When Things Get Tough for the Clergy, Bash the Nuns

Philly Burbs
April 28, 2012

http://www.phillyburbs.com/entertainment/when-things-get-tough-for-the-clergy-bash-the-nuns/article_79d0b6a2-5929-5b1f-a211-e93e24507fea.html

Throughout the centuries, and even in today's world, Catholic nuns — those dedicated religious women who have devoted their entire lives to helping others while expecting very little in return — have always been (and still are) treated by many leaders of their church as second-class citizens.

Traditionally, they rank well behind the priests, monks, brothers and other male members of a paternalistic hierarchy.

Throughout most of church history and well into the past century, nuns (because they were women) could not even step onto the altar during Mass or other religious services.

This gender bias was not only found in religious matters, but in the basic differences in the day-to-day lives of both nuns and priests.

A typical example was a convent I clearly remember from my youth. It was a converted run-down building on the edge of the Kensington section of Philadelphia that had previously been a street-corner saloon.

In that dilapidated facility, a dozen sisters (our elementary school teachers) had to sleep on torn mattresses stuffed with old newspapers because they couldn't afford to buy decent bedding. Much of their furniture was secondhand and donated by parishioners.

As for food, they were just getting by with only the barest necessities. For entertainment, they listened to an old radio and an out-of-date wind-up phonograph with possibly a half-dozen scratched and worn-out vinyl records.

By contrast, a block down the street in a relatively new rectory, the pastor and several priests in residence had nearly every modern convenience including up-to-date furniture, one of the then-new TV sets and plenty to eat, as well as a housekeeper and a cook.

Even beyond that, priests of that day could pretty much come and go as they pleased, driving their own cars, visiting friends or relatives, dining out, going to ball games or movies, or enjoying a round of golf.

Yet most nuns spent the bulk of their time in schoolrooms or within their convent walls, in many cases unable to even visit their parents' homes or attend family weddings or funerals. When they did leave the convent, even to do food shopping, to avoid the appearance of scandal, they generally had to be escorted by another female.

Despite their many hardships, those sisters spent their lives diligently instilling the love of God into us on a daily basis. Every weekday morning, with no hint of their own deprivations, they were waiting for us in our parochial school classrooms, ready to indoctrinate us into our elementary school basics and always with a moral theme.

Today, some professional teachers' groups are calling for class sizes of no more than 15 students. Back then, those sisters taught classes of 50 to 60 children and somehow managed to instill the three "R's" in just about every one of us.

While in recent decades many of the seemingly illogical restrictions that nuns endured for so long have been removed, the number of nuns in this country is at an all-time low and still dwindling.

In the greater Philadelphia area, they are rarely seen teaching in the elementary schools, yet across the country, many of them (about 60,000) are still busy devoting their full time to school charities, medical centers and impoverished neighborhoods. Their work is considered by many to be indispensible and is a shining light helping to illuminate the darkness that has resulted from the recent church scandals.

Despite this, and at a time when the church leadership should be primarily engaged in resolving its much more serious problem of the sexual abuse of schoolchildren by rogue priests and the cover-ups by diocesan authorities in the U.S. and in Europe, they've now turned their attention to chastising many of these dedicated nuns.

Earlier this month, officials at the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith accused them of "serious doctrinal problems" and cited individual nuns at conference gatherings for promoting "radical feminist themes," such as challenging church teachings on homosexuality and an all-male priesthood.

Unbelievably, they admonished them for "focusing too much on poverty and economic injustice" while allegedly "keeping silent on abortion, contraception and same-sex marriage."

Another major Vatican complaint is that dozens of American nuns involved in the "front lines" of anti-poverty and hospital work provided prominent support to President Obama's health-care reform, disagreeing with American bishops, who opposed it. To the bishops, that's a major no-no.

The sisters argue they had reaffirmed their opposition to abortion, but want the right to speak out on a "moral imperative" like health care, just as the bishops had.

In an attempt to stifle the sisters' controversial comments, earlier this month, the Vatican appointed an American bishop (obviously a male) to oversee the operations of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious — the 1,500 superiors who run about 80 percent of American sisters' communities.

From this, it's clear the church hierarchy doesn't want individuals — especially those in religious communities and, more especially, women — thinking (or even worse, speaking out or making important decisions) on their own.

Standing in seeming contradiction is a quote from Joseph Ratzinger, the former Prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, now Pope Benedict XVI, stressing the importance of following one's conscience versus papal authority.

"Over the pope as expression of the binding claim of ecclesiastical authority," Ratzinger wrote in "Comments on Vatican II" in 1967, "there stands one's own conscience which must be obeyed before all else, even if necessary against the requirement of ecclesiastical authority."

Unfortunately, it seems that based on the Vatican's recent actions, it's OK for certain high-ranking prelates to hold this position on conscience, but God forbid that others — especially women — dare put it into practice.