What is going on with the US nuns?

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govgaff

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nytimes.com/2009/10/25/opinion/25dowd.html

I have heard and read much recently about the Vatican’s review of nuns in the US. I am confused…when I read that nuns are being challenged for treating and consoling those sick with HIV and Aids, I don’t know what is really going on? Then today, I read Maureen Dowd’s article in the New York Times and I am really upset.

Can someone help me separate the wheat from the chaff?
 
The examination of the nuns in the US has nothing to do with those ministries; that is a straw man that would make Ray Bolger jealous ;). It is more about the declining numbers and about some possible doctrinal inconsistencies. Scratch that, it is all about those things.

For what it is worth, while Dowd is clearly intelligent and has written some insightful pieces, be forewarned that she has been held up as an example of anti-Catholicism by Philip Jenkins of The Last Acceptable Prejudice fame, and I for one have seen evidence of that even before I read Jenkins analyses. So I would not put nearly any weight on her discussion of such an examination. Caveat emptor.
 
govgaff said:
nytimes.com/2009/10/25/opinion/25dowd.html

I have heard and read much recently about the Vatican’s review of nuns in the US. I am confused…when I read that nuns are being challenged for treating and consoling those sick with HIV and Aids, I don’t know what is really going on? Then today, I read Maureen Dowd’s article in the New York Times and I am really upset.

Can someone help me separate the wheat from the chaff?
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First off, clearly Maureen Dowd has a agenda. Second it’s the NY times, would you expect anything else? My personal thoughts are SOMETHING needs to be done with some of the off beat Orders in the US. Hopefully Rome can sort them out.
 
govgaff said:
I have heard and read much recently about the Vatican’s review of nuns in the US. I am confused…when I read that nuns are being challenged for treating and consoling those sick with HIV and Aids, I don’t know what is really going on?
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Could you link to those article(s)? I am unfamiliar with them.
govgaff said:
Then today, I read Maureen Dowd’s article in the New York Times and I am really upset.

Can someone help me separate the wheat from the chaff?
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Hmmm…?? Dowd’s op-ed piece didn’t present any particulars. Could you tell us what concerns you? Are there examples you could cite? If so, it would facilitate discussion.
 
govgaff said:
nytimes.com/2009/10/25/opinion/25dowd.html

I have heard and read much recently about the Vatican’s review of nuns in the US. I am confused…when I read that nuns are being challenged for treating and consoling those sick with HIV and Aids, I don’t know what is really going on? Then today, I read Maureen Dowd’s article in the New York Times and I am really upset.

Can someone help me separate the wheat from the chaff?
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It’s an OP ED full of rhetoric and vitriol, not facts. The whole thing is chaff.
 
A description of what the Leadership Conference of Women Religious was talking about at their 2007 annual assembly may help answer the question as to why they’re being probed by the Vatican.

From the Catholic News Agency:

In that keynote, titled “A Marginal Life: Pursuing Holiness in the 21st Century,” Sinsinawa Dominican Sister Laurie Brink commented on the decline of many religious orders. She characterized some successful new orders as being “acquiescent” to others’ expectations and also discussed the possible future of women religious.

She described a “sojourning congregation” as “the dynamic option for Religious Life.”

In Sister Laurie’s words, such a congregation involves “moving beyond the Church, even beyond Jesus.”

“A sojourning congregation is no longer ecclesiastical. It has grown beyond the bounds of institutional religion. Its search for the Holy may have begun rooted in Jesus as the Christ, but deep reflection, study and prayer have opened it up to the spirit of the Holy in all of creation. Religious titles, institutional limitations, ecclesiastical authorities no longer fit this congregation, which in most respects is Post-Christian.”

She described the Benedictine Women of Madison as having a commitment to “ecumenism” which led them “beyond the exclusivity of the Catholic Church into a new inclusivity, where all manner of seeking God is welcomed. They are certainly religious women, but they are no longer women religious as it is defined by the Roman Catholic Church. They choose as a congregation to step outside the Church in order to step into a greater sense of holiness. Theirs was a choice of integrity, insight and courage.”

See the rest of the story at:
catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=15715

…
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It is disingenuous to pretend that the Vatican is picking on these women because of misogyny. The Vatican recently conducted the same type of investigation on American semniaries. It is their duty to God and to the faithful to conduct these types of investigations. The investigation is also being lead by another congregation of nuns, who are based at the Vatican.

This is such an irresponsible article from the NY Times. The comments after the article are even scarier. Lord have mercy on us.
 
govgaff said:
nytimes.com/2009/10/25/opinion/25dowd.html

I have heard and read much recently about the Vatican’s review of nuns in the US. I am confused…when I read that nuns are being challenged for treating and consoling those sick with HIV and Aids, I don’t know what is really going on? Then today, I read Maureen Dowd’s article in the New York Times and I am really upset.

Can someone help me separate the wheat from the chaff?
Click to expand...
That article is so far off the mark it’s scary! :eek: I would recommend visiting the link of the previous poster who linked to Fr. Z’s commentary on the article. That should help.👍
 
turtle18 said:
It is disingenuous to pretend that the Vatican is picking on these women because of misogyny. The Vatican recently conducted the same type of investigation on American semniaries.
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The faithless left noticed that one too. They characterized THAT one as the Vatican picking on gays in the seminary… :rolleyes:
 
manualman said:
The faithless left noticed that one too. They characterized THAT one as the Vatican picking on gays in the seminary… :rolleyes:
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Well how do they account for this, then? The investigation is being led by a female religious order whose members consist of doctors, lawyers, teachers, chaplains. The religious order is based at the Vatican.
 
