Nuns Under Fire
⊆ July 2nd, 2009 by Softly | ˜ No Comments »It may surprise some of you to know that I come a long line of nuns. Yes, at my roots as product of a very traditional German Roman Catholic family, every generation until recently had at least one child “donated” into church service. They were groomed young, and it was considered a high honor.
My Tante Thea (Tante means Aunt in German) was among them. She entered into the Carmelite order, which is one of the strictest. When you think of nuns in scratchy dark brown habits, those are Carmelites. She was actually my Great Aunt and passed away a few years ago. It wrenched my heart. Although she lived in the Netherlands, we often wrote back and forth and I confided things to her about my hopes and dreams while in Junior High School that I feared sharing with my own family. That bond continued into my adulthood, even after she found writing so difficult that her answers might only be a quick sentence on the back of a prayer card or post card.
She worked her way up the Roman Catholic Nunnery Food Chain to become a Mother Superior. You might think this journey made her a hard ass walking about with a ruler to swat the knuckles of unsuspecting children, but I have never known someone to be as spiritually insightful and full of love and understanding for everyone who she encountered. She had a keen understanding of psychology and didn’t believe that if someone chose to live their life in a particular way not “perfect” in the church’s eyes, that they would go to Hell or were somehow less.
Everyone in her eyes was exactly as God intended them to be, and who was she to question God? If you were true to your heart and lived an honorable life, that is what God saw, regardless of religious affiliation. She’d seen a lot in her lifetime, including surviving two world wars that she found herself in the midst of. The last time I saw her, she brought her guitar and a “companion” nun who drove. When she pulled out her guitar, I expected her to start playing Kumbaya. Instead, she chose The Beatles and other rock songs. Her dark brown habit flaying in the wind, while her head swung as she really got into the music she was playing. I remember thinking she was one rockin’ nun!
She also believed that nuns needed to changed. She lamented that it was difficult to truly interact with people on an equal level if you had to keep on your habit in this modern world of ours. Considering the Carmelite order is one of the most rigid and strict, this was a pretty revolutionary view. She felt that the church lost so many good people because of the inability to change with the times quickly and as in all things that survive the times, nuns also had to adapt to go out into communities, earn an education and remember their life is dedicated to service, not a “dress code”.
I may no longer consider myself a Catholic, but I was distressed at an article the New York Times ran titled U.S. Nuns Facing Vatican Scrutiny. Cardinal Franc Rode, who heads the Vatican office that oversees religious orders, has enlisted a habit-toting nun, Mother Clare, to conduct an Apostolic Visitation. Cardinal Rode was incredibly critical of nuns who worked outside of church framework and traditions and made scalding statements to that effect in a speech he gave as recent as last year. Maybe this shouldn’t seem quite so sinister except for the fact that this “visitation focuses only on nuns actively engaged in working in society and the church, not cloistered, contemplative nuns.” Read: Not those still under our strict control.
Usually visitations are only ordered when something has gone terribly wrong in an arm of the church. For example, a visitation was ordered for seminaries in the aftermath of the priest sexual-abuse scandal. Another is currently being conducted into the Legionaries of Christ. The founder of the Legionaries of Christ, a Reverend Degollado, is accused of sexually abusing young men in seminary, fathering a child and being less than honest with finances. Since he passed away in 2008, Rev. Degollado won’t know the outcome of his own visitation.
Focusing on more modern models of “nunnery”, it feels for some nuns like a modern day inquisition.
In this nun-visitation investigation, the focus is supposed to be on quality of life. How well do they juggle keeping all the sacraments and working “in the world”? Do they go to church and still participate in their congregations? Do they have enough structure and oversight? Read: How controllable are they?
A second investigation of U.S. nuns is also being conducted and was ordered by the Vatican and headed by U.S. Cardinal Levada. It is making a doctrinal assessment of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious that has about 1,500 members who represent about 95% of religious orders for women. Apparently the Vatican and Cardinal Levada feel that this organization has failed to promote some key church teachings: male-only priesthood, homosexuality and that the Roman Catholic Church is a way to gain salvation.
Back in the day of Pope John Paul II, the organization made a plea to include women in the ordained priesthood. It must be very frustrating for the modern day nun to see men elevated to positions that they know some women are much more qualified for. The male hierarchy is significantly threatened by women, and still sees nuns as a “workforce” for the church - Little Catholic “worker bees” so to speak.
In March, a Vatican decree stated that Catholics had to stop using Reiki, of all things, as a treatment. Reiki is a healing therapy that was well adopted by Catholic nuns. It has been used in some Catholic hospitals and retreat centers. The church says it is “unscientific” and “non-Christian”. WTF does that mean? I suppose that gall bladder surgery or open heart surgery is more Christian?
I wonder what insight my Tante Thea would give to this current situation? Probably that change is slow and those that fear change often try to over-control it. She would smile and say everything has its time and that anything done with a pure heart will eventually conquer, even though it may take some time and be a uphill struggle. She would say that nothing worthwhile winning is ever easy, and requires much sacrifice.
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