Women Religious Refuse to Answer Vatican Questionnaire
Many American Roman Catholic women religious are refusing to answer the questionnaire sent to them by the Vatican as part of a larger study to check up on the practices of women religious communities, including whether their forms of worship conform to RC standards. Even after the Vatican removed some of the questions that women religious (aka nuns) had found objectionable, and with the deadline for responding approaching, only about 1% have participated in the questionnaire phase. Some elected instead to send letters to the Vatican with what they feel is the relevant information, according to an article titled "Women Religious Not Complying with Vatican Study," in The National Catholic Reporter Online. The article quotes one Sister as calling the Vatican action an "unjust affront to women religious." Another said that many women religious believe that the Vatican investigation is part of an effort to regain control over women religious congregations. Still others compared the investigation to "abuse" and "violence." You can read the entire questionnaire through a pdf link in the NCR Online story.
Thanks to the Wild Hunt for tipping us off to this story.
Labels: Christian feminism
posted by Medusa @ 11:03 PM
4 comments
4 Comments:
How interesting that this story has been removed. I got a 'page not found' error message upon clicking the link.
The story HASN't been removed. I made a mistake in the url, which I have fixed. Thank you for alerting me to it.
Its interesting that all this seems to focus around the questioning of male authority over issues such as women's ordination, sexuality, inter-faith relations. These women obviously have a radically different view of church to the men in charge. I well remember two wonderful open-hearted nuns from Ireland spending time with us at the Glastonbury Goddess Conference to share a vision of Brigid. I am sure that there must be others like them in the USA. We need women of vision of whatever faith.
Well, how odd is it that I would say this, but: Go Nuns! A young woman with a serious religious bent, I was "this" close to being sent to the Sisters, myself, and there have been times when I've thought that even pretending, as did Heloise, to believe that stuff would have been worth the price of living in a community of religious women. In the end, I'm glad that I escaped, but I'm glad to see American nuns giving Rome the finger.
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