Rode confirms the investigation is after feminists!

Franc contradicts Paul:

"There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus."

We are supposed to be in the background, preferrably with our heads covered and quietly walk behind the men!!!!
The Vatican needs to come into the 21st. century. We are the ones who do so much for the church. Put please.... do not allow us to have equality.
I am not a nun but have always been very active in all areas of our parish church and am truly in disgust over the discrimination that I see coming from this investigation.

Go get 'em Cardinal!

Well, there are feminists and there are feminists.

Perhaps Cardinal Rode is referring to feminists like Dominican Sister Donna Quinn who volunteers at an abortion clinic in Hinsdale, IL, which is a western suburb of Chicago. (the story is covered in lifesitenews.com)

When feminist sisters such as these who materially cooperate in the termination of pregnancies, I think that there is a certain evil that perverts the true notion of authentic feminism.

True feminism doesn't lie in the agenda of women priests. True feminism lies in living out the baptismal call to live a life as an icon of the living God which is distinctly given to women as gift.

There have always been men who are frightened of women and their potential, and today many of them are members of the Catholic hierarchy, here and in Rome. So it's no surprise that Rode wants to root out feminism which I am sure he sees as a direct threat to the power that he and the entire male power structure wield over women in the church. Or maybe he's afraid he would have to share the elaborate wardrobe he has for church functions.

Sister, what is scary is that even though you correctly quoted Vatican II's Church in the Modern World Rode doesn't believe in Vatican II! He's not even living in the modern world! That's the scary part. Go to Whispers in the Loggia and you will see him visiting a seminary that "specializes" in the extraordinary form of the Mass along w/ their nuns who look like they're from the 17th century. We need to keep him in the limelight with his feet to the fire so he doesn't do irreparible harm to the good sisters in the US.

The Cardinal admitted that among his reasons for the investigation is a "certain feminist spirit? To quote the younger members of my family, "Well, duh!"

Good call, Maureen. The charade is designed to mask the real target between Rode and Levada's crosshairs: NCAN!
www.ncan.us/

Saint Marjorie Tuite, O.P. Ora pro nobis!

I am old enough to remember when "feminist" was a new word and ushered in what was then radical thinking. The Right (both in secular politics as well as Church politics) has invested a lot of energy in trying to make it a dirty word. Yet, it has been my observation that even those women who have a negative reaction to it, clearly want to have access to just about all of the gains that have come as a result of the work of pioneering feminists. The work these women have done have brought many changes into society and these changes are here to stay. They will not go away because some men in powerful positions don't want to acknowledge that women have much more to contribute to society and The Church than they are comfortable with. These women don't want to knock them down, they just want them to move over and make room for the gifts that God has given them and the Holy Spirit has helped them to nurture. May both these men and women be open to the movement of The Holy Spirit and continue to have God's blessings.

A classic case of the oppressed (Rode' under communism) becoming the oppressor.

Thank God for Cardinal Rode. The Vatican is finally waking up to this type of feminism that destroys the relationship with Jesus and undermines the Catholic Faith. May it be rooted out of the Church!

A distiction is to be drawn between Christian feminism and the type of feminism the woman who wrote this article is talking about. I'm surprised that she is a nun. Of course there is no habit & no Sister in the name and she writes for MS magazine! I wonder if her article is sandwiched between ads for contraception? This nun is a good example of why there most definitely should be a Vatican investigation of the women religious. I find this type of nun to be repulsive!

As a Cradle Catholic baby boomer one has to smile at Sister? Maureen
Fiedlers assertion that "the Gospel calls nuns to be feminist". Correct me if I am wrong but the Gospels call us to love and follow Christ and to save our immortal souls. A large part of accomplishing this is to love and serve our fellow man/woman in order to serve God. Granted the Nuns that taught me had habits and actually prayed and went to Mass daily, and if that was not enough
they spent their best years of their lives teaching kids who at the time could have never understood the sacrifices and privations that were offered for their educational and social well being. These Holy women succeded in changing the world- one heart at a time- and their good works continue in their students lives today. Feminism had no part in this process and in fact would have rebelled against the self sacrifice and humility needed to sustain such good works. This may not be sophisticated theology but common sense should tell us that pride and arrogance can never lead us to heavan but that humility meekness, and love just might. Why all the Angst for Holy woman do not now nor will they ever, have anything to fear from a church investigation.

