This month, the Vatican reprimanded a group of U.S. nuns proclaiming after four years of investigation that the group had “serious doctrinal problems.” Anyone who has been watching politics in relationship to the Catholic Church might have seen this coming, even before the Obama healthcare program. For me, it’s been a troubling case of the political becoming the personal.
I have been worshiping at the Catholic Church for about a year now. This is an entirely new and novel experience for a girl who was brought up secular atheist. I am coming to kow religion primarily through reading books, significant parts of the Bible and Quran, about 2/3rds of the new 1997 Catholic Catechism, the entire Book of Mormon (it’s a great read! So theatrical!), and lots of new age stuff including, most recently, Ernest Holmes’ Science of Mind. The changing colors and sounds of the Catholic calendar rituals are deeply engaging, and grasping the meaning of sin and forgiveness and the body and spirit of Christ have been a welcome meditation for me. I feel the Holy Spirit when I am in the Church. I’m starting to appreciate the mystery of Jesus. I feel comfortable in a way that I never thought I could be. It has been a blessing, a gift.
I can believe that choosing life is the better option, and that in some reckless cases, abortion might indeed be a sin. But I have always believed and even actively politically advocated that the government should not be able to dictate or regulate that personal choice. Then, a few Sundays ago, some fellow who was not the priest stood up to ask us to pray about the healthcare issue. To pray that it was repealed so that Catholic organizations wouldn’t be forced to go against their values. I could go with them with that as a general concept. No organization should be forced by a government to do something blatantly against their mission. But then, he chose not to focus on the value to promote life, not to help the sick and poor, but to extend exemption to small businesses run by Catholics, like dentists and realtors. For the first time, I felt sick to my stomach. And I knew, that although I had strongly been thinking about going through adult confirmation, that I cannot go all the way and join the Church. Not as it stands today.
But this thing with the Vatican and American nuns…it actually gives me hope! What if, as one commentator on a web article suggested, the nuns broke off and started their own church? There are already alternative Catholic organizations, such as the humbling radical Catholic Workers Movement.
From what I understand, this sanctioned group, Leadership Conference of Women Religious, which represents 80% of the only 57,000 Catholic nuns in the United States aren’t aiming to do that. They respect the institution enough to want a dialogue: to want to change the system from within. And that is some ways is the hardest and bravest of missions. All human systems need to be reformed from time to time. And even if it is divinely inspired, The Church is a human institution.
“All members of the church, including her ministers, must acknowledge that they are sinners.” Cf. 1 Jn 1:8-10; paragraph number 827 of the Catchism of the Catholic Church
Can change ever come without violence or destruction? Can you ever really leave the good, and take away only the bad? Wouldn’t that be the real miracle?
I pray that the male leadership of the Catholic Church open up their hearts, and, in the words of Alcoholics Anonymous, do a “fearless and searching moral inventory” of itself. If the Church is ever to overcome its obessions and hypocrisies regarding sex and gender, they should start with improving their relationships with the nuns. The nuns need to be treated as full intellectual, moral, and spiritual equals, as the Catholics now preach that men and women should be in the Family Church. If this can happen, then I believe true, more relevant approaches to men, women, and human relationships will be revealed within the Church.
Please, if you’re so inclined by your conscious and your heart, pray with me for the strength and wisdom and grace of the United States nuns at this critical time as they compose their formal reponse to the Vatican.
Visit: Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) Call For Support