Today's Vatican Culture Is Still Stuck in the Past

By James F. Drane
The Patriot-News
May 20, 2012

www.pennlive.com/editorials/index.ssf/2012/05/todays_vatican_culture_is_stil.html


Every major industry, firm or organization has a particular culture at the leadership level, and most are male cultures. The same is true of political parties, churches and social groups.

So, an all-male Vatican culture is not unique.

Women, however, have begun to rise to the top of secular institutions. This is especially true of institutions in economically advanced nations. In most cases, the ground-breaking women themselves have been formed by female societies, groups and clubs with their own strong feminine cultures.

Across the broad biological spectrum, females form friendships and bond with one another. These female bonds and friendships strengthen a female way of being that is different from how men interact and how they are formed by the cultures in their clubs and associations.

Strong sister bonds and friendships create strengths that males and their groups cannot match.

There is a lesson here that seems to be missed in the Catholic Church's male culture and by the bishops formed in it. Some of the least insightful bishops reprimanded Sister Carol Keehan for standing with and protecting pregnant women whose lives were threatened by a developing fetus.

These bishops were theologically unsophisticated, but even worse was their naivete in thinking that they could push around Catholic sisters and child-bearing women with their reprimands and threats to withdraw Catholic status from hospitals if abortion is permitted when a fetus puts the mother's life in danger.

The level of naivete demonstrated by those bishops could come only from celibate men who have had no close experience with women.

Catholic laypersons who thought that such foolishness would not be repeated were quickly disappointed. Some even more naive bishops are now trying to bully the entire community of American sisters (Leadership Conference of Women Religious).

Their crackdown on American nuns is to make them withdraw from the social-justice work that they do for poor people.

Instead, the bishops insist that they redirect their efforts and focus on opposing gay marriage, contraception and abortion. The concerns mentioned by the bishops were with radical feminist themes at their conferences and widespread dissent from the church's sexual teachings within religious congregations.

The bishops in charge of this latest display of Vatican authority are high-ranking, ultraconservative members of the hierarchy. Under the "leadership" of one of these bishops, a priest pedophile was left in charge of a large diocesan program for homeless boys.

This priest, Paul Shanley, was eventually convicted of abusing a boy. Shanley and other priests not only were not reported to civil authorities by their bishops, but were moved around from parish to parish. Instead of being removed from society, they were sent to retreats.

Things were so bad in the Boston diocese, where Father Shanley practiced, that his presiding bishop was forced to resign in 2002. Believe it or not, that bishop was given a new position in Rome. That bishop was the Cardinal Archbishop of Boston, Bernard Law.

After his mishandling of the sexual abuse scandal, Cardinal Law was put in charge of one of Rome's major basilicas, Santa Maria Maggiore. Now he is pushing the investigation and crackdown on American sisters.

According to unofficial reports coming from inside the Vatican, Cardinal Law is joined in his crackdown by Cardinal Raymond Burke, the former Archbishop of St. Louis. Archbishop Burke, too, was pressured to leave his diocese and given a new post inside the Vatican.

Archbishop Burke was given much attention in St. Louis for his outspokenness. He excluded a member of the sisters of charity from church ministries and receiving any of the sacraments in the archdiocese after she publicly said women should be involved in all the church's ministries, including the priesthood. He also was at odds with Catholic hospitals on certain issues related to the technologies used on dying patients and insisted they be administered despite medical authorities believing differently.

Under pressure caused by his ultraconservative bioethical stands and the harm his policies would do to Catholic hospitals, Cardinal Burke was moved to a Vatican judicial post.

How could two ultraconservative cardinals, with legacies of tragic mistakes, now be permitted to turn their flawed judgments against hardworking sisters throughout the U.S.?

Fellow American bishops followed up the cardinals' criticisms of nuns with their own criticism and inquiry into Girl Scouts. The more bishops and cardinals say about female issues and sexuality, the stronger a case is made for church silence. The only alternative would be an open dialogue with women.

Communities of Sisters and Girl Scout troops might have weaknesses and need reforms, but such reforms cannot be carried out by old men.

The Vatican had better get women into positions of power and authority if it wants to address, in a meaningful way, problems in congregations of sisters and Girl Scout troops.