Let's get an ironing board set up outside of every parish.. Have all parishioners except trads* sign a 'THANK YOU' to all religious sisters that taught us and gave us pastoral care in our lives. have film at 11 on local news.. Send it to C. Rode and BXVI postage due on arrival..

* Rode' said the trads complaints about the sisters initiated the 'investigation'

As a priest who rode the wave of hope generated by Vatican II, I strongly support the prophetic approach taken by so many women religious who have made the Church very proud while servig with outstanding dedication. Some have paid the ultimate price in Latin America and others have been a beacon of hope in America.

A glance at Cardinal Rode's parade in renaissance Robes eloquently speak of his view on a Church "Servant and poor"

The case is heard even before the visitation and foregone conclusions have been reached. Facts and situations will very likely be distorted and twisted to lead to these conclusions.

A well coordinate, respectful and massive boycott of this visitation appears to me as the only reasonable response. One may refer to Joan of Arc ecclesiatical trial.

"because the gospel calls us to that!"

$100 bucks says the the words "feminist" and "feminism" are nowhere in the New Testament in any ancient or modern language.

this is not new...misogony is rampant in the cc...

Ugh. Please Sr. Maureen, don't use the word "feminist" in two different ways and pretend it isreally one and the same way.

Jesus called himself "the Way, the Light and the Truth". Pretending two different things are the same thing is, in this context, incomplete and unenlightened. At the worst it is called lie, an untruth.

Even a pion like myself can tell the difference between feminism ascribed to by Jesus (cf. the Samaritan woman at the well, anything to do with his Blessed Mother, etc.) and that of the decidedly extra-catholic misnomer that being equal in dignity is the same as being synonymous.

I *know* you can do better. God Bless. JZ

This comment represents the sense the laity of the United States. This incredibly evil Cardinal from a wealthy, extremely conservative background is doing his damndest to ruin the American Catholic Church. His methods have been Fascist, as might be expected. His sexual orientation is questionable in view of his stated anti-feminist bias. The man and those who work in secret on these Inquisitions is presumably mentally ill, using his rank to exercise his unfortunate problems. One must wonder as to his motivations. They obviously include sexual problems. One can speculate that the valuable possessions that we fellow citizens have helped our Sisters acquire; a hospital here, a school there, a home for the elderly and so much more. They are OUR Sisters, they are American in fact and in culture. I am one among the many who share in righteous anger the wonderful statement of Cardinal Mahoney, not renowned for any liberal leaning, but a man who understands the needs of the people in our culture, and the grand and exemplary work of our beloved Sisters. It is a true prayer that our bishops united will return to their proper role as teachers and stop acting like Republicans, grow intellectually enough to resist the tyrany of this weird middle European man of an alien culture based on centuries of dictatorships.

I am in full agreement with Maureen's views
As a priest ordained during Vatican II, I had shared hope that the Church would indeed renew itself and reach out to the people of God wherever it would be. The religious women of the US over the last 40 years have been at the forefront of new initiatives to spread the Gospel, some have paid this committement with their lives, remember the 4 women religious in Latin America.

Women religious have embarked in a course of action that may not be to the taste of Cardinal Rode. His idea of a triumphant Church as expressed by his parade in Renaissance Robes and scarlet attire is quite different than the views of many religious women.

This visitation is in fact a witch hunt with foregone conclusions. The facts will more than likely be distorted, twisted and interpreted to fit the good cardional's vindicative agenda. The patriachal/macho approach to this exercise is scandalous and akin to Joan of Arc religious trial

It would make sense for the women religious to politely declined any participation in this exercise and just bocott the whole thing

The behavior of some men makes me wonder whether as a group they can claim equality?

They just don't qualify, IMHO

The Popes in recent years have distinguished an authentic Christian feminism from a radical feminism that is foreign to sound Christian anthropology. This line understandably is blurred in this post.

It seems to be fashionable these days to recast the apostolic visitation, a canonical view which has been around for over a millennium, as some sort of witchhunt. The Church has the role to provide oversight regarding the living out of religious vows, magisterial fidelity, apostolic fruitfulness, etc.

My daughter leaves tomorrow for a retreat with the community she intends to join after graduation from high school this year. That community is full of happy, young, active, prayerful ladies who have absolutely no problems or concerns regarding the apostolic visitation. I suspect it's the older, spiritually sterile communities that are concerned about this Vatican scrutiny.

