Help a sister out
Camilla Somers
Issue date: 11/5/09 Section: Opinions
There are nuns everywhere in Florence: padding quietly down the street, on the bus, on bikes with their habits flying in the breeze. They may be one of my favorite aspects of my chosen Junior-Year-Abroad city.
Like most Italians, I deeply respect and admire nuns for their social work and their total dedication to something beyond themselves. Maybe it's because I lack Catholic school horror stories, but in my mind, our Christian sisters are pretty much the bees' knees.
However, in spite of nuns' esteemed role in society, here and around the globe, that role is also visibly antiquated. And, despite our modernized, techno-savvy, liberalizing world, it seems the church is trying to keep it that way.
It would be difficult for anyone to argue that the Pope and the institution he represents are contemporary or up-to-date - after all, it took the Catholic Church 367 years to formally concede that Earth is not, in fact, the center of the universe.
But last December, the Vatican launched an investigation of American nuns, ostensibly to "look into the quality of life" of sisters in the United States. Critics maintain that the investigation more closely resembles an inquisition, meant to push nuns who work beyond Roman Catholic schools and hospitals, who live outside of convents or who no longer wear customary garb back into their traditional, submissive roles.
Indeed, according to historians, the Vatican has ordered similar investigations when a church institution has gone seriously astray, such as when the priest sex-abuse scandal warranted a review of American seminaries.
Somehow, a nun without her habit and a pastor abusing a child don't seem to be in the same stratosphere of severity or shame.
The current Pope, Benedict XVI, was christened "God's Rottweiler" for a reason - he is extremely conservative, even writing in 2004 that women should cultivate "feminine values" like "listening, welcoming, humility, faithfulness, praise and waiting." The Smithie in me, or even just the woman in me, screams when hearing such counsel. I know the Pope represents one of the oldest and most powerful institutions in the world, but when will the Catholic Church realize that gender equality is here to stay, no matter its interpretation of the Bible? Do we have to wait another 300-plus years?
Like most Italians, I deeply respect and admire nuns for their social work and their total dedication to something beyond themselves. Maybe it's because I lack Catholic school horror stories, but in my mind, our Christian sisters are pretty much the bees' knees.
However, in spite of nuns' esteemed role in society, here and around the globe, that role is also visibly antiquated. And, despite our modernized, techno-savvy, liberalizing world, it seems the church is trying to keep it that way.
It would be difficult for anyone to argue that the Pope and the institution he represents are contemporary or up-to-date - after all, it took the Catholic Church 367 years to formally concede that Earth is not, in fact, the center of the universe.
But last December, the Vatican launched an investigation of American nuns, ostensibly to "look into the quality of life" of sisters in the United States. Critics maintain that the investigation more closely resembles an inquisition, meant to push nuns who work beyond Roman Catholic schools and hospitals, who live outside of convents or who no longer wear customary garb back into their traditional, submissive roles.
Indeed, according to historians, the Vatican has ordered similar investigations when a church institution has gone seriously astray, such as when the priest sex-abuse scandal warranted a review of American seminaries.
Somehow, a nun without her habit and a pastor abusing a child don't seem to be in the same stratosphere of severity or shame.
The current Pope, Benedict XVI, was christened "God's Rottweiler" for a reason - he is extremely conservative, even writing in 2004 that women should cultivate "feminine values" like "listening, welcoming, humility, faithfulness, praise and waiting." The Smithie in me, or even just the woman in me, screams when hearing such counsel. I know the Pope represents one of the oldest and most powerful institutions in the world, but when will the Catholic Church realize that gender equality is here to stay, no matter its interpretation of the Bible? Do we have to wait another 300-plus years?
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Bren Ortega Murphy
posted 11/05/09 @ 9:53 AM EST
Thank you for writing this. I agree that many of these remarkable women are wonderful role models.
Actually,women religious [sisters and nuns] ARE one aspect of the face of feminism. (Continued…)
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