Pope Francis on Women Priests and Related Recent News Items: "I do not know whether to laugh or cry at Pope Francis’ suggestion about women’s position in the Church"

Altar of Veit Stoss, descent of the Spirit at Pentecost, St. Mary's Church, Krakow, Poland, photo by Robert Breuer at Wikimedia Commons

As Virginia Saldanha, "Why I find pope’s ideas on women priests disturbing," notes, Pope Francis recently nonsensically (and all over again) said that men in the Catholic church are meant to follow a "Petrine principle" that allows men — but not women — to be ordained, run things, and mirror Christ. Women are called to follow a "Marian principle" and mirror the feminine church, not — heaven forfend! — the male Christ. (Translation: women are called to serve). 

Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne: "In Reality, Evangelicals Did Not Cast Their Vote [for Trump] Despite Their Beliefs, but Because of Them"

I recently read Kristin Kobes Du Mez's book Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation (NY: Liveright, 2020), and thought the following passages were significant. Du Mez grew up in the household of a Christian Reformed theologian teaching at Dordt University, her alma mater, and knows the white evangelical world inside out. As her book notes, her own Christian Reformed church has in recent years moved inexorably in the evangelical direction, as have wide swathes of American white churches including the Catholic church — hence Amy Coney Barrett. She knows whereof she speaks, in other words, in Jesus and John Wayne.

Cameron Altaras's "Voice of the Residue": The Intergenerational Trauma of Growing up Female in a Patriarchal Religious Context

In the past, I have shared here some of the valuable work of Cameron Altaras, a scholar working to combat sexual violence based in patriarchal religious traditions. Cameron speaks from the experience of someone who has roots in the Amish-Mennonite tradition. I have shared her work here and here.

Now I'd like to share another statement by Cameron pointing to a new project on which she is working, and to a website she has set up to share material for the project, which is linked below. I hope readers of this blog may be interested in Cameron's work and her new site. Here's her essay:

More on Forgiveness and Clergy Abuse Situation: Kaya Oakes on Need for New Understandings

finally starting to directly reckon with how white evangelicalism taught 'forgiveness:' what it is, who it serves, how it's offered or received.

tl;dr: in many contexts, what white evangelicalism teaches as forgiveness is merely an affirmation of the status quo.

— Blake Chastain (@brchastain) March 3, 2020

A month ago, Ruth Krall offered us a valuable statement about the "sin or crime" dilemma facing religious bodies as they deal with sexual abuse of vulnerable people by religious authority figures. Should a community frame sexual abuse of the vulnerable by pastors, priests, religious authority figures primarily in terms of forgiveness? Or should religious communities begin from the starting point of recognizing that sexual abuse of minors is a crime, as they deal with these issues?

Quote for Day: "Church's Radically Patriarchal Leadership Structure and Theology Are at the Root of Most Sex Abuse Cases in the Church"

Jamie Manson writes, "No, Jean Vanier is not 'like all of us'":

As GOP Channels Putin: Commentary on Republican Long Game in Cozying Up to Russia's Strongman Autocrat

Heather Cox Richardson, "Letters from an American, 7 December 2019":

In June 2019, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that democracy is obsolete. He believes that a few oligarchs should run the world while the rest of us do as we are told, and he is doing his best to destroy both American democracy and the international structures, like NATO, that hold it in place. The interests of reactionary American leaders and Russian president Putin run parallel. Astonishingly, that affinity has recently come out into the open. Some of our leaders are publicly echoing Putin’s propaganda, apparently willing to work with him to undermine the principles on which our nation rests so long as it means they can stay in power. 

Will we permit the destruction of American democracy on our watch?

Tara Westover's Educated: "What my father wanted to cast from me wasn't a demon: it was me."

Having finished reading Tara Westover's Educated several weeks ago, I've been thinking about what I'd like to say as a concluding statement about it. I've blogged about Educated previously — here and here — noting that Westover grew up in a survivalist Mormon family in Idaho. Educated recounts the story of her attempt over the course of years to emerge from the prison in which her upbringing put her. It tells us about her father's wild delusions of grandeur, his belief that he was directly guided by God and watched over by angels — and of his danger-courting and relentless attempts to control his daughter with threats of damnation when she sought to move beyond his control.

Miriam Toews' Irma Voth and Tara Westover's Educated: On Patriarchal Religion and Misogynistic Violence

It's by accident — or synchronicity — that I happen to have read Miriam Toews' novel Irma Voth at the same time that I'm reading Tara Westover's Educated. Toews' book explores the lives of several young women and girls in a Mennonite family in Mexico, which previously had roots in Manitoba (and before that in Russia). Westover focuses on her experiences growing up in a survivalist Mormon family in Idaho.