Just wondering what do the missing parts (...) in the qoute above have to say?

"every type of discrimination... based on sex... is to be overcome"

I'm sure there were qualifiers there. Or did the Council Fathers want to see women marching off to war? When it comes to homosexuals the CCC qualifies the type of discrimination which is unjust against them. I'm sure it was the same with the Council wrt women. At the time of the Council the women's movement hadn't even begun.

Secular feminism is just a part of egalitarianism which is a false liberal doctrine. It has nothing to do with Catholicism or Christianity in general. Fairness is one thing and everyone should favor that but secular feminism is in many ways unchristian & anti-Christian. It could hardly be seen as a gospel imperative for nuns as this woman implies in her blog!

The Gospel calls you to feminism? Are you kidding me? That's one I haven't heard any great Saints or Doctors of the Church discuss before....including all the great female Saints of the last 2,000 years.

And all us ignorant Catholics who are actually faithful to the Church founded by Christ and his Apostles thought the Gospel was primarily about Christ's Eternal Sacrifice on the Cross, His glorious Resurrection, His Kingdom in Heaven, the Holy Trinity, and living good and Holy lives of service and sacrifice.

Here we were all wrong and it's been about feminism all along.

Funny that feminism of the modern variety has just emerged in the past century....I guess the Church and the Catholic religious orders and all the saints simply missed the point of the Gospels for over 1,900 years.

No wonder your reliious orders are shrinking and dying out...they're stuck in the 1960's....meanwhile traditional women's religious orders who reflect the 2,000 year history and tradition of the Church (not only the 1960's) are growing exponentially in comparison.

And I actually agree with your premise that men and women are equal and there should be no discrimination toward women of any kind.

The problem is that many of your women's religious orders have gone far beyond simple equality and fighting against sexual and gender discrimination.

Many of your orders even consider themselves "post-Christian" and instead of focusing on Christ and the Holy Trinity....focus instead on new-age religions and philosophies.

And you expect the Church to simply stand by and do nothing while you move far away from unchanging Church teachings? The Church would be irresponsible if it were to allow nuns who took a vow of obedience and fidelity to the Church to essentially break those vows and lead other Catholics astray.

I'll be curious to see if your liberal/progressive orders still exist or have any members in 30 years....the statistics seem to support the fact that you won't be around then....but the Catholic Church will continue on forever, as Christ Himself predicted it would.

no problem with "equal" rights between men and women, BUT more often than not feminist agenda seems to produce a lot of arrogant and rude people. It tends to sway people from submitting to church authorities. why? because feminists in truth want to rule over men as there is no such thing as equality in this world, and feminists won't take anything less than equal. In the guise of helping women, they are also advancing highly unchristian if not totally anti-Christ programs like abortion, same sex union, legalization of prostitution. Feminism is in the forefront of the principles of relative morality to justify their cause. For feminists "the end justifies the means." And no one can question them; not even the pope. Feminism seems to lack a deep understanding of the meaning of human suffering as they move to totally eradicate it and create false hopes in the process. Let me suggest that those nuns who subscribe to feminist ideals to just stop being one and join their feminist counterparts in the real world who are given to pagan worship and who are themselves live disordered lives. The Catholic Church happens to be not the place for you.

Sister Maureen,

Your generalization of the term "feminists" is misleading. Do take note of the fact that the cardinal said, "a certain feminist spirit." While I have no doubt that Cardinal Rode (and the Catholic Church) would object to your version of "feminism," at the same time, you are incorrect in your implication that Cardinal Rode and the Church favor the oppression of women.

What else can one expect from someone who was in all likelihood told in formation that women are first and foremost a danger to his vocation?

And beyond that, whose primary interaction with women, even sisters, was
to prepare his meals and wash his clothes--- even in minor seminary?

"Recent years have seen new approaches to women's issues. A first tendency is to emphasize strongly conditions of subordination in order to give rise to antagonism; women, in order to be themselves, must make themselves the adversaries of men. Faced with the abuse of power, the answer for women is to seek power. This process leads to oposition between men and women, in which the identity and role of one are emphasized to the disadvantage of the other, leading to harmful confusion regarding the human person, which has its most immediate and lethal effects in the structure of the family....the differences tend to be denied....question the family, in its natural two-parent structure of mother and father and make homosexuality and heterosexuality virtually equivalent in a new model of polymorphous sexuality"(???).

