From the Blogs: Phillip Clark on Inquisition of American Nuns

We're often informed by reactionary Catholics that "all" younger Catholics want a return to a pre-Vatican model of Catholicism marked by rigid doctrinal uniformity and Tridentine liturgical practices.  We're told that the Episcopal church is "losing" and the Catholic church is "winning," since the more the Episcopal church moves toward liturgical and doctrinal pluralism, affirms LGBT persons, and allows women access to ministry equal to that of men, people walk away.  Especially the young . . . .


So we're told.  But in an essay he has recently uploaded to Open Tabernacle, Phillip Clark speaks in another voice.  Phillip writes about his journey from the Episcopal to the Catholic church precisely as he learned to accept and celebrate himself as a young gay man.  He found affirmation in a Jesuit parish in Baltimore he describes as "extremely welcoming, vibrant, and diverse."

And now comes the mandate to "reform" American religious women, who have, the Roman mandate charges, erred in welcoming and affirming gay persons, and Phillip has serious soul-searching questions to ask.  He wonders if he's seeing a "frightening portal into what the future of Catholicism could be" with what he characterizes as an "inquisition" of American nuns--American nuns including Sisters Joan Chittester and Jeannine Gramick who have been, for Phillip personally, inspiring and affirming.

Phillip has found religious women "the legitimate moral leaders of the church" at a point in history at which, in his view, "the institutional hierarchy has become ever more concerned with the legal precision of the expression of various doctrines, and the maintenance of the medieval vestiges of ecclesiastical power – all to the detriment of those who occupy the furthest margins of society."

And now he wonders if, in the "frightening portal" he sees opening with the inquisition targeting these moral leaders, the following is what we'll all begin to see through the portal:

Gone will be the sacramental vision that reveres and celebrates the Sacred present in every man, woman, child, life experience; extending to all aspects of creation. The only recognized mediators of holiness will now be the pope, the bishops, and the all-male priesthood, who are the exclusive vehicles through which Divine revelation is interpreted.

This is a voice of a sensitive, thoughtful, faithful younger Catholic that sorely needs to be heard, in my view.