Just my piddly little 2 cents…the ‘decline of many religious orders’ might well be their own fault.

I am a middle-aged widow and would love to become a nun, and in fact am converting to Catholicism for precisely that reason. But I have now been told that by the time my children are grown and I’m ready to enter, I’ll be past the ‘cutoff age’ that most orders have–and in fact, I’m already too old for most of them.

Now, I am speaking in generalizations here–there are always exceptions–but I don’t see a whole lot of young women beating down the doors to enter the religious life (God bless those who do). Yet someone like me who truly seeks a vocation–who has been praying about it for years, who is mature and settled and not ‘flighty,’ who has experienced ‘the other life’ and knows exactly what she’s giving up, and still wants to enter–will be turned away.
 
Miserys_Fence said:
I am a middle-aged widow and would love to become a nun, and in fact am converting to Catholicism for precisely that reason. But I have now been told that by the time my children are grown and I’m ready to enter, I’ll be past the ‘cutoff age’ that most orders have–and in fact, I’m already too old for most of them.
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Some orders are open to older women. You might want to ask about them in the Vocations forum, but a few are mention in this thead:
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=360838&highlight=older
 
One of the other threads on this forum concerns a nun who is an escort at an abortion cllinic. After Vatican II, many religious–priests and nuns–became dissenters from Catholic doctrine and values. What is going on with U.S. nuns? Women’s orders that have become dominated by dissenters are vanishing because women aren’t joining them, and the average age of their members is now in many cases past retirement age. There are some serious signs of spiritual ill-health overall in North America and the Vatican is quite right to look into the situation.
The New York Times article is itself written by a dissenter, and dissenting nuns obviously are her heroes. Obviously, faithful Catholics are more approved by the Vatican, and why not?
The New York Times became vehemently pro-abortion years ago, so, personally, I don’t read it. I don’t have anything against someone else reading it, but perhaps this becomes a problem for you it you accept the poison some items in it provides?
 
govgaff said:
nytimes.com/2009/10/25/opinion/25dowd.html
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This article outraged me-- written by someone who obviously doesn’t understand the first thing about being Catholic. It’s absolutely acinine that just any person can write a defaming story about the Catholic Faith, repleate with untruths twisted until their unrecognizable and taken completely out of context, and well known publications will put them into print. :mad::mad::mad::mad:
 
Miserys_Fence said:
Just my piddly little 2 cents…the ‘decline of many religious orders’ might well be their own fault.

I am a middle-aged widow and would love to become a nun, and in fact am converting to Catholicism for precisely that reason. But I have now been told that by the time my children are grown and I’m ready to enter, I’ll be past the ‘cutoff age’ that most orders have–and in fact, I’m already too old for most of them.

Now, I am speaking in generalizations here–there are always exceptions–but I don’t see a whole lot of young women beating down the doors to enter the religious life (God bless those who do). Yet someone like me who truly seeks a vocation–who has been praying about it for years, who is mature and settled and not ‘flighty,’ who has experienced ‘the other life’ and knows exactly what she’s giving up, and still wants to enter–will be turned away.
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The secret here is that such policies are a formal fence to keep unknown freeloaders out (aka the nunnery retirement plan!). If you find a community you like, get involved and close with them NOW as a lay person and I bet you’ll discover that exceptions are made for people who are a known quantity. I’m QUITE sure Mother Angelica’s MOM was well past the novitiate cutoff age…
 
turtle18 said:
It is disingenuous to pretend that the Vatican is picking on these women because of misogyny. The Vatican recently conducted the same type of investigation on American semniaries. It is their duty to God and to the faithful to conduct these types of investigations. **The investigation is also being lead by another congregation of nuns, who are based at the Vatican. **

This is such an irresponsible article from the NY Times. The comments after the article are even scarier. Lord have mercy on us.
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(1) Do you have a link to the recent investigation of the seminaries?

(2) So this investigation of nuns is being performed by other nuns?
 
Uggh. I just read the piece and now feel guilty I had tried earlier to be, er, even handed about her.

The fact that the Times would even publish a piece like this without at least a strong repudiation of the most galling elements of it seem to demonstrate Jenkins’ thesis about anticatholicism quite well. Other than here and similar places, there has been no protest against such nonsense (I haven’t even heard Bill Donohue chime in about this piece yet). Yet consider for one second if (say) Jews, Blacks, or gays were the topic. We’d still be hearing about it.
 
baylee said:
(1) Do you have a link to the recent investigation of the seminaries?

catholicculture.org/news/features/index.cfm?recnum=60273

(2) So this investigation of nuns is being performed by other nuns?
Click to expand...
nytimes.com/2009/07/02/us/02nuns.html

Here is a link to the religious order. Their Mother General is based at the Vatican
ascjus.org/

Yeah, I wonder how Maureen Dowd got to be such a “respected” journalist when she isn’t anywhere close to getting her facts straight.
 
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