Sister Simone Campbell represents nuns who have gone rogue. Sister Simone particularly has gone after Congress for its neglignence of the poor. Stephen Colbert thinks she has been to a wimple burning party.
Meanwhile, another nun talks back. Sister Anne Curtis explains how American nuns went from being the good girls of the Catholic Church — the very epitome of faithful — to the subject of headlines around the world calling them rebels.
She feels that nuns ARE the church and that there have been too many attempts to marginalize them. According to the Washington Post:
“Well,” Curtis said, her tone curt for the first time in more than an hour of talking, “We are the church, we are the church. We are the church as much as the bishops are, as much as our lay colleagues are, as much as people who raise their children in the tradition are. That’s the church. We are all the church.”
But what exactly does it mean to be Catholic?
It’s come down to that core question in this angry year for the nation’s Catholics, with political debates about health care and the size of government jumbled up with religious ones about whether people can be good, faithful Catholics and totally ignore their bishop when he tells them to vote or pray or believe a certain way. The two sides represent seemingly incompatible visions of Catholicism, the country’s largest denomination, with one camp prizing openness and collaboration and the other championing unity of belief.
Standing in for those visions Tuesday in a Vatican meeting room will be two prominent American nuns and two prominent American bishops charged with “reforming” the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, which represents about 80 percent of the country’s roughly 56,000 nuns.
I am not so sure most nuns are going to be letting bishops tell them what to do. It seems to most women that the nuns are being taken to the woodshed for a good lesson for Papa Pope. Sister Anne Custis is in the order Sisters of Mercy. This order of nuns is well known for helping the poor, the sick, the pregnant, and those who cannot help themselves. It appears that the social network nuns are on a collision course with the teachings of a church that wants to tell them and the parishioners what to do, say, think and how to vote. The sisters see themselves as striving to live out their faith by attempting to emulate the life of Christ.
Leaders of her order, as well as many others, are under fire for giving platforms to ideas against the church hierarchy. While they have attracted grass-roots support across the country — a Twitter campaign with the hashtag #whatsistersmeantome has had more than 1,000 responses, and a bus tour of nuns is planned for next Monday — the nuns are standing as the most institutional symbols of a very different Catholicism than that posited by leading bishops and Pope Benedict XVI today.
Perhaps this is the Revolution that was predicted some 40 years ago. Many of us saw it coming. but what’s all this nun flap about? Earlier this spring, a nun, Sister Margaret Farley, a Yale theologian, wrote a book entitled “Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics.” She has been censured by the Vatican.
The Vatican was outraged and appointed an American Bishop to rein in the Sisters in the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) and get them in line with church teaching. According to the April 18th New York Times:
The Vatican’s assessment, issued on Wednesday, said that members of the group, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, had challenged church teaching on homosexuality and the male-only priesthood, and promoted “radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith.”
The sisters were also reprimanded for making public statements that “disagree with or challenge the bishops, who are the church’s authentic teachers of faith and morals.” During the debate over the health care overhaul in 2010, American bishops came out in opposition to the health plan, but dozens of sisters, many of whom belong to the Leadership Conference, signed a statement supporting it — support that provided crucial cover for the Obama administration in the battle over health care.
The conference is an umbrella organization of women’s religious communities, and claims 1,500 members who represent 80 percent of the Catholic sisters in the United States. It was formed in 1956 at the Vatican’s request, and answers to the Vatican, said Sister Annmarie Sanders, the group’s communications director.
The mover and shaker nuns are not going to be intimidated by the Vatican, it sounds like. Custis, Campbell, Sanders, Farley and others will serve the Lord as they see fit. Meanwhile the nuns on tour bus takes off this week and plans on going to 9 different states. It sounds like the Perfect Storm has arrived. Rebel Nuns even sounds like someone is gonna lose and it isn’t the Rebels.
I hope this lady doesn’t think she’s a trail-blazer by being a “rogue nun”. This would not be the Catholic Church’s first rogue.
There are many ladies involved. I didn’t get the impression that any of them think they were first. I would say they don’t think they are rebels.
Rebel Nuns is a great name for a all female rock band!
I agree re Rebel Nuns
I loved how her message was so simple. WWJD….what would Jesus do? The nuns are serving the least amoung us, you go girl!
Of course, one of the requirements of taking holy orders is to obey the doctrine of the Church.
So, if they have a crisis of conscience, then something has to give. They either follow orders or leave the order. The Church is a hierarchical society. Like I had to follow the orders of superiors in the military, members of holy orders have to do the same.
Now, I respect them for speaking out. But they will be brought back to doctrinal orthodoxy.
Sounds like you want your nuns to do what them thar men folks say, Cargo. The church has gotten much more conservative than when many of these women became nuns. Many of them joined their orders because they had a calling to heal the sick and give to the poor, end war, and many other socially idealist things. Many young women and girls saw a life time commitment of doing these things as being very Christ-like.
Now the church is telling them they need to cut back on these things and spend more time fighting abortion rights and gay unions. That isn’t what they signed on to. They wanted to be of service to those in need. They church wants them to be more like ‘Onward Christian soldiers.”
Of course, I learned that from reading the various articles. If they haven’t been brought back in 50 years, I doubt if there is any bringing back to do.
You are aware that some priests don’t follow orders?
in a couple of minutes, the “rebel nuns” could easily be “rebels”.
