Writing at National Catholic Reporter, the paper's publisher Thomas C. Fox characterizes some of the U.S. Catholic bishops as bullies vis-a-vis their treatment of religious women. Fox is admirably clear that the bullying of the LCWR isn't, as the Vatican is claiming, about doctrine: it's about differing pastoral styles, as he notes:
What the bully bishops claim to be matters of orthodoxy are really matters of pastoral style. They are the results of an unwillingness among our bishops to enter into sincere and mutually repectful dialogue with the women. None of the issues at hand has anything to do with the Creed. They stem from the actions of a small group of misdirected and fearful men determined to take catholic out of Catholic while judging, silencing and demeaning those who stand in their way.
(I appreciate Fox's clarity on this point, since it's not the tack taken in a recent Commonweal editorial statement on the same subject, which, with typical Commonweal "on the one hand, on the other" style, takes away with one hand what it gives with the other, by concluding that all Catholics should support the bishops' efforts "to preserve and pass on the fundamentals of the faith," of which, Commonweal notes, "correcting doctrinal error is part of that process."
But this inquisition is not about doctrinal error.
But this inquisition is not about doctrinal error.
That's a smokescreen. The bullying inquisition of American religious women by the Vatican is a power play. It's about politics both religious and secular.
Conceding doctrinal intent in this inquisition, even bringing up the question of doctrinal error, plays into the hands of men who have not proven themselves worthy of respect as religious and moral teachers. This is a safe, typically centrist move that allows those who are playing political games at the top echelons of the church to determine the terms of the discussion--when they need, instead, to be exposed and called to accountability for their noxious game-playing.)
Fox continues to frame his analysis of the Vatican's action towards the LCWR as bullying by concluding that the behavior of top Catholic leaders in recent years has been akin to that of husbands battering their wives. This provocative analogy finds many Catholic pastoral leaders locked into a system of "patriarchal tyranny . . . inimical to modern egalitarian fairness and honesty" that positively thrives on abuse. It needs abuse. It needs objectified others to bully and beat up, in order to prove to itself and the community at large that it is powerful.
The system of top-down bullying authority now locked firmly into place after John Paul II "emasculated" national bishops' conferences is, Fox concludes, "a system currently characterized by male exclusiveness, dictatorial conduct and demeaning actions." And it is deeply harmful to the entire Catholic community.
When you click on the link above to Fox's article, you'll probably land on a screen reminding you that NCR is having its annual fund-raising drive. Yesterday, I sent a donation. I don't subscribe to NCR, but I benefit tremendously from the material this good Catholic publication makes freely available online, and I feel obliged to give back (no matter how much I clench my teeth when I go to the website and see some of the headlines of some of the USCCB-and-Vatican spinmeisters who officiate there).
If you click the donate button at the NCR site, it allows you to designate your donation to the paper for someone or some group. I designated mine as a donation expressing my solidarity with LCWR. Just a suggestion for readers who may want to think of making a donation of your own to NCR . . . .
As the latest outstanding statement of Joan Chittester in the same issue of NCR carrying Tom Fox's statement reminds me, what the men ruling the Catholic church are dishing out to American religious women is part of a larger worldwide pattern of beating up on women, period. As an email statement I received today from the organization Kiva, which Steve and I try to support on a regular basis, also reminds those participating in the work of this organization seeking to assist those in need around the world,
Women make up the vast majority of the world's poor (over 75% of the 1 billion people living in extreme poverty are women and girls), yet mothers are hard at work every day shaping the next generation and striving to build a brighter future. Kiva and our Field Partners have their backs.
Many of our Field Partners bundle loans with maternal health care and education, helping make an even larger impact on a mother's life. When you give a woman this support, her story changes-- and she has the power to change her family's life too:
- When a woman contributes to her family's income, 80% goes to supporting and nurturing her children.
- A child born to a literate mother is 50% more likely to survive past the age of five.
It's high time we--all of us born with male genitalia--stop beating up on women, who everywhere carry the burdens of the world on their backs. Seeing the current top leaders of the Vatican participating in rituals of abuse handed out to too many women around the world by too many men: it's sickening in the extreme.
No matter how much the Catholic centrists keep spinning, spinning, spinning, I refuse to concede to men who behave like abusive spouses battering their wives the authority to define and promulgate doctrinal and moral truth. Not until they clean up their acts and start acting like men worthy of being called religious and moral leaders for a change.
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