Nuns rock.

edit: I've always thought the Mormon church could really use a system like convents. There are a lot of women who want to do good but who are only told that their place in the world is to marry and breed. And they keep trying to find a husband, then settle desperately for whatever will stand still long enough and shows an interest.

Do you think that there's any understanding that the world has moved on from them? My understanding, based completely on anecdata, is that it's the women who take the kids to church, sunday school, plan all of those things.

Once you've gotten in their faces and made it very clear that you don't want them, your church will just die off without them. Is this way overly simplistic?

Hmm. I take back the birth control thing. This is from the first article about it, in 2009:

The Vatican assessment has become necessary, according to Levada, because at the 2001 meeting between the women’s leadership conference and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which took place in Rome, the women were invited “to report on the initiatives taken or planned” to promote the reception of three areas of Vatican doctrinal concern: the 1994 apostolic letter Ordinatio sacerdotalis, the 2000 declaration Dominus Jesus from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and “the problem of homosexuality.”

Ordinatio sacerdotalis, Latin for “On the Ordination to the Priesthood,” was a Vatican document that reasserted that Catholic ordination to the priesthood is reserved for men alone and that the church “has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women.”

Dominus Jesus was a declaration that, in part, insisted that non-Catholic Christians are “in a gravely deficient situation in comparison with those who, in the church, have the fullness of the means of salvation” and that non-Catholic Christian communities suffer “defects.” It was viewed at the time by some Catholic theologians and leaders of other religions as a major setback in interreligious dialogue.

In a 1986 letter written by then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict, to the world’s bishops, he wrote: “Although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not a sin, it is a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil; and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder.”

Regarding the investigation of the women’s leadership conference, Levada informed conference leaders: “Given both the tenor and the doctrinal content of various addresses given at the annual assemblies of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious in the intervening years, this Dicastery can only conclude that the problems which had motivated its request in 2001 continue to be present.”

So from that, I assume that women religious (1) talk about the ordination of women, (2) do *not* brand Protestants as apostates who should be burned at the stake, and (3) are cool with Teh Gayz.

Well, then. That's pretty damn evil, AMIRITE? I mean, that's WAY worse than priests -- remember, only men can be ordained because they're spiritually perfect -- sexually abusing thousands of children.

Good to know Rome has its priorities in order.

Tep, scanning through the official letter, they don't even say the words "birth control" - they do, however, note that the LCWR doesn't fall in line with the Church's Biblically based stances on human sexuality and homosexuality, and, under "radical feminist themes," notes that some of their writings use the word "patriarchy."

And, yeah, you beat me to it. But, damn, that concluding letter just makes my eyes roll until they hurt. They used the word Patriarchy! Burn the witches!

Seriously, that really does make my heart hurt for women religious. This is their whole life -- they've given their whole selves to fulfilling Christ's mission, and they're DOING IT, and they're getting smacked down in a huge way and being told that they're committing spiritual wrongs.

Fuck that. Fuck that hard.

Do you think that there's any understanding that the world has moved on from them? My understanding, based completely on anecdata, is that it's the women who take the kids to church, sunday school, plan all of those things.

Oh, that understanding is crystal clear, and it scares the SHIT out of them. Hence all the investigations and scolding and disciplining and shaming and all the rest of it. They're fucking terrified.

Once you've gotten in their faces and made it very clear that you don't want them, your church will just die off without them. Is this way overly simplistic?

I don't actually think it is.

My parish is attending a special screening of Pink Smoke Over The Vatican at The Embarcadero next month (with Roy Bourgeois speaking afterward). I should probably try to grab a couple of the organizers and ask for a dinner or coffee date, and start seriously talking about "What next? No, really, what next?"

"What next? No, really, what next?"

"SCHISM! SCHISM!"

They're fucking terrified.

I see. So they're trying to hasten it by doubling down?

This is really just the same stuff that's happening with all the War on Women laws in the US. I want to believe it's the terrified death rattle of a dying mindset. "I AM TAKING YOU ALL DOWN WITH ME!" But it will take years to undo this all.

"SCHISM! SCHISM!"

Judean People's Front! People's Front of Judea!

Sorry.

Maybe we need an Anti-Pope again.