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From Where I Stand
Divided loyalties: an incredible situation
by Joan Chittister on Mar. 17, 2010For all the certainty about the facts of the case, there is still an aura of discontent everywhere about the situation surrounding clerical sex abuse in the church. No one disputes the data now; everyone disputes the nature of the problem. And worse than that, the data simply keeps piling up on all sides.
The nun and Glenn Beck: a standoff
by Joan Chittister on Mar. 11, 2010I got an invitation today. It wasn't to me. It was to Glenn Beck.
Let me give you a little background so you can understand how it happened.
There is a nun in the country this week, a Sister of the Good Shepherd, from Syria. Now, that may not seem much like international news to you but it is. And not only to me.
A divide that may not be bridged
by Joan Chittister on Feb. 19, 2010Being in Ireland as the country and the church continue the torturous process of resolving -- if that's possible -- the standoff between victims of sexual abuse and the local episcopacy, I find myself returning again and again to a strange but impelling image from a filmic past.
Haiti: The rest of the story is ours
by Joan Chittister on Jan. 25, 2010I went to Haiti years ago. There was an earthquake going on then, too, but that earthquake was of another making. That earthquake rumbled up from the underground of a people who had been exploited, abandoned, abused and forgotten by their own government and brought to the point of total resistance.
For Mary Daly: in memory of courage walking
by Joan Chittister on Jan. 13, 2010I did not know Mary Daly personally. I never met her professionally. I never heard even one of her public speeches. My concern for women's issues did not come from Daly. I got that from my mother.
My sense of Daly's impact on history comes from every discussion of women's issues in which I ever participated. The impact Daly's ideas and courage was having on other women was palpable. In those living situations, then, I learned a lot from Daly. Most of all, I learned how to look newly at things I'd looked at for so long that I was no longer really seeing any of them.
The beginning of the end, and, if so, whose?
by Joan Chittister on Dec. 13, 2009Welcome to Cop15, the UN Conference on Global Warming being held in Copenhagen. Denmark is not easy to forget. In the first place, every school child knows the tales of fearless, seafaring Danes. In the second place,every traveler remembers Copenhagen as the city of $20.00 hamburgers and $40.00 seven minute taxi cab fares. Copenhagen is, in fact, the second most expensive city in the world, just slightly less expensive to live in than Oslo. But that will be nothing compared to the price the world pays for this conference.
At the Parliament of the World's Religions
by Joan Chittister on Dec. 11, 2009Sr. Joan Chittister is keeping a travel journal as she attends the Asia Pacific Women, Faith and Development Summit to End Global Poverty in Melbourne, Austraila, Dec. 2-3; then the Parliament of the World's Religions, also in Melbourne through Dec. 9, and the U.N. conference on climate change in Copenhagen, Denmark. Here are her entries on the Parliament of the World's Religions.
A travel diary – part one
by Joan Chittister on Dec. 09, 2009It's been quite a two weeks: first there was the Asia Pacific Women, Faith and Development Summit to End Global Poverty in Melbourne, Austraila, Dec. 2-3; then the Parliament of the World's Religions, also in Melbourne through Dec. 9, and now the trip from Melbourne to Copenhagen, Denmark for the U.N. conference on climate change.
The whole collection of events is a life-changing one. It’s like standing on the top of a global mountain and watching the caravan of a whole new world just topping the horizon at the end of a far-away road. I’ll tell you a little about all of them -- what they’re about and what I think they mean to us -- however faraway they may seem on a busy day in small town USA.
It's hard to tell what's sicker
by Joan Chittister on Nov. 20, 2009The Shriver Report, Part II
There's an old children's tale that talks about blind men encircling an elephant trying to determine what kind of beast it is by catching on to various parts of the animal's anatomy. One touches the wrinkled skin, one the trunk and another the rough and hairy tail. They each get a different impression of what they're dealing with: a snake, a wall or rope. It's a lesson in perspective. It's an insight into the truth of the statement that what we see depends on where we stand. But it's hard to tell if people get that message by the way we are inclined to view the really important things of life from one perspective only.
The great discovery: It's a human issue, not a woman's issue
by Joan Chittister on Oct. 27, 2009Every science student in the country knows that for every action we can expect an equal and opposite reaction. Which translated means that whatever we try to do, someone else will try to stop it. So here's the question: Given the kind of explanatory data that is coming out of "The Shriver Report: A Woman's Nation" on the social condition and challenges facing women at this moment in history, what can we expect now?
