Wanted: women of spirit in our own time

LOL

Wake up fool! Ignorant and innocent is not wisdom. Our Lord God, Savior and Spirit Guide Comforter calls us to stand up for our belies, not to cower down to the irreverent patriarchy!

By your definition, 100% of priest I know are heretics, as are 100% of seminarians and 100% of every Bishop I have encountered.

Hello Tom,
I don't mind calling myself a Catholic, for that is what I hope I am--someone who wants all men and women on the face of this planet to know they are loved by the Creator who made them and loved also by those who know themselves loved right now by that same Mind and Heart. I'm not concerned with being in an Arc of Salvation if others are left outside.

The work is urgent. The Good News is for the whole world. The present Roman set up is so focused on "tradition" that it seems incapable of using modern day insights re psychology and sociology and many other ologies to move to a point where sensitivity towards those hurt by the church ensures movements towards appropriate care. A measure of such sensitivity would be to recognise that children who have been abused by priests or religious are not likely to grow up seeking such people out to confide in. Indeed when they have been brave enough to do just that they have often been spurned, rejected as liars and payed off to remain silent. Evil heaped on evil does not speak of a loving relationship with God.
Developing alternative human resources would help reach out to more people--especially those with very real trust issues. Having women priests would go some way to Rome atlast recognising inclusiveness and therapeutic benefits. Jesus was a healer. We must develop these gifts too and not just mumbo-jumbo superstitions but empathetic reaching out. Men and women are called to be priests so each vocation should be welcomed once tested.

Much work is already being done within religious communities and parishes as well as beyond these organisations but gathering such resources together to learn from each other is an ongoing challenge. Sacramental life for those who seek it is very difficult to find as priest numbers dwindle in the West and as many people have walked away unable to respect those who deliver half hearted cold addresses which destroy faith and community.

You stay a member of a "Club" if you like Tom. I want life in all its abundance and to share it with everyone who will receive it.

Dear Tom A, Perhaps you too are perplexed about some of the writings on this board. Many calling themselves Catholic do not have the foggiest idea of what is taught by the Catholic Church. They question everything as though nothing is sacred. The Hierarchy is a big zero although the beginnings of the Catholic Church was established by Jesus Christ. I had always thought the immutable teachings by those in Authority through succession were believed by all as the Catholic Church is One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic. Today we read it is anything but. Jesus Christ did teach us that the Church would be under continuous attack but never did I believe that these attacks would come from Catholics. We have Christ's assurance that HIS Church would be under HIS care until the end of the world. Praise be to Jesus Christ now and forever. Amen!

Yes, Fan of John XXIII, your namesake loved papal ceremony (with all the lace trimmings) more than any other 20th Century Pope.

Oh, my. This gave me a much-needed chuckle as I write a 15+ page catalogue of all the things that our priest bought for our new Church (including vestments). Holy shopping spree! The task, alone, is testing my willingness to stay the course.

But she only gave examples from the old days. In the old days, sisters built schools and hospitals as their way of following the Holy Spirit. Now they write NCR columns about how they used to run schools and hospitals. Did Sr. Chittister give any examples of what sisters are doing now?

What I stated is that Sr. Chittister only gave pre-Conciliar examples. I'm not saying sisters aren't presently doing good things, such as the examples you gave; I'm saying that when asked what the LCWR is doing, they give examples of how, in the past, they built schools and hospitals, and, in the present, they speak at conferences and write for NCR about women's ordination, etc.

What is the LCWR doing, by and large? That a few sisters doing important work doesn't mean that, on the whole, the LCWR is still doing important work. In fact, Chittister's argument seems to be specifically that sisters need to stop doing the work that they were doing. She lists all these good things American sisters did, then says that we need leaders who rewrite the book, who go different places where they're told not to go. The sisters who are teaching Black children in the South, serving the Indian community, or teaching at a Catholic college are doing what sisters have been doing for a long time. Chittister is calling for sisters to be leaders who follow the Spirit only to do new things, to develop a new sort of religious life, etc.

This country. As the old die off, the young are joining vibrant communities who still do the works of charity that the old nuns used to do. My sister-in-law's order has started about 10 new missions in the last 5 years. Our old babysitter's order had about 20 young women join each year, and the word gets out about them almost through word of mouth. They certainly don't have the publicity or NCR bully pulpit that sister joan has, yet their lives are so much more attractive to the young that they have a tough time keeping up with the new applicants. http://nashvilledominican.org/Home

Thus it has always been for religions. Read the sociologist Rodney Stark's book The Rise of Christianity, if you want a secular perspective on the dying off and rise of various U.S. denominations. It isn't too much of a stretch to apply the same principals to religious orders.

