Dude, I'm Lutheran(or, you know, was) the only advice I have is to write up a Letterman-style "Top 99 Reasons Your Church Blows Goats" list, nail it on the door and wait for the flame war to start. Not believing is kind of easier, at least till someone writes the Leonard Gospels. Hee, hee, talk about "leaving out the parts people skip"

But I'm inquring into a particular line of reasoning. And something JZ has discussed on this list. At any rate, not telling JZ what to do. Just asking what the full effects of her continued membership in her local Parish are, as someone ignorant of the relation between Parishes and the larger church? Not asking what she is going to do, regardless of the answer.

x-posted and JZ answered - she contributes in a way that does NOT go to the larger hierarchy .

The crackdown on the nuns is so very rage making. Steph says what I feel:

I, personally, have no interest in returning to the Catholic faith, but that really makes my heart hurt for my nuns (I do the newsletter for the Ursulines who run my high school). They're pretty much fiercely devoted to social justice in the scariest parts of the city, and they do so much good. What a fucking kick in the teeth to them.

I was Ursuline educated and my great-aunt is an Ursuline and they, and other nuns I've known, are, for the most part, some really smart, talented, free thinking women. That the institution they've devoted their lives to does this to them makes me sick.

The nun they interviewed about the subject on All Things Considered today is pretty kick ass.

she contributes in a way that does go to the larger hierarchy

No, she only contributes to the local parish.

And even then we don't have much money to be contributing to anything except out rent and food budget.

Corrected the typo (and the Typo).

I hate that kind error where I leave out a critical word and say the exact opposite of what I intend. And its not like I don't review. Something in the way my brain is wired makes it impossible to catch that sort of thing unless I review over and over again.

Timelies all!

Heading to Toronto for FilKOntario tomorrow. Will pack after dinner.

There is something to be said for staying in and continuing to support an openly progressive parish. We're actually one of the few in the diocese that are breaking even and self-sustaining - we're not making enough to take on any special projects or make new hires without fundraising, but in this economy even self-sustaining is a big deal.

I'm sure the national and international hierarchy think we're heretical dirt, but the local hierarchy looks at us and sees a parish that's surviving and a parish where people get sent who are furious at the Church, on their way out the door forever, but end up staying (a lot of parishes have dwindling memberships, people who leave and don't move to another parish but to none at all, and run deficits so chronic that their diocese have to dig into their own pockets and underwrite the parish budgets -- my old parish routinely ran 5-figure deficits).

It's worth noting that the Oakland parish purposefully assigned a very conservative priest to JZ's previous, very progressive parish. It was no accident and that priest has alienated and driven away a large number of people.

I think her current parish may survive in a bubble but the plans of the Vatican and the Bishops is very clear. They want to destroy progressive Catholicism. Period.

So when the American Catholics break off, who will become the equivalent of the Archbishop of Canterbury?

I cannot imagine my family's collective angst at the thought of the US Catholic Church breaking from the Vatican. It's unthinkable.