Thus writes Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger in section 2 of his 2004 "Letter to the bishops of the catholic church on the collaboration of men and women in the church and in the world". This seems to be the definition of "radical feminism" that the Vatican has identified with feminism generally and "demolishes" with sources in sociology, psychology, theology, scripture, leading to a reconstitution of peaceful subordination of women - waiting, serving, pleasing, tempering men in the world and men in the church.

Many seem to agree with this policy foundation for Benedict's, Rode's et al's crusade against US women religious and their leadership. They would concur that women religious be identified as "radical feminists" persisting in the destruction of peaceful co-existence of men and women; are leading the destruction of the family, championing same-sex marriage, homosexuality and "polymorphous sexuality"(whatever that is).

How can the Vatican take the crusade into the "secular" world while this cohort of the enemy foments rebellion within?

PS: Oh, by the way "In this perspective one understands how the reservation of priestly ordination solely to men does not hamper in any way women's access to the heart of Christian life.(sec.16)

Know what? My guess is that after the inquisition of American nuns Cardinal Rode will huff and puff and rightly be ignored.Rome is on a power trip with an empty gas tank. They know where they want to go,but can't get there.John F. Daly III

Dear Person, as you prefer to be called rather than be called by the prejudicial title of lady.

From all that I know of you and your affiliates (No prejudicial title here either.), this describes all of you:
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de·lu·sion (d-lzhn)
n.
1.
a. The act or process of deluding.
b. The state of being deluded.
2. A false belief or opinion: labored under the delusion that success was at hand.
3. Psychiatry A false belief strongly held in spite of invalidating evidence, especially as a symptom of mental illness: delusions of persecution.

personality disorder (pûrs-nl-t)
Any of a group of psychiatric disorders in which a person's abnormal self-perception or ability to relate to others results in undesirable behaviors and interferes with normal social and emotional functioning.

psy·cho·path (sk-pth)
n.
A person with an antisocial personality disorder, manifested in aggressive, perverted, criminal, or amoral behavior without empathy or remorse.
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I could write all my own opinions, however, you would not even listen to a word that I would write. Why? Because you are all of the above.

The Vatican is trying to save you(plural). You(plural) are all dying. Amen

P.S. I mean this to get attention, but not yours-you only like negative attention. This would only get you to go get a beer.

It might be worthwhile to look beyond the immediate situation to see a serious underlying problem in the Cardinal's visitation. Rome will seriously offend many American Catholics -- Men as well as women -- if he comes down hard on American women religious. The recent statement by Cardinal Mahoney is a shot across Cardinal Rode's bow headding into what may become an outright confrontation with the Church in America. We cannot demand respect for our democratic sensibilities from a monarchical institution, but we can insist upon respect for our prophetic witness, our sensus fidei, that American women religious truly serve our Lord and his gospel. However, we must also beware of the danger of damaging our Church but creating so much clamor we appear to be willing to trade the Catholic value of unity for witness to Christian freedom. This is not a political situation. It is a family squabble (however serious) and must be seen as such. We must urge our own Bishops to -- especially our Cardinal Bishops -- to speak urgently for us. This is the middle ground, to often rejected by both extremes, but may be the path of wisdom.

Note that all the anti-sisters posts are anonymous or with a phoney first name. maybe they all originate in Rode's offices.. naw.. but he has his minions that want to chase everyone from Mass and the Eucharist..I notice that trads don't speak up in parishes.. they just anonymously snipe.
do they really think cowards can make big changes?

Let's just suppose that Feminism means these women can do many kinds of different work for the Lord--more than they were confined to in the past.

