, which is rather ominous considering the conservative swing in US politics recently, and what they might accomplish if the US fundamentalist Christians got over the whole 'dirty Catholic idol worshippers' thing and they teamed up. It would be like Voldemort and Magneto working together. Not a pleasant thought. Anyways, I'll stop rambling about the Catholic Church now, because I'm sure we've all got better things to do...

'Rouge Feminist Lesbian Catholic Nuns' are apparently a thing  (on the internet at least), and I'm not sure how I feel about it... (via)