"Everything in This Spreading Crisis Revolves Around Structural Mendacity"; "Poland's Most Senior Nun Has Been Banned from Further Media Contact": Talking Abuse

Poland's most senior nun has been banned from further media contact after condemning the sexual abuse of religious sisters by Catholic priests in her country https://t.co/Jrf8GRhDFi

— Pope news (@Pope_news) February 19, 2019

 

Talking abuse, Catholic context and Southern Baptist context: good things I've been reading and want to share with you:

Stephanie Krehbiel on Religious Groups Facing Abuse Revelations: "Godly Men, Be Quiet"

This map shows routes of several Southern #Baptist "travelers;" men who preyed on people in one church role & went on to another church to do it again. Please read part 2 in @HoustonChron @ExpressNews series #Abuse of Faith. https://t.co/QuyuuKRr3N @John_Tedesco @RobDownenChron pic.twitter.com/ZMoTTbYPwL

— Lise Olsen (@chrondigger) February 12, 2019

I have written here in the past about Stephanie Krehbiel's important commentary on abuse in religious communities. If you click her name in the tags below this posting, the string of other posts in which I've featured or mentioned her will pop up. Stephanie is a scholar with a background in American studies and gender and sexuality studies. She's executive director and co-founder of Into Account, a group that provides resources and advocates for survivors of abuse as they seek accountability.

Commentary: How Kavanaugh's Confirmation Shows What We've Refused to Learn from Catholic Abuse Chronicle, Etc.

The Rep majority of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Com. @senjudiciary . Don't they look representative of America's people? If you're female, don't you want them having control of our S.C. & women's reproductive health decisions? @JeffFlake @SenSasse @SenatorCollins @Sen_JoeManchin pic.twitter.com/F9QhLMsDn8

— Diane Smith (@TheDiane0905) October 5, 2018

Marci Hamilton, "The Response to the Kavanaugh Allegations Exposes the Lessons We Failed to Learn from the Catholic Clergy's Abuse":

Just Me, Mouthing Off About Crux and America and Large Investment of U.S. Catholic Intellectual Elites in Upholding Heterosexual Male Entitlement

I'm just an old poofter and what I have to say doesn't matter to anyone at all, but Jesum Pete: 

More Kavanaugh Hearing Tweets: "Why Are All These Men So Angry?" & "If You Can't Imagine What Toxic, Fragile Masculinity Looks Like, Turn on Your Television"

Why are all these men so angry?

— Sarah Posner (@sarahposner) September 27, 2018

Twitter Comments on Grilling of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford: "One of the Ugliest and Most Shameful Things I've Ever Seen"

Right now, the @GOP is willingly injuring all sexual assault victims a second time.

May we remember this in November.

— John Pavlovitz (@johnpavlovitz) September 27, 2018

Here is some real-time commentary as the crucifixion grilling of Dr. Ford takes place today — tweets that (for the most part: some have come into my feed today, but were tweeted earlier) are commenting in real time on what's happening, which I think are valuable to share:

Kavanaugh Hearing and Catholic Abuse: Overlapping Narratives — Same Catholics Who Support Viganò's Allegations Dismiss Kavanaugh's Accusers

Today I'm thinking of how many students, over the course of my teaching career, have recoiled, outraged at the thought that a woman's testimony had historically and biblically been deemed unreliable unless corroborated by a man's.

— Natalia Imperatori (@nimperatori) September 27, 2018

Right-Wing Christian Support for Kavanaugh & Dismissal of Male Violence Towards Women: Fight to Keep Patria Potestas as Foundation of "Christian" Culture

Merriam-Webster Dictionary

David Badash, "'Not Relevant': Franklin Graham Says Alleged Kavanaugh Assault Just Something 'He Did as a Teenager'":

Ruth Krall's Risking the Collective on the Space We Make for Violence Against Women and Children, and the Metaphor Systems Legitimating It

Here's another illuminating passage from Ruth Krall's new monograph Risking the Collective, about which I blogged yesterday. Ruth argues (cogently) that, for sexual violence against women and children to be widespread and endemic in one society after another, there has to have been a prior society "making space" for such violence. As she observes, powerfully,

Ruth Krall's Risking the Collective: Commitment of Religious Institutions to Dominant Male Privilege at Root of Abuse of Women and Children

Theologian Ruth Krall has just published a new monograph at her website. It's called Risking the Collective. I'm reading it now, and will be sharing excerpts as I read. 

Ruth's work in the field of sexual violence, and her combined background as a nurse-therapist and theologian, make what she has to say extremely important for those seeking ways to respond to endemic sexual abuse of women and children in our society and its institutions. This book could not be more timely, in light of the Philadelphia grand jury report.

Story Links to Story: In Recent News, Female Church Member Accuses Megachurch Pastor of Sexual Assault, Catholic Women Come Forth to Tell Stories of Assault, Political and Religious Right Keeps Pinning Abuse on Gays

Pieces of commentary I've read in the past few days that are, in my view, much more illuminating when read side-by-side:

The Bigger Picture in Sexual Abuse Stories Inside One Institution After Another: How Does Everyone Know, but Nothing Happens?

There's a recurring pattern here, isn't there, as if each individual story — spanning different faith communities and other institutions that are not faith communities — is part of a larger story? What is that larger story, and what can those of us concerned to shift this narrative do, so that fewer hapless human beings are victimized in this way within faith communities or other institutions?