Across 30 years, the modern version
of the Sisters of St. Joseph has been revolutionizing the treatment of
imprisoned women in New York. Thanks to the nuns’ efforts, mothers are
now allowed to care for their infants on the inside and remain close to
their children in creative visitors’ programs. Once they are paroled,
these women and their children can find a year’s shelter in one of nine
Providence House sanctuaries the nuns created in defunct city rectories
and convents.
The order has never lacked courage: five members were guillotined in
the French Revolution for giving shelter to the hunted. Now it is the
bewildered community of American nuns that is the subject of two
sweeping Vatican investigations. The question is whether the sisters
are “living in fidelity” to the religious life — a question being put
to nuns in no other nation.
Vatican investigations called “visitations” usually focus on serious
flaws like the pedophilia scandal. So, what are nuns doing wrong? That
is the question being asked by the sisters and legions of Catholic
laypeople.
“Well, it’s all nonsense,” says Bob Bennett, a lawyer who led the
church’s lay inquiry into the priest pedophilia scandal — which, he
says, the church has still not fully addressed. He is amazed that
American nuns, of all good people, are suddenly being scrutinized.
“They are the jewels, the church’s class act,” he says.
The sisters won’t talk publicly about fears that the Vatican’s goal
is to push them back toward a more submissive veil-and-wimple past. At
the Providence House programs last week, they talked instead about the
myriad problems of their ex-con mothers trying to get a grip on life.
As ever, the nuns labor at the brink, begging alms to keep their
mission going. “Look, none of us are marching to get women ordained,”
one sister said in putting down the cliché that they seek to undermine
Rome.
Tom Fox, editor of The National Catholic Reporter, suspects the
inquiries are steeped in patriarchy and male chauvinism. “Next time,
let’s have our women religious study the quality of life of our male
clerics,” is Mr. Fox’s advice.
Yesterday’s New York Times ran a thought provoking op-ed by Ross Douthat on Caritas in Veritate and the need for political re-imagination.Here are parts of it:
Papal encyclicals are supposed to be written with one eye on two millenniums of Catholic teaching, and the other on eternity. But Americans, as a rule, have rather narrower horizons. As soon as the media have finished scanning a Vatican document for references to sex, the debate begins in earnest: Is it good for the left, or for the right? For Democrats, or for Republicans?
* * *
Benedict’s encyclical is nothing if not political. “Caritas in Veritate” promotes a vision of economic solidarity rooted in moral conservatism. It links the dignity of labor to the sanctity of marriage. It praises the redistribution of wealth while emphasizing the importance of decentralized governance. It connects the despoiling of the environment to the mass destruction of human embryos.
This is not a message you’re likely to hear in Barack Obama’s next State of the Union, or in the Republican Party’s response. It represents a kind of left-right fusionism with little traction in American politics.
But that’s precisely what makes it so relevant and challenging — for Catholics and non-Catholics alike.
* * *
Catholics are obliged to take seriously the underlying provocation of the papal message — namely, that our present political alignments are not the only ones imaginable, and that truth may not be served by perfect ideological conformity.
So should all people of good will. For liberals and conservatives alike, “Caritas in Veritate” is an invitation to think anew about their alliances and litmus tests. ...
Second, I (obviously) realize (as does Pope Benedict) that we have had some sub-optimal Popes and that it is (thankfully) not necessary for us to regard every Pope in history as having been specifically identified and imposed on the Church by the Holy Spirit. That said, I'm comfortably confident that the selection of this Pope -- even if he is not as much like Pres. Obama, or as responsive to the concerns of Kathleen Kennedy Townsend and her friends as she might like -- fits nicely within the Holy Spirit's promised-by-Christ guidance, protection, preservation, and inspiration of the Church.
Thanks to Michael Perry who has brought our attention to The New York Times article posted this afternoon regarding President Obama’s stirring speech given to the Ghanian Parliament. As Michael’s reference to the speech itself and to The New York Times article about it point out, the President noted that responsibility for the plight of Africa and its salvation does not rest with particular forces solely outside of Africa or inside.
