Sisters' Stories

A reader emailed NCR the following article from the parish bulletin of the Blessed Trinity Catholic Church in Cleveland, Ohio. We're posting it with the permission of the author, Fr. Doug Koesel:

What the Nuns’ Story is Really About

 

Many of you have asked me to comment on the recent investigation into the US nuns. Here goes. In short, the Vatican has asked for an investigation into the life of religious women in the United States. There is a concern about orthodoxy, feminism and pastoral practice. The problem with the Vatican approach is that it places the nuns squarely on the side of Jesus and the Vatican on the side of tired old men, making a last gasp to save a crumbling kingdom lost long ago for a variety of reasons.

One might say that this investigation is the direct result of the John Paul II papacy. He was suspicious of the power given to the laity after the Second Vatican Council. He disliked the American Catholic Church. Throughout his papacy he strove to wrest collegial power from episcopal conferences and return it to Rome.

I have pleasant enough memories of Cardinal William Levada who, as a young worker bee in the hive of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, helped me find my way through the dim warrens of the old Holy Office when I was questioned there more moons ago than I can now count. I cannot erase my gratitude despite his persistent efforts, now that he runs the whole waxworks of the congregation, to make me, along with millions of others, wonder if he lets his right hand know what his left hand is doing. Or perhaps that is exactly what bright young clerics must learn to do if they are to reach their career goals.

Cardinal Levada -- I would call him Darth, but NCR's editor won't let me -- has, of course, also had to master a straight face when issuing, as he did this week, updated norms originally drafted when Paul VI was pope "regarding the manner of proceeding in the discernment of presumed apparitions or revelations."

I was at a fundraiser the other night for my state representative, a Democrat. He's a criminal defense lawyer, listens to my concerns about prison reform, gives me sound advice about the ways of the Missouri legislature, and follows through on his promises.

I was introduced as a Catholic sister to one of the state party leaders. He asked me right away about the Vatican investigation of nuns. I gave a vague comment about not worrying too much, that we nuns were all continuing our work. He, the Democrat, said it appeared to him the bishops were tough Republicans and that Missouri is likely in the next few years to grant nonpublic school scholarships, which would take even more money from the education of poor children and children with disabilities.

The two bills promoting scholarships did not move along in the Missouri bill process. But The New York Times ran a lengthy analysis of this movement last Monday.