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Health & Fitness

The Sacrifices Of Many

The Vatican determined that nuns' leadership association, (LCWR), is not fully communicating doctrinal truths in their meetings and discussions.

This week extremely concerning news came from the Vatican. American Catholic nun’s leadership association, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, (LCWR), was accused of acting in ways that were not in full compliance with the moral teachings of the church. See http://tiny.cc/d2h6cw

These women, most of whom are well over the age of retirement, have worked hard doing charitable and educational work in schools, hospitals, nursing homes, anti-poverty agencies, prisons and other like work. In many cases, they are caring for their own retired and sick members.

For those employed outside in paid jobs, their salaries are given over to their religious order to support those unable to work or whose work is not paid. Their free time is spent in prayer, maintaining their residences and caring for each other. Many additionally provide assistance to family members who are elderly and needing home health care.

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The good work of these women is impossible to enumerate in detail. Many of them ‘entered’ their religious life right after high school or college so many, many years ago. Even while many left this way of life after Vatican Council 2, these women remained and struggled to keep their way of life to be an example for others. Unfortunately, few younger women have become nuns. Of the 55,000 or so nuns in the USA, most are much over 65 years old.

The essence of the accusations against the LCWR is their support for the Affordable Health Care Act, which the American Catholic Bishops tried to derail from the beginning. After the Bishops complained about the Obama Administration’s inclusion of Catholic hospitals and colleges in the requirement to provide contraception medication free as part of the Affordable Health Care Act, the LCRW approved of the compromise the administration offered.  The Bishops’ effort to change the policy to exempt any business owner from having to provide any aspect of health issues to which they personally morally objected died in the Congress as a result of the LCWR support for the compromise, as well as an association of Catholic hospitals.

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Some reporters are expressing the thought that many had expected that this kind of “crackdown” upon the election of Pope Benedict almost seven years ago. My opinion is that the Vatican is doing this in response to frustration expressed by the American Bishops that these “women” are not “toeing the line” of the new regime of Cardinal Dolan of New York, now the head of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, (USCCB).

Cardinal Dolan has designs on glories other than heavenly. He wants to be a national leader in the “culture wars.” He wants to have at his disposal all of the votes of the nation’s Catholics to use as a weapon against this current and future administrations.

Over the past 30 years, the Vatican has appointed more and more reactionary conservative men to be bishops in the church. This effort is to assert doctrinally and politically conservative views from on high onto the members of the Church. Some bishops have been quite vigorous in this attempt by, for example, threatening to prevent certain politicians from receiving Communion who do not vote a straight anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage line.

The nuns whose leaders belong to the LCWR are the torch holders of the spirit and changes that were a part of the Vatican Council 2 era. They have indeed, to the Bishop’s dismay, held to the empowering initiatives given to religious orders to become more a part of the lives of the people among whom they work.  They have taken a preferential commitment to the poor, meaning that the work of the church focuses first on the problems and assistance of those people in or near poverty. Thus, they feel church resources should be directed to the poor preferentially, rather than in areas where there is extreme wealth.

Among the efforts of these religious women has been the appointment of same to positions in parishes called “pastoral assistants,” and the like. Essentially, these women religious are doing the work previously by a priest except for sacraments. Most parishes in the US are now assigned one priest. In some areas, they are assigned to two or three parishes. In the wake of this loss, women generally and nuns in particular are filling the gap.

We see here a case of administrative overkill on the part of the Vatican. They are putting the LCWR under the direct review of the Archbishop of Seattle. Yes, the men have got to get those women back under their control, like Desi Arnez kept trying in “The Lucy Show.” That never did work out all that well then. Unfortunately, in this case, the women involved are older and will not be among us much longer to continue their preferential fight for the poor.

Just for full-disclosure, my late aunt was one of these women religious who even in retirement was teaching her beloved six graders in religious studies. In her memory, I ask all those who have had contacts with these sometimes-flawed women to consider making a donation to the religious orders you are familiar with. Having worked for a small stipend for most of their adult years, their retirement is completely in the hands of the orders to which they belong. This is a tremendous financial burden on them and all donations are appreciated. Just “Google” the order’s name and for the most part you can find them on the web.

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