On the issue with the nuns

I had a very busy weekend of writing assignments and I don't have much time this week either so consider this a possible preview of a forthcoming post, or series of posts

The nun thing.

If you don't know, many hard working devout American nuns are under an umbrella group of sorts, and that group is fairly liberal, the Leadership Conference of Women's Religious. Sometimes, it's too liberal and it opposes core Church teachings.

As Americans, a group certainly has that legal right, but this is a Catholic group under the authority of the Church and as such, their deviance from the Church on these matters is a problem.

Faithful Catholics will see that these nuns, good people most and devout, are teaching contrary to the Church. This creates a confusion that is not good for spiritual health, and at worst could lead others away from the truth.

The Church has seen these problems, and it has sent someone to clean up the mess.

But if you've read about it in the news, you know it as the following:

Nuns: Vatican reprimand causing pain in church

American Nuns Vow to Fight Harsh Criticism From the Vatican

US nuns crack back at Vatican crackdown

American nuns likely to continue ignoring Pope

Sounds like Vatican is threatened by nuns

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So as you can see...to the media, this is all about the big bad Vatican overlord men coming to America to smite and control the Little Sisters of the Poor....which is a gross misrepresentation.

Nuns are great. They do a lot. They care for the sick and dying. They really are the front lines of the Church's social mission, and they're quite good at it.

That is their great role, and no matter what these articles say, many priests and other men are in those trenches with them.

Cardinals and bishops however aren't usually in those trenches. They're busy running the day-to-day. Someone has to do that too. While I don't deny that sometimes a Cardinal/bishop may end up a little too detached, the pope and the bishops remain as Christ instituted the teaching authority of our Church.

The Church doesn't handle many things well. The Vatican needs to hire an actual capable PR team. That PR team should NOT have final say on anything, but they could at least prep the pope and others on the backlash they can expect when they announce things.

Moreover, the Church could do more to recognize all the good nuns do. But the Holy Father has spoken plenty on the topic, and I don't know exactly what else could be done.

The nuns and others up in arms need to see this as an opportunity to come back into the fold fully. To realize that, if we claim to be Catholic, we also claim the validity of apostolic succession and the authority of the Bishops and Church.

But again, this is America. And if you don't believe something you don't have to do it...but if you're looking to recreate the Church in your own image sisters, you should realize that what you are doing is creating a schism.

So I pray for the nuns, even the one who just wrote a book promoting homosexuality, divorce and masturbation. I pray also for the confused ones who think limbo is or was official doctrine and the ones responsible for my parent's generation thinking they all just like hitting kids with rulers.

I also pray for the other (what I hope is) 90 percent, who are good, God-fearing, faithful Catholics doing the work of God on Earth that they will submit to review and revision in compliance with the Church.