Sister Pat Farrell, president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious

 By Bob Gaydos

I venture with trepidation into the middle of a looming showdown of potentially historic magnitude. The trepidation is because the confrontation is of a religious nature and Americans have proven themselves incapable of conducting civil debate in this area. But my concern is not so much about the religious outcome of the showdown as it is with its more basic, universal, nature, if you will.

As I see it, the nuns of America versus the bishops of the Roman Catholic Church is a classic example of a group of women, given an opportunity to do and be more than silent, obedient servants within their institution, taking advantage of that opportunity and then being chastised and warned by the men who run the institution to, in effect, pipe down and remember their place.

Next week, American nuns will meet in St. Louis to discuss how to respond to a heavy-handed Vatican report that questioned the nuns’ loyalty to the church — a very male thing to do. The Vatican has appointed three bishops to oversee the restructuring of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, an organization that represents 80 percent of Catholic women’s religious orders in the United States. The Vatican has made it clear that this will not be an all-voices-heard, collegial makeover, but rather “an invitation to obedience.”

The LCWR has drawn the ire of the entirely male hierarchy of the church by taking to heart an invitation issued with Vatican II to study the founding of their orders, review and discuss their missions and renew them. Vatican II, issued almost a half century ago and intended to bring the church into the modern world, also gave nuns unprecedented opportunities for higher education and advancement in the Catholic hierarchy in many areas, except for the priesthood, of course. The nuns seized the opportunity and over time became influential in many areas as heads of colleges and high schools, hospital administrators, lawyers and social workers, outspoken advocates for immigrants and the poor and activists for racial equality and protecting the environment.

This is, of course, the stuff of the modern world. So are same sex marriage, birth control and women’s rights. The nuns have discussed — but taken no official stand — on ordination for women as priests, abortion, artificial contraception and gay marriage. But to the bishops, the mere discussion of these issues — all  opposed by the Church —  is described as disloyalty to the teachings of the Church. That traditionally means case closed. Even though 95 percent of catholic women say they have used artificial contraception at some time and a majority of Catholics support same-sex marriage and any honest man or women you talk to readily agrees that if women were priests –and monsignors and bishops — there would have been no worldwide scandal of Catholic priests sexually molesting young boys.

The nuns have been given an ultimatum from the holy fathers who claim provenance over the teachings of the church. It is not clear what the Vatican will do if the nuns refuse to simply bow and return to silently serving their self-proclaimed masters. Is there such a thing as “replacement nuns”?

There are marches and vigils planned in support of the nuns. The Leadership Conference is considering a range of responses to the Vatican. Sister Pat Farrell, the president of the conference, told the New York Times that while the nuns see their questioning as faithfulness, it is seen by the Vatican as defiance. “We have a differing perspective on obedience,” she said. “Our understanding is that we need to continue to respond to the signs of the times, and the new questions and issues that arise in the complexities of modern life are not something we see as a threat.”

But clearly the bishops do. The Church has been run the way they have decreed for centuries. Now, some women (radical feminists?) want to change everything and, dare we say, maybe take some of the power? The bishops deny this. Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, the papal nuncio to the United States, told American bishops at a meeting in Atlanta, “We all know that the fundamental tactic of the enemy is to show a church divided.” I’m not sure to what “enemy” the archbishop was referring (another typical male tactic), but the voices of questioning here are coming from within the Church.

If I may venture ever so slightly into religion here, I believe a central teaching of most religions is to exhibit a degree of humility in one’s life. Let’s just say the nuns have done this for centuries. Let us also point out that in this fast-moving modern world there are far fewer nuns than there used to be and they are getting older.

History says the bishops will not blink. But history is written every day and often by intelligent, dedicated, passionate women. Who says they can’t be nuns?

 bob@zestoforange.com

Fidel Castro ... no fan of GOP field

By Bob Gaydos
Do you get the feeling that a lot of Republicans just don’t like Mitt Romney? Or Rick Santorum? That they can’t make up their minds which one is less objectionable to the rest of the country? And does it seem like Republicans have finally got the true measure of Newt Gingrich and see that he really is the opportunistic, self-seeking, mean-spirited, vindictive blowhard that he sounds like every time he has an opportunity? And that, while they can abide Ron Paul, it’s only on days with an “R” in them?

It has been pleasantly quiet lately without a Republican presidential
“debate” every other day. No one shouting, “Liar, liar, pants on fire!” or “Hypocrite!” or, “Immigrant-lover!” or, worst of all, “Moderate!”

Yet the primary campaign drones on. Interestingly, the most apt description of this field of screams that I’ve seen comes from out of left field, literally: “The greatest competition of idiocy and ignorance that has ever been” is the way Fidel Castro put it when asked about the GOP primary campaign.

Yeah, I know all those dyed-in-the-wool, red-white-and-blue, flag-waving, commie-hating, God-fearing, apple-pie-eating, Chevy-driving, heterosexual, over-taxed Republicans who hate the government of the country they love probably don’t give a fig about what the former Cuban dictator thinks about their party. But it doesn’t mean he isn’t right.

That’s a bit of subtlety that seems to be lost on a lot of Republicans these days. When you live in a multi-cultural society, people will have differences of opinion. They need not be based in hate or expressed in hateful language. And people who are different from you may have different opinions on how to go about things. And they may sometimes be right. It makes it really important to learn how to work things out rather than shout ideas down. Too many Republicans don’t seem to get this.

Truth of the matter and Castro aside, a lot of Americans think the candidates the Republicans have put forth to run for president are an insult to the nation and an embarrassment for the party. And Sarah Palin isn’t even part of the conversation. However, her unsuccessful campaign for the vice presidency in 2008 may well have been the catalyst for what has transpired within the GOP: The Coup.

The party of Lincoln is clearly no longer the party of the likes of Rockefeller or Eisenhower or Bush I or Ford or Dole or, for that matter, Reagan. In fact, you hear almost as little about Double R as you do about Bush II from Republicans these days. Last week, the Conservative Political Action Committee held its convention to hear from the GOP candidates to decide where to put its money, which, according to the U.S. Supreme Court, is the same as its mouth.

Santorum, fresh off victories in Minnesota, Missouri and Colorado, where a handful of ultra-conservative Republicans bothered to show up and cast votes that don’t really count, confidently told the CPAC gathering, “Conservatives and Tea Party folk — we are not just wings of the Republican Party, we are the Republican Party.” Huzzah! Huzzah!

Then they voted to support Romney.

* * *

Another bit of news that cannot go unnoticed: With the GOP candidates mostly silent, the biggest noise of the week came from another group of conservative men — the United States’ Catholic bishops. They felt obliged to give the rest of the country a lecture on sex and conscience. The bishops objected to an Obama administration plan that would require church-related institutions such as hospitals and schools to provide women employees with insurance coverage for contraceptives, free of charge. Churches themselves were exempt. More than 25 states already have such a law in place, guaranteeing that all women, regardless of religion or where they work, have access to free birth control, if they choose to use it.

The bishops, who have been looking for any issue on which to claim the high moral ground ever since paying off hundreds of millions of dollars in claims when priests around the world were discovered to be sexually abusing young boys, seized on objecting to probably the most effective method known to reduce the number of abortions — free birth control. They weren’t even happy when Obama switched the cost to the insurance companies. Everyone was too polite to mention that the bishops didn’t consult any women in voicing their objection or that, according to a Guttmacher poll, 98 percent of Catholic women say they use some form of contraception to practice birth control or for other health reasons.

One assumes, they do so in what they obviously regard as good conscience, never mind common sense.

bob@zestoforange.com