When ideas catch fire

"we hope to transform what we can of our church"

This sentence stuck out at me and I would like to address it. I think that we should remember what Thomas Merton, in the Ascent to Truth, wrote. He said to remember that neither theologians nor saints create the Church, it is the Church that creates them.

Theologians have a duty to better explain and gain a deeper understanding of the truths of Catholic doctrines. Yet we must be careful of getting a "We are the Church" sort of mentality. Yes, we are members of the Church, the body of Christ. However, this is along with all of the deceased members of the faith.

The Church is always in need of reform. Yet this can not be viewed as a mere jetissoning of doctrines we don't like or are inconvenient for us. There are spiritual, moral and intellectual reforms throughout Church history. Yet the issues I take with Mary Daly is that she hated the Church. I don't see why she should be honored in the manner she has been. I confess to never having read anything Daly has written. Yet looking at some of her quotes ("come let us ignore Him"-reference to Jesus and a parody of "Come let us Adore Him") I find it difficult to believe that she is being viewed as a role model for aspiring theologians. Same with her referring to the mass as a "penile procession."

She blasphemed the Church and God. This should never be honored.

Dear Mary Sotelo: Thank your for your encouraging article. I hope you are correct that you are “but one among thousands of young Christian women and men who do not permit the flames of theological dissent to be extinguished. We are here tending the fires of hope.” At 70 years “young” I wish to be included with you “young Chrsistian women and men”. I pray that we might be one with the similar minded Moslems, Jews and others who begin their daily lives, thoughts and prayers based upon the reality that we are first and formost all together human beings and that our differences, whether of race, colour, politics or religion or nationality are not only to be respected and preserved but to be our part of the larger story .
I love the notion and your phraseology that the “flame of theological dissent” is really “tending the fires of hope”. Every once in a while the “invitation” to leave actually makes sense, or another scandal suggests that if the barrell is rotten, what chance do the apples have. I, will continue in my own little way to “tend the firse of hope”. Thank you.

Thank you, Nicole Sotelo, for your response to the obituary of Mary Daly published in the Wall Street Journal. I am heartened to hear that Mary Daly touched your life and opened up your views of the world. While I am neither Catholic, nor a believer, I am impressed that you were influenced by Mary Daly to "live big." We need to be reminded that ideas live on and can continue to inspire others. We need people like you in all religions and in the secular world as well.

Mary Daly was one of the most influential people in my life. She helped me understand that I need to express my voice--not just for my own sake, but for the sake of the church and the world. The more we hear one another equally, share our ideas and work for justice, the greater our world will be.

Very good! I can't believe someone would write an article saying dissent is dying out. Now what has changed to cause the dissent to be gone? Do women have equality in the church yet? No. As long as sex makes a difference in whether we are capable of portraying Jesus, we have not done what needs to be done so dissent is not gone in this area nor others much as some would like it to be. I am glad some of the younger people understand this.

I don't think dissent inside and outside the church has died out at all. In fact, all those people who told the truth of pedophile priests raping children, and who had the courage to speak out against every bishop in the U.S. who went along with this attrocity, that kind of courage and dissent is growing. Mary Daly lived a life so large, that legions of women worldwide learned to dissent against male supremacy in all its forms.

She so significantly opened women's minds to language and its power, she taught women to reverse the reversals... penile processions of course being created by church "fathers" who spent centuries denying women their own authentic insights and voice. Her books took away all the power the catholic church once had, women rebelled and continue to rebell against the attrocity that is the womanhating church to its core. This took courage, from a woman born in 1928. She found our foremothers who had been erased by male historians, she gave courage to legions of women who wrote our herstory, uncovered the truth of women's lives. She was adept at irony, at throwing the patriarchy right back in its face. I loved her clever language, her gift for really getting sexist men to throw temper tantrums. She exposed them for the snools they be!

The Wall Street Journal was always a conservative paper. There was a time when you could read the WSJ and get a good, solid, conservative perspective - one that was respectful and valuable, even if you did not agree with it. However, since it has been taken over by Rupert Murdoch, it has gone the way of Fox News and with it any standards of fair, honest and, sometimes, even, intelligent, jouralism. I just no longer see any value to reading this paper. This saddens me.

FLAME ON, Nicole!
A wonderful extension of the WSJ author's original metaphor:

"We are here tending the fires of hope. We spend our days putting out the fires of sexism and racism and homophobia. And by night we carry the kindling of justice and spirituality in our hands."

You have to admit, Mary Daly was no hearth-sweeping, theological Vestal Virgin. She was in the thick of it, lobbing as many Molotov Cocktails as she could...But that was back when organized religion in general and the Roman Catholic Church in particular actually mattered and meant something to a significant proportion of people's lives. Those days are long gone.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870458650457465428256393976...

I think what Charlotte Allen laments by the end of her article -and rightly so- is not that there are no more FOLLOWERS of Mary Daly, but that there are no more LEADERS of her firebranding caliber on the horizon, assuming her mantle (a cliche I'm sure Mary herself would probably despise!) and taking up the cause of professional theological dissent as have the cast of intellectual giants to whom the writer refers throughout the article.

p.s. Speaking of ideas catching fire, do you think Mary's "SIN BIG!" slogan might be a re-packaging of Augustine's original FELIX CULPA and Martin Luther's PECCA FORTITER?

I think Ms Dalys catch phrase "Sin Big" really captures it all.