On a more serious note, the Sisters have a point. If nuns and other members of the female religious orders are seen as miserable and powerless, they WILL have a lot more trouble attracting new members.
In short, PR matters.
Horse-poop. The nuns were never more numerous and popular than when outside society viewed them as weak, medieval, superstitious or miserable,
ad infinitum.
“Power is made perfect in weakness.”
Understand that principle and you will understand why religious orders that are the most gloomy, rigid, and disciplined in self-denial were, and are, always the most influential, succesful, popular, &c.
Take the Jesuits, for example, who - from the 16th to the 19th centuries, though always relatively small and miniscule in comparitive numbers - were, nonetheless, made out by the Church’s enemies to be a terror to the world’s
status quo, and completely capable of utterly overthrowing any existing social order. Hence they were thrown out of many countries. Yet for all of this they never once debauched themselves by attracting members based on any imagery of fun ; in fact, they usually promoted their rigid discipline and martyrology to attract men, and this did attract them. It was these “miserable” and, by worldly standards, “weak” men who were so effective in their vocations that nations had to move against them in order to suppress and deter them. To this day I have to combat with my best friend the laughable conspiracy theory - still current - that the Jesuits are taking over and practically ruling the world for the Pope.
Reared on analysis, observation, on delicacies of fine calculation, in this species of skill we have no rivals, any more than we have either in the drawing up of plans of political actions and solidarity. ln this respect the Jesuits alone might have compared with us, but we have contrived to discredit them in the eyes of the unthinking mob as an overt organization, while we ourselves all the while have kept our secret organization in the shade.
I submit the above, taken from the infamous
Protocols, as an example of the popular thought or image of the Jesuits even at the end of the 19th century. It was still believable then to credit the Jesuits with such powers that a purported group planning world domination would logically need to address them as a global force. Think about that. To the late 19th century mind no one could believe you seriously wanted to take over the world without addressing a society of weak and miserable men, who never had fun. Apparently, the Jesuits’ PR was so profound then that it lingers on to this day, even though it is now completely disctint from their actual social and organizational reality. And what PR campaign could be considered more succesful than when totally outside sources promote you, whether it is to discredit or promote you ? That’s called free publicity.
Pax Christi,
Tim
