I can start by appointing the neighborhood kitty (whose name may or may not be Cotton) as the Bishop of Modern Dance based on his spectacular performance in response to repeated bird bombings. 
Same here (ours, not anyone’s mother’s.) Hey, was your mother’s church’s group by any chance led by a lady deacon? We may be talking the same parish.
No, I married into the Episcopal Church. My mother is at Pullen.
Do you by any chance have a link to the actual report? I’d like to see it for myself so I can see what all the hubub is about.
Have I mentioned yet my shock and outrage that the RCC is telling people what their morality should be and how they should spend their time?
Vote with your feet, people. Back away slowly at first, and then turn and run.
At some level, sure, but it is a bit of a hollow statement. It is no more their church than it would be, for example, a teacher’s school district. Sure, a teacher can contribute feedback, sit in on meetings, petition the union, but ultimately has no control of the policies or rules of the greater organization. At the end of the day they have to do what is mandated from above.
Or what? Other than excommunication - AKA the Nuclear Option - what can the Vatican actually do to the nuns?
Send them to do missionary work in Somalia.
This is more or less what happened to French bishop Mgr. Gaillot, a problematic bishop with modern opinions who used his see to rant against wars (notably the first Gulf War), to express support for minorities and homosexuals, leniency for abortion and so forth.
Excommunicating a bishop would have been a bit of a PR nightmare, so they revoked him as bishop of Evreux and made him bishop of Partenia, a bishopric which doesn’t even exist any more.
Your teacher/school district analogy is in some ways useful but in some ways not. Teachers are employees of an organisation that has legally enforceable control over the situation: the school district legally controls the fabric of the school, and legally controls the operations of the school. It can ultimately give legally enforceable directions to the teachers which the teachers can either obey or resign.
However, many religious orders own their own land and buildings and have their own income. So such orders can only be controlled by political means. Ultimately, this category of order could tell the RCC to get stuffed and the RCC’s own internal canon law is, in the end, materially impotent (at least in any first world country with a separation of church and state).
Of course, other religous orders rely on the RCC for material support which can be pulled from under them, so the RCC’s material and legally enforceable control is greater. There was an example of this sort of thing in Brisbane recently where a particular priest developed his own style of worship and a charismatic following but he was the parish priest in an RCC church. Ultimately, the RCC relied on its legal control of the church to turf him out. He has now formed what he styles “St Mary’s in Exile” and I think he has a following but I doubt it will last, though I could be wrong.
Long time no see.
Well played, sir.
That really isn’t a good answer for a woman in her fifties or sixties or seventies who has been a nun since her twenties. She is dependent on the church, far more than stay at home spouse is dependent on her husband.
And for a younger woman, who might be able to establish herself outside the walls, leaving means abandoning those sisters who can’t leave.
It’s the worst possible answer, except for all the other ones.
If they can’t run, then limp away.
Doctrinal Assessment of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious.
Repeat of my previous link to the original keynote address by Sr. Laurie Brink that the assessment singled out in Section II for some tsk-tsking.
To where? They don’t qualify for social security. They often don’t have good connections outside. The religious life is very cult like.
I think the pitying tone here for the poor old nuns quivering helpless before the threats of an increasingly militant hardline conservative male Church hierarchy is, if not a tad condescending, at least a bit naive. Liberal reformist nuns are definitely caught on the wrong side of history at this particular historical moment, but they seem to be quite well aware that in the long run the crisis of reform is likely to come around and bite the hardliners.
As Sr. Laurie noted in the address I linked to above,
What is being deliberately contemplated here is a sort of satyagraha movement of non-belligerent but determined resistance to clearly perceived abuse and injustice, not a flock of helpless old biddies saying “oh dear, what would become of me if I left the Order?”.
Mind you, I’m sure there are plenty of helpless old biddies among Catholic sisterhoods, but the ones who are catching all this heat from the Vatican don’t seem to fall into that category. If they want to stay in their Church and continue to protest against what they see as wrong in it rather than “limping away” from it in defeat, all I can say is, “You go, girl”.
Can’t remember having ever met one, and I’m including the ones with Alzheimer’s (such as this 69yo farmer girl who’s driving her congregation crazy with wanting to open the chapel at 2am), Parkinson’s (like that one who would classify threads by color when she was too twitchy to thread needles) or strokes (there was that one who still had the best voice in the congregation - they wheeled her bed to the hallway outside the chapel so she could take part in the singing). Do they depend on their sisters? Sure, but that’s why they call each other “sister” in the first place. I do agree with you that many people seem to be underestimating them.
I had 3 close relatives who were Catholic nuns,one left before her final vows, one left after a break down,the other is still a nun in her 90’s (had several breakdowns during her over 70 years as a nun)… and I can assure you they are no better than any other woman. They have their good points and bad, like any human. Hollywood seemed to make the Nuns and priests so much different then they are in reality. Same goes for a relative who is a priest.
I would add; it seems to me the Church’s stand on birth control causes the need for charity,so they should be doing a lot more.