Earlier today our President stated that,
Now, it's easy to point fingers and to pin the blame of these problems on others. Yes, a colonial map that made little sense helped to breed conflict. The West has often approached Africa as a patron or a source of resources rather than a partner. But the West is not responsible for the destruction of the Zimbabwean economy over the last decade, or wars in which children are enlisted as combatants. In my father's life, it was partly tribalism and patronage and nepotism in an independent Kenya that for a long stretch derailed his career, and we know that this kind of corruption is still a daily fact of life for far too many.
It may well be that the President has been listening to and taking stock of what the Pope, the Holy See, and those who represent it have been proposing for some time. For example, in 2007, the Holy See, through its Permanent Observer to the United Nations, offered parallel thoughts to those issued by the President today. In particular, Archbishop Celestino Migliore stated behalf of the Holy See and Pope Benedict that,
The international community is called to assist African countries develop policies that promote a culture of solidarity, so that their economic development may go hand in hand with integral human development. On the other hand, good governance and institution-building efforts, correct use of aid and anti-corruption measures are primary responsibilities of the recipient countries and are essential if international aid is to bear fruit.
I am certain we all share Michael’s pride in and endorsement of the President’s stirring remarks presented today in Ghana. But let us also acknowledge that some of his efforts to achieve good in the world, especially in those places most in need of it, have been preceded by those of others including the Roman Catholic Church and her exhortations over the years that have brought attention to the plight and promise of Africa. As we applaud the President, so, too, must we applaud those who have gone before in efforts to achieve the same noble goals for the betterment of humanity.
... whether your name is Rick Garnett or John O'Callaghan or whatever--and even if you believe that the Holy Spirit picked Joseph Ratzinger to be pope (cf. here; BTW, Joseph Ratzinger himself [!] suggested, in effect, that for one who is familiar with the history of the papacy, such a claim is not plausible)--surely you can applaud this ... at least, this. (Or was the speech no more than a predictable political stratagem?)
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger on the Holy Spirit and the papacy:
Speculating on the identity of the new pope prior to the conclave,
the Rev. Richard John Neuhaus wrote in his “Rome Diary” that, once
elected, “faithful Catholics will have no doubt that he is the choice
of the Holy Spirit.” The new pope’s own view is more modest. Asked in
1997 whether the Holy Spirit picks the pope, Ratzinger responded: “I
would say that the Spirit does not exactly take control of the affair,
but rather like a good educator...leaves us much space, much freedom,
without entirely abandoning us.... Probably the only assurance he
offers is that the thing cannot be totally ruined. There are too many
contrary instances of popes the Holy Spirit would obviously not have
picked.”
Allen is justified, therefore, in claiming that when Ratzinger was made
prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1981, he
was “the first truly first-rate theologian to become the Pope’s top
doctrinal authority since St. Robert Bellarmine in the sixteenth
century.”
Thanks to my colleague and MOJ-friend John O'Callaghan for sending this along:
Here, then, I conceive, is the object of the Holy See and the Catholic Church in setting up Universities; it is to reunite things which were in the beginning joined together by God, and have been put asunder by man. Some persons will say that I am thinking of confining, distorting, and stunting the growth of the intellect by ecclesiastical supervision. I have no such thought. Nor have I any thought of a compromise, as if religion must give up something, and science something. I wish the intellect to range with the utmost freedom, and religion to enjoy an equal freedom; but what I am stipulating for is, that they should be found in one and the same place, and exemplified in the same persons. I want to destroy that diversity of centres, which puts everything into confusion by creating a contrariety of influences. I wish the same spots and the same individuals to be at once oracles of philosophy and shrines of devotion. It will not satisfy me, what satisfies so many, to have two independent systems, intellectual and religious, going at once side by side, by a sort of division of labour, and only accidentally brought together. It will not satisfy me, if religion is here, and science there, and young men converse with science all day, and lodge with religion in the evening. It is not touching the evil, to which these remarks have been directed, if young men eat and drink and sleep in one place, and think in another: I want the same roof to contain both the intellectual and moral discipline. Devotion is not a sort of finish given to the sciences; nor is science a sort of feather in the cap, if I may so express myself, an ornament and set-off to devotion. I want the intellectual layman to be religious, and the devout ecclesiastic to be intellectual.