Indeed the traditional orders are innundated with vocations. Loyalty to Christ and his Church bears fruit. Self-service does not.
As we sadly watch the types of orders that Sr Joan espouses die. They have lost their way, its all about them, very sad. Once great, now a remnant trying to re-write the Gospels and Church history. Perhaps a faith community of another sort would be more suitable to their needs. False though they are.

abby schult says "she needs to quit trying to save us, just join us in being faithful to the Pope and the bishops."

Sister Joan should just be an air head like you and join "us", meaning you & your blind ilk, and let the Pope and the Bishops abuse women forever?

Aren't Church "leaders" supposed to teach the Gospels, set an example of Christ? Tell us, how is the Pope and the Bishops in the US being faithful to the Gospels when for hundreds of years they abused children and built palaces for themselves to live in while the poor went hungry?

Get serious!

Douglas, You seem to want to blame the women religious for the men's lack of leadership in the Church for the past forty years. The Titanic Roman Catholic Church has hit an iceberg and now it blames the women that it is sinking!! Now the men in the hierarchy want all the life boats for themselves. Such humility! What chivalry from these men in our own Church towards the women in our own Church - and you seem to think taking the side of these men is the right thing to do, because they said so and they told you at EWTN!

The women religious have been doing their part, rolling up their sleeves and doing the hard work, living simply, serving God and serving the poor, while your overstuffed and puffed up bloated big fat-cat male women-haters in the Vatican do NOTHING now but whine, feel sorry for themselves and parade around pompously and full of pride in themselves in red silk and their brocade gold embroidered dresses and lace, pointy stupid ass hats, red shoes and destroy all semblance of the teachings of the Gospels and Jesus Christ, ignoring the poor and making themselves rich!!

Women are sick and tired of the typical male empty tin can chatter from these hypocrites and their equally ignorant hand picked male women-haters from Opus Dei at EWTN! Women are sick of the attitudes of these men toward women and their ignorance of God and sick of their denial of the Holy Spirit at work in women!

You want to call that "whining" - go right ahead! You'll be hearing a lot more of it!! Because women have been and are going to do a lot more than the stupid idiot males in the Vatican who are ruining the Church into the dust of unconsciousness! The men have done a great job at ruining Faith itself! Open your eyes! Are you happy about that? Are you happy about seeing the Church fail and fall apart into insignificance over the fact that the men have decided to take Jesus and the Holy Spirit right out of the Church?

The attitudes of the women religious are far sweeter and more Christ-like than the poisonous snakes in the Vatican with their lust for inquisition against women religious, their lust for power and glory and riches for themselves and their own selfish immature agenda. These same men could not clean up their own filthy ACTS against children who were being raped and molested by their fellow priest friends. They love perverts and child molesters more than they do women and this is why you will be hearing from women in the Church who are disgusted with their style of leadership that says we cannot even question their behavior and their ACTS of betrayal against humanity in general!

For your information, if the men in the hierarchy were really spiritually mature and connected to Jesus, we would not be having this discussion. We are having this discussion due to the failures of the men in the hierarchy who refuse to be spiritual and refuse to be honest with themselves and everyone and refuse to mature, refuse to hear the women religious out. The men in the hierarchy are just a little too willing to get their pitchforks out against women! Furthermore, they are rearing a male laity, such as yourself, of empty tin cans that love to whine and be waited on hand and foot by women and are against women any chance they can possibly get. That's the truth whether you agree with it or not. It is the sick truth about the all male hierarchy that is too puffed up and stiff necked to even bother themselves to be equal partners with women in our love for God and in serving God's purposes!

And another thing - try to put yourself in a woman's shoes for a bit and get a clue as to the source of bitterness and cynicism of having to witness men who really think they are better and superior than women, who think they are more superior than God! The women are frankly sick of witnessing your mean spirited and backward ugly faces of hypocrisy and lies!

Dream on all you want that you believe older really religious women are retiring "to live comfortable lives off their endowments." Wishful thinking! You wish that we would!!! The entire reason for the inquisition of women religious is for the old men's club in the hierarchy to get a hold of any "endowment" away from these women religious. Wake up! You have no idea what you are talking about! All the men in the hierarchy want is an excuse, any excuse to get their MONEY or any assets from property they can get their grubby filthy malicious hands on! You need to wake up into the light of Christ!