Um, if memory serves me correctly, the Catholic Church is having a “hiring crisis” when it comes to nuns and priests.
http://www.tldm.org/News11/DevastatingDeclineReligiousOrders.htm
@Elena
So is it your assertion that the Catholic Church will likely look the other direction because they’re having problems attracting people? Is that what you are hinting at? If true, I’d like to set up some odds and put some money down.
That’s probably not a fair question to ask Elena any more than it would be fair to ask me what a various synagogue has planned.
Of course they aren’t going to look the other way. Who are we talking about here? It is a male dominated society. However, all they can do is excommunicate them if they don’t shape up. I am not so sure the Church is strong enough to survive that war of public opinion. The first wave of revolution was 50 years ago. I see a new one coming.
There is another issue I want to throw out. The Kennedys. The Kennedys were the real ambassadors of the catholic church for well over 50 years and several generations. The “real” Kennedys are almost and gone. I believe that the church will not longer be viewed as kindly, by non-atholics, now that they are gone. I also see a mean-spiritedness in the ranks that either hadn’t surface or that the Kennedys somehow softened. Now they are gone the meaness glows like a beacon.
I don’t personally care what the Nuns do or the Church does with them. I am not a good Catholic.
That said, those Nuns signed on knowing what the rules were. They cannot advocate things in opposition to Church teachings. That would be like a soldier rooting for the enemy.
If the Nuns want to advocate according to their conscience…. hey, Martin Luther was a Catholic priest and monk.
The Catholic Church is no more mean than any other religious organization. The Church has a set of principles and beliefs. Abide by those and you are welcome. Dissent…and you will get disapproval.
I think that you are overstating the influence of the Kennedys. The last thing that ol’ Ted made you think of was Catholic. The Church is already a minority in the US. Catholicism, outside of New Orleans, parts of Boston, parts of Maryland, and the “hispanic” culture, is a distinct minority. We are already disapproved of by the Protestants. That’s ok. They’re all going to hell unless they repent and rejoin the Holy Mother Church. 😉 We’ll wait.
Heck, the KKK used to persecute Catholics too. And the irony is that the Catholic church tends to vote liberally. So, they were hoist on their own petard by voting for Obama. Oops.
I couldn’t disagree more. I am going to be real bold and advance the idea that caring for the sick and the poor really isn’t against Catholic teaching. Now, thanks to my dad, I escaped being one of the flock. Even though he escaped, I was taught to be respectful. (long story there)
Most of those nuns “enlisted” when the church was a hot bed of social activism. They wanted to end poverty, help women empower themselves though education. They wanted to stop war. They wanted to help the poor and the sick and the elderly. So far, I haven’t mentioned anything horribly radical. These nuns haven’t changed. The church has changed. It has changed a lot even since John Paul II died.
The Catholic Church is the largest denomination in the United States, Baptist is second. What do you want? World domination? All denominations are minorities because one church doesn’t have over half of its members that denomination–thank goodness. However, the majority of the churches are Christian.
I do know that Ted Kennedy made ME think of Catholic as did the rest of the family. Speak for yourself. I know a lot of other people agree with me. The Kennedys stood for people who were very devout but who kept their public life and their religion of different sides of the wall. I have always respected them for that. Actually Rose and JFK probably enforce that the most. He had to and she just did. Hell, her father sent her back to that philandering old buzzard who cheated on her all the time because of the church. It made me sick when I first read that. Her fate was sealed.
Protestants disapprove of everyone for the most part, except those of their own denomination. Notice the root word? It didn’t stop with the origins…it has kept cranking out its disapproval. You ought to hear the Methodists talk about the Baptists!
“They’re all going to hell unless they repent and rejoin the Holy Mother Church.”
HAHAHA.. Yup.
Those nuns are free to leave the Church anytime they want. Or if they’d rather be excommunicated – so be it.
I know very liberal Catholics and I know very conservative Catholics. Both want the poor helped but differ on how to accomplish the goal.
Cargo, have you seen how few priests are in the military now? http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/04/06/catholic-chaplains-crises/
@marinm
Yep. And its going to become more rare to find chaplains if the orders that military chaplains MUST marry gay military members becomes real. Its only a rumor right now.
@Moon-howler
The Catholic Church is the single largest COHESIVE sect. But Protestants outnumber Catholics. But, with Latin immigration, Catholicism is growing. Heck, give it a few years, Islam may be the largest group……
Those nuns enlisted in the last 20-30 years. 1980 was not a hot bed of liberalism in Catholic doctrine. Furthermore, helping the poor. etc are the goals. But it must be done while following Church doctrine. So support for gay marriage or abortion is right out.
This they say they supported abortion rights or using contraception? I didnt see anything about abortion rights but it has been several days.
I classify, in my mind, a huge difference in contraception and abortion.
I saw those women, they have been around about 30-40 years. They are not spring chickens.
There has always been a contingency of liberal nuns and priests…if liberal is the word for them. I dont think that feeding the poor is liberal but I guess if the poor are hispanic, then it becomes liberal.
And protestanta are as different as day and night. You will get more agreement out of some protestants and catholics than out of some protestants and other protestants. You are making the mistake of thinking protestants all have something in common. Actually they have 1 think in common…they aren’t catholic. thats about it.
@Moon-howler
And that common denominator is all I was talking about.
Now, in regards to doctrine…. that’s a different argument. I agree about some protestants agreeing with Catholic doctrine than other protestant doctrine. I can’t see much agreement between Southern Baptists and Unitarians…. 😉
As for abortion or contraception…. I’ve read different articles about them so I may be wrong about the abortion….the code words were “Women’s health rights” or something similar. But they are shown as supporting Planned Parenthood, so that’s where I got it.