I think this type of "feminism" is the acknowledgement that God has given women many gifts with with which to serve him.

ah...at first i laughed out loud...is this real, are some of the 'sad'
responses by some of those commenting reveal a "...certain male-ist spirit.."?
This is getting laughable in many ways. I would like to hear Cardinal Rode's
definition of "certain feminist spirit"...what does he mean by it, what has
he read, or experienced from "feminist spirited" nuns? He is "eastern
european educated?"...am i wrong in this guestion? Well, Cardinal, to all
who cleaned and scrubbed the floors of rectories and still do in some cardinal's and priest homes in Rome as well, who cleaned alters with white
gloves on, who taught and are responsible in large part along with Grace, for
the great educated catholics in parishes around the world, in lands war torn,
who bathed the bodies of sick, ill priests, bishops, arch's, cardinals, who
worked in factories when driven from their convents in europe under communism
years, who during many years never had a vacation, never in the Caribbean paid
for by Legionairs(?), much less given a car, working all week and on saturdays
teaching in isolated farm communities(who made you,...why did God make you...?"), prepared food and class work on sundays, at 5:30 in the morning mass,divine office, 1 hr of meditation, breakfast then off to work, 1 half hr
of meditation some time before bed, plus evening pray...on and on.....,served
prisoners, orphans, widows in hundreds of ways,.....Cardinal Rode, is this
all encluded in your definition of ..."certain feminist spirit"?.... we are/
were/are female( not male)...read Geneis 1-27...."male and female he created
them...., created in God's image!....I smile, some of you "male" men write
as IF you seem to constantly judge women thru "certain male-ism-ist spirit"
....ummmmmm, i thank my God who will be my judge and not Cardinal Rode or
some of you who continue to vent your "certain male-ist spirit" on women,..
in the clinical therapy world it is viewed as "power need over women..."
read the definition in the best clinical therapy reseach...and i have worked in that field for many yrs....with broken hearts, soul,minds, bodies of both male and female....equal in the eyes that see God in each.....i do not hide behind anonymous, only first name, or an odd name....and i do pray for you
all and Cardinal Rode....i'd love to take him on a real reality tour.....
sincerly, you all......dolores crowley

PLEASE! Any imformed Christian knows the diffference between secular and Christian feminism... What have you been reading?? What have you been exposed to? What do you meditate on? As for Cardinal Rode, well, he is living in the distant past as his habiats and tone clearly indidate.

PaX. ARISTOPHILOS

I stand with progressive sisters such as Joan Chittister and Maureen Fiedler. They are truly modern saints.

If the Vatican mounts not 1, but 2, expensive investigations on the say of several disgruntled religious who complained about the small % of those who have actively different work, then why doesn't the Curia do anything about investigating the disgrace scandals of the WELL-KNOWN MORALLY WEAK CHURCH EPISCOPATE, here in the USA??? Certainly thousands of laity and clergy have expressed their outrage and shame over these deeds!!! Why has nothing effective been done about that problem, huh??
While only 5-6% of the clergy have been abusive, nearly 2/3 out of the 200 or so dioceses in the USA, have had hierarchal leadership which has deliberately and substantially engaged in obstruction of criminal and civil investigations in sexual abuses done by their subordinates. (Rev Thomas Doyle letter to Vatican Archbishop Tomasi, 21 Oct 2009, footnote 2 -- http://reform-network.net/?p=2376).
Such widespread instances indicate that there is collective and institutional evil and sin in the very heart of the Church itself, way beyond the individual sins. The teachings of Vatican II tried to awaken people to the realization that systemic sin is more than just the sum of its parts and that is why it needs to be utterly rooted out. It is no wonder then that the current embarassed Church leadership is trying so hard to "reforn the reforms"!!!
Even so, the recent African synod decried the wasting of all the continent's natural resources due to the widespread corruption of its secular leadership that ignored their peoples' needs...The $2+ Billions wasted in the USA Catholic Church alone, on sexual abuse scandals, is a similar sinful outrage against the work of building up the Kingdom of God...

Just look in the mirror and listen to the words of Scripture, O Bishops and Cardinals -- "Fool, do you not know that your very soul will be demanded soon by the Lord as the cost of your wicked sins against others?"

This Sunday moring I find myself going through posts on this article and commenting way too much. When I read a bit more carefully, beyond the "for" or "against" and see the wording, the concepts, the generalizations, and accusations it seems so often that the logic, the hyperbole, the reasoning, the seeming bigotry betrayed in the wording demands that we speak up. It is not enough to sigh with desperation,ignore or just move on. Sorry.

What the Vatican needs is younger and newer blood. The old red hats are doing more damage to the Church than they will ever know. Why is it that the Church continues to loose members why is it that so many Catholics do not go to Mass or the Sacraments, it is manly that there is much more to our Church than just ceremony and colorful vestments.

Every Sunday we hear in church the word love but so often it seems to be missing from the powers in being at the top of the Church's hierachy.