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Saturday, May 5, 2012

SMOKE SCREEN ALERT, WRONG DIAGNOSIS AND WHO DOESN'T LOVE AND THANK THE SISTERS OF THE PAST AND OF TODAY?


I am very grateful and extremely thankful for the sisters I know today and have known in the past who have gone home to their reward. I grieve that sisters today do not have the influence in children and teenagers' lives as they once did. I grieve that so many of the institutions their foremothers/sisters founded are closing. In Augusta a perfectly marvelous Catholic hospital founded by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Corondelet was sold by them to a for profit hospital corporation because the sisters themselves could no longer manage it on their own or even with auxilary groups of Catholics or a coalition of Catholics and others, try as they did. This decline demoralizes sisters and others who admire the work they do, not an investigation into things gone wrong especially when the things investigated don't find everything gone wrong, just some things and those "some things" are pretty radically wrong and that's only with the LCWR.

I wish we could really know how many sisters are demoralized by the Vatican's assessment of their renewal and practices over the past 45 years. I would especially like to know how many sisters, rank and file sisters that is, who are really upset about the Vatican's concerns about LCWR which to me hinge on the following areas:

1. Church authority and the exercise of it and women priests
2. Natural Law and abortion politics and not being as concerned about abortion as the #1 social issue today
3. Gender issues concerning homosexuality, chastity, fornication and the nature of the sacrament of marriage

In the video below, the Jesuit priest is right to praise the sisters of the various religious orders, although I note that none of the ones he praises is of a traditional type especially the traditional ones who may well preserve religious life for the future, such as the Dominicans in Ann Harbor and Nashville as many other.

There does not seem to be much praise for Mother Angelica and her order who have single handedly created the most watch worldwide Catholic network. That is rather amazing both what they have accomplished and no mention of it by the good Jesuit Father.

But what puzzles me most is that Father praises the sisters for following the orders of the hierarchy after Vatican II and the orders of the Pope that they update their orders. This is praised.

Yet we know now, as we continue the "reform of the reform" that the first wave of reform no matter who mandated it (such as Pope Paul VI and the New Order of the Mass in 1970) that there were major mistakes made in interpreting Vatican II and worst mistakes in implementing Vatican II according to a certain popular "spirit" at the time.

I am clueless why the sisters themselves, seeing their own institutional decline over the last 40 years, their own numbers dwindling due to aging and dying and no younger candidates coming in, that they haven't ordered a major study of why this decline and fall is occurring. You simply can't blame it all on social change and fewer children in Catholic families, although that could be a small part.

In this video, Father appeals to emotions and tugs at our heartstrings and in doing so tries to denigrate the nasty old men in the hierarchy who are doing this horrible thing to the aging nuns/sisters. It is a typical liberal/progressive approach to create outrage at others who are doing this to the poor nuns.

But LCWR brought this on themselves when they starting calling for women priests, not opposing abortion and losing their pro-life edge in that regard. When they starting advocating for gay marriage and all other sorts of post-Christian ideologies then those who instigated this should be investigated and these things should be purged. That is not to demoralize the good sisters of yesterday or today, but to help things get back on track to preserve the sisters from destruction and death of their orders. The Vatican has done them a favor and a more important favor than what they did for them when the Vatican ordered them to update according to the "spirit" of the times right after Vatican II.

4 comments:

ytc said...

Father Jesuit is very sneaky and he knows it. These silly media gimmicks refuse to separate the sisters' social work from doctrinal fidelity. They are not the same thing!

All the Vatican did was to tell them to get back on track doctrinally. But malicious liberals feed the ignorant with "VATIKEN H8z WYMEN." How stupid. The Vatican is fully aware of the good work the sisters do, and is thankful for it. It has nothing to do with the doctrinal assessment. These are two different subjects entirely, but the destructovating liberals like to purposefully mix them.

PS, I can't imagine that any sister was truly shocked by this reform.

John Nolan said...

Fr Martin touches on an important point. In the 1960s people did not become trendy of their own volition, they were ordered by the Vatican to be trendy, with the knowledge and approval of Pope Paul VI. The fact that he got cold feet in the 1970s and tried in vain to back-pedal cannot disguise the fact that the 'spirit of Vatican II' was a Vatican construct.

Bill said...

"But LCWR brought this on themselves when they starting calling for women priests, not opposing abortion and losing their pro-life edge in that regard. When they starting advocating for gay marriage and all other sorts of post-Christian ideologies then those who instigated this should be investigated and these things should be purged."

Exactly. And for decades, their dissidence has been tolerated, even, I'm afraid, supported by more than a few bishops. Now when the Vatican calls them to remember their vows and the teachings of the Church to profess their faith, it is "unfair"?

And shocking and unexpected? Please. I think the public status of the review, and the time spent on it would have been more than sufficient to remove those factors. And of course, they were in possession of the report well before the media.

Anonymous said...

I enjoyed seeing the video. Unfortunately I have not had the privilege of knowing any nuns personally. There was one who would come to the church when she was home in the summer sometimes, but she was usually in the chapel when I saw her. Someone told me me in hushed tones that she was a Maryknoll sister and from her tone, I assumed that was something pretty special. I think Mother Angelica deserved a mention.