In the News: Abuse in Southern Baptist Churches, Abuse of Women in Catholic Church, Newly Staged Attack on Pope Francis

Here are some important interrelated items I've read in the past several days that I'd like to share with you:

Abuse of Vulnerable People and Churches: Recent Reports, from Baptists to Nuns Raped by Bishops and Priests to Jesuits to a German Princess Saving the Church

This is a collection of reports on the abuse situation as it is unfolding in various churches now. These are all recent statements, and not by any means a representative report on all that is happening on the sexual abuse front in religious groups right now. Stories are breaking on that front fast and furious — this is only my own selection of reports that have drawn my attention recently, for reasons that will be apparent as you read:

"Scapegoating Gay Priests and Pining for a World in Which Most Catholics Agree with Church Teaching on Birth Control Is No Way to Confront the Abuse Crisis"

It needs to be said again: the call of some Catholic pastoral leaders and of some sectors of the church for "purification" & acts of penance (not to mention, showy reactionary piety) in response to the abuse crisis is embedded in analysis targeting queer people. /1

— 𝚆𝚒𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚊𝚖 𝙳. 𝙻𝚒𝚗𝚍𝚜𝚎𝚢 (@wdlindsy) November 25, 2018

Nuns on the Bus Come to Little Rock: Practicing Holy Curiosity and Sacred Gossip in the 21st Century

Steve and I spent last evening at the town hall meeting hosted by the Nuns on the Bus, as they arrived in Little Rock yesterday after having hosted a meeting in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Their Fayetteville meeting was in an Episcopal church, and in Little Rock, at First United Methodist church.

Bob Shine on Detroit Archbishop Allen Vigneron's Conference "Welcoming" LGBT Catholics: When Welcome Means Anything But

Bob Shine yesterday at New Ways Ministry's Bondings 2.0 blog, commenting on Detroit archbishop Allen Vigneron's recent "welcoming" conference for LGBT Catholics, at which he compared destroying committed gay relationships with Moses leading the chosen people out of Egypt:

Quote for Day: Mary Hunt on Most Important Takeaway of Vatican Attack on U.S. Nuns — "Women's Equality in the Church Is No Longer Negotiable"

Mary Hunt at Religion Dispatches in a post-mortem statement about the Vatican attack on American nuns:

Droppings from the Catholic Birdcage: "This Whole LCWR Crackdown Was Planned . . . So That People Would Think of the LCWR Orders As Somehow 'Suspect''"

My Facebook friend Mary DuMont Brower responding in my Facebook feed this morning to an article I had linked, by Sarah Posner writing in Al-Jazeera America about the observation of many feminist theologians and advocates for women's rights that Pope Francis has done little to challenge the status quo on matters of gender, and that the conclusion of the LCWR investigation demonstrates this: 

Droppings from the Catholic Birdcage: Mollie Wilson O'Reilly on Vatican Report on U.S. Nuns — "Very Short on Specifics, Which I Presume Is by Design"

Mollie Wilson O'Reilly at Commonweal on the "final report" that the Vatican released last week, ending its investigation of U.S. nuns for heresy and liberalism ostensibly not representing "the" Catholic tradition faithfully in the U.S. public square and thereby embarrassing the U.S. Catholic bishops as they seek to equate "the" Catholic tradition with support for the Republican party and its 1% handlers:

Droppings from the Catholic Birdcage: Who Sits High and Who Sits Low (Picture's Worth 1,000 Words)

Gerelyn Hollingsworth, responding to Dominic Preziosi's posting yesterday at Commonweal blog about the Vatican announcement that the investigation of American nuns is over and done with:

In News: Calls for Removal of Archbishop Cordileone, Vatican Ends Investigation of Nuns, Pope and Environment, Roe v. Wade and Marriage Equality, Hot Mess with Chilean Bishop

Here's a hodgepodge of news stories (and commentary) about Catholic-themed issues previously discussed on this blog:

Vatican Report on U.S. Nuns: Valuable Commentary by Joan Chittister, Christine Schenck, Sandra Schneiders, and Tom Fox

Some brief excerpts of responses to the Vatican report on American women religious that have struck me as well worth reading:

Christmas and the Empty Crib: Recent Catholic Commentary on the Broken Church

What am I doing as Christmas approaches, besides baking cookies, fruitcakes, and cheese straws, you ask? And keeping the house running and in decent order as Steve and his brother hammer and nail at their building project (you don't want to put a hammer or a nail in my little bumbling hands). Thank you for asking.

Vatican Report on American Nuns: Some Short Takes

A few short takes on yesterday's report on American nuns by the Vatican Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life:

El Salvador Martyrs: Valuable Educational Resources Now Coming Online

Sister Elizabeth Johnson to LCWR: "The Submerged Female Half of the Church, Indeed of the Human Race, Is Rising"

Sister Elizabeth Johnson, as she accepted the the top award of the Leadership Conference of Religious Women last week: 

More Translations of Recent News Reports: Regnerus's Latest, Gays and Religion, Archbishop Sartain and LCWR, More News about Archbishop Nienstedt

More translations of recent news stories (see my explanation of what the term "translation" means here in what I posted about this issue yesterday):

Another Gratitude Story for You: Response of Steve's Aunts Who Are Nuns to Our Wedding

Here's another gratitude story for you, to accompany the photos of our wedding celebration that I uploaded last evening:

Robert Blair Kaiser's Inside the Jesuits: How Pope Francis Is Changing the Church and the World — Jesuit DNA and the Papacy

Some weeks back, Rowman & Littlefield kindly sent me for review a copy of Robert Blair Kaiser's book Inside the Jesuits: How Pope Francis Is Changing the Church and the World (Lanham, MD: Rowan & Littlefield, 2014). The book has now, I believe, appeared in print, but the copy I received was an advance reading copy, a point I mention as I start this brief review because the page numbers I'm citing are from the page proofs, and both they and the text itself may have altered somewhat when the book was published.

Eugene Kennedy on What Gets the Men Running the Catholic Church Really Het Up: Hint — Not War, Poverty, and Plagues, but Uppity N-U-N-S

A quote for the day from Eugene Cullen Kennedy writing in the National Catholic Reporter:

More News: Pope Francis and the Nuns, Clericalism and Abuse Crisis, Right-Wing Policies and Women's Health, Unbearable Whiteness of Liberal Media

More news: