Nuns are the saving grace of Catholicism! Vigil in Sacramento, CA
Tumblr Catholics are apparently hating on these lovely liberal ladies, so I think the rest of us should lend them our support!
I’m all about the liberal nuns. Some lovely women taught me in hs.
From LifeSiteNews.com:
COLUMBUS, Ohio, April 12, 2012 – Seminarians from the only Pontifical College in the U.S. have an awe-inspiring approach for confronting abortion head-on. Dressed in full regalia of a black cassock, a traditional red sash, and armed with a rosary, the seminarians descend in a powerful show of force every Saturday on a local abortion facility to confront with prayer what the seminary’s rector calls the “poison of abortion.”
Father James Wehner, rector of the Josephinum in Columbus, Ohio, says he believes that seminarians need to “see visibly the forces of evil at work, and respond with an act of faith in which prayer becomes the greater force.”
“American culture is a blessing, but it is also poisoned,” he said. “The clergy, particularly priests, need to be able to confront that poison, not run away and hide from it. That means we have to confront it head-on.”
D:
Yeah, I’m sure the women walking in sense nothing but brotherly love and empathy from these guys in their fancy cassocks, in a line to show their “powerful show of force”, “armed” with rosaries.
Who on earth thought this was a good idea?
Sigh. Maybe it’s because my priest friends were the kind who went barefoot in seminary to make a statement about poverty, but this doesn’t seem the best way to “witness” or do whatever they aimed to do.
Call me crazy, but there are other poisons more prevalent in American society (like hated, ignorance, poverty, etc) that I’m sure these future priests could be witnessing to.
As you noted Natalie, this entire article is couched in military language. Regalia, armed, confront. These are methods for an age past; we as Christians will only alienate our population if we continue in the mode of confrontation.
Hmm.
The purpose of this display is marking the line between the world and the Church, a statement of unity with the Pope and bishops. It may not be the best pro-life move (counseling and ultrasounds are far more immediately effective), but it is a great moment for the seminarians in formation and the strength of the Church.
The confrontational language has a great appeal to a certain segment of the population (ie, most men). It makes clear what has been lost for a generation or two, that the Church will stand against the spirit of the age. That Her priests, to the man, will fight and die for Christ (red in clerical garb is a reminder of martyrdom).
Most importantly, the spiritual worth of hundreds of rosaries prayed for a single intention, is bound to have some effect, on the seminarians, the workers at the ‘clinic’, the women entering. But these results only show in God’s own time.
I recognize all of this, but one must realize that this act is reaching no one at all. It’s a masturbatory act, if you’ll forgive the word, that pleases and speaks to only the devout and serves to alienate the Church from the people on the outside, reestablishing hardened boundaries that so many Americans have against organized religion. People will walk past this, roll their eyes and get annoyed, and move on. The clearly militaristic imagery purposefully on display here is unhelpful at best, damaging at worst.
Not only alienate those on the outside. Not all members of the church are pro-life.
Imagine if they spent every Saturday running a free child care facility, or volunteering at a women’s shelter, or spending time with kids in the foster care system. Imagine if they stood like this outside their congressional rep’s office, demanding accountability for childhood disease and poverty. Imagine if they cared about people who were already born, instead of being judgmental of people exercising their legal and medical right.
-Jess
Fuck this. Fuck every single male in this line. Fuck that school. This is not fucking respect. This is intimidation. These are men enforcing their fucking male privilege on individuals executing their fucking right to choose. We will not be stopped. Your fucking religious bullshit has NO PLACE at this facility. Fuck your “poisoned society” bullshit. Fuck your cossacks, fuck your red sashes, fuck your rosaries and fuck everything you fucking stand for.
bolded for commentary!
Wow, how surprising that a bunch of white men are using religion to intimidate women into submission.
Fuck you. You are the shit on my shoes.
Wow. “I don’t agree with what you’re doing so I’m going to string together every last profane word I have in my vocabulary and spew them at you in an attempt to make myself feel better and you feel worse.” That is NOT the way to express disagreement. There are far more effective ways to get your point across.
These motherfuckers don’t give a fuck about how the individuals going into the abortion clinic feel about their terrorizing presence, so why in the fuck would I EVER give them any consideration???? Fuck you and your tone policing bullshit. I give no fucks about hurting the fee fees of assholes who wish to take away my damn rights.
Just another one of the reasons the Catholic church has lost me.
Turning the tables on an advocacy group that has long supported victims of pedophile priests, lawyers for the Roman Catholic Church and priests accused of sexual abuse in two Missouri cases have gone to court to compel the group to disclose more than two decades of e-mails that could include correspondence with victims, lawyers, whistle-blowers, witnesses, the police, prosecutors and journalists.
The group, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, known as SNAP, is neither a plaintiff nor a defendant in the litigation. But the group has been subpoenaed five times in recent months in Kansas City and St. Louis, and its national director, David Clohessy, was questioned by a battery of lawyers for more than six hours this year. A judge in Kansas City ruled that the network must comply because it “almost certainly” had information relevant to the case.
The network and its allies say the legal action is part of a campaign by the church to cripple an organization that has been the most visible defender of victims, and a relentless adversary, for more than two decades. “If there is one group that the higher-ups, the bishops, would like to see silenced,” said Marci A. Hamilton, a law professor at Yeshiva University and an advocate for victims of clergy sex crimes, “it definitely would be SNAP. And that’s what they’re going after. They’re trying to find a way to silence SNAP.”
Lawyers for the church and priests say they cannot comment because of a judge’s order. But William Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, a church advocacy group in New York, said targeting the network was justified because “SNAP is a menace to the Catholic Church.”
Mr. Donohue said leading bishops he knew had resolved to fight back more aggressively against the group: “The bishops have come together collectively. I can’t give you the names, but there’s a growing consensus on the part of the bishops that they had better toughen up and go out and buy some good lawyers to get tough. We don’t need altar boys.”
”The New York Times, “Church Puts Pressure on Abuse Victims’ Group.”
William Donohue, that fucking attack dog and pig incarnate, speaks his defense of the Catholic Church with no irony whatsoever. What a vile dirtbag, just as vile as priests who sexually assault children.
(via inothernews)
God forbid the church simply take responsibility and apologize to the survivors of the institutionalized assault. Nope, you call a group that advocates for them “a menace” to the Church.
Seems to me the biggest menace to the church is the priests who saw fit to rape the youngest members. But I guess that’s just me.
“The Hail Marys we repeat as we pray the Rosary are not about Mary. Mary isn’t about Mary. Mary is the ultimate example of a human being who focused her life on Christ. Mary is about Christ, and so is her prayer. Mary takes us to Him, to Jesus.”
— Victoria Q. DeBayle
This is a beautiful explanation of praying the rosary, which turns off many non-Roman-Catholics with its emphasis on Mary. I love to point out that the only words in the Ave Maria that do not appear in one of the gospels is the final line: Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Even that is still a biblical idea, that we can ask another to pray and intercede for us, and that even the veil of death cannot separate us from God and God’s kingdom.
Of course, tradition tells us that Mary gave the rosary to St. Dominic, so props to my homeboy! And, of course, Word to the Blessed Mutha.
As lapsed Catholic, one who is generally pissed at the Catholic church, I do enjoy praying the rosary. It’s almost meditation to me, and I find the repetition soothing.
Just one of the things I struggle with. I no longer wish to really identify as Catholic, but praying the rosary is a pretty Catholic thing to do.
Bless this tweet.
Cardinal slams Quinn for plans to give award at abortion rights event
SPRINGFIELD — Cardinal Francis George and other Roman Catholic bishops slammed Gov. Pat Quinn on Wednesday for agreeing to present a pro-choice group’s leadership award and rewarding those “supporting the legal right to kill children in their mothers’ wombs.”
The statement from the Catholic Conference of Illinois is the latest chasm between the governor, who is Roman Catholic, and the church, with whom his administration has waged a legal battle over state foster-care services offered by the church. That fight is rooted in the church’s refusal to recognize Illinois’ civil unions law.
The bishops criticized Quinn for agreeing to present an award at a Nov. 17 event in Chicago sponsored by Personal PAC, which donated close to $500,000 to him in cash and in-kind services during the 2010 gubernatorial election.
“We deeply regret the governor’s decision to present this award, which so closely associates him with a political action group whose purpose is contrary to the common good,” the bishops’ statement said. “With this action, Gov. Quinn has gone beyond a political alignment with those supporting the legal right to kill children in their mother’s wombs to rewarding those deemed most successful in this terrible work.”
Um, Cardinal George.
You are not the government. I am going to need you to shut up about things that have nothing to do with you.
You are one of the reasons I am having issues with the Church.
The law is the law, and the law states that abortion is legal, so you should stop pushing your religious beliefs on others.
My Governor is supporting a legal act, one you don’t agree with sure, but you, my Cardinal (technically), support many things I don’t agree with either (i.e. the institutional abuse of children in the Church), so I really need you to shut up.
I was back home on the south side yesterday…
And I noticed that my childhood parish is no more.
I was leaving a relative’s home, and I was on the bus, and I passed by the Catholic school I went to as a child. The school was still there, but the church is different. It is now a Baptist church.
I am not really sure how I should feel about this. On the one hand it’s not incredibly surprising. That neighborhood hasn’t really been Catholic since the 70s. Even when I attended in the 90’s the non-school masses were sparsely attended. There would maybe be 20 or 30 people there. Surely there wasn’t enough money coming in to maintain that parish. I am happy that the church is still standing. I would have been much more upset if it had been torn down. On the other hand I am still sad to see it go.
That parish changed so much over the years.
As a child, my favorite thing was to walk up and down the halls of the school looking at the graduation pictures from all of the previous 8th grade classes. It was a fascinating look into the history of my school and my parish. The first picture was from the 40s. It was an all-White class. I found that interesting as a child in an all Black Catholic school. I couldn’t really reconcile the thought that my school, my neighborhood, used to be completely different. Chicago has always been a heavily segregated city, and it was obvious from looking at those pictures. Because every graduating class was completely white, until about the 70’s when for 3 years there were mixed classes, and then after that the classes were all Black. The neighborhood changed. The school changed.
The truth is that the racial make-up of that neighborhood changed, and therefore the religious make-up changed, too.
I find myself sad that my childhood church has changed. It still exists in memories and pictures. My brother got married there when it was still a Catholic church, but that was probably the last time I was in there. I remember so clearly what the altar looked like. I can see Father Nallen there holding up the communion wafers and blessing them. I know that the Catholic things have been removed. I wonder if the giant crucifix that hung on the wall behind the altar is still there. I am pretty sure the stained class windows with depictions of the saints are still there. I hope the wood reliefs that tell the story of the Crucifixion of Jesus haven’t been removed. I remember that church so clearly.
I am glad the people in that neighborhood have a new place to worship. A Baptist church in that neighborhood is more useful than a Catholic one anyway.
But I’m still kinda sad to see it go.
and god help you if there was a uniform check.
No ties at all for me, but knee socks were the bane of my existence.
Until high school, right after Clueless came out. Then we loved knee socks. We wore them when we didn’t have to.
whoops
please don’t throw me out of the confessional
I’m gonna be real and say that I haven’t been to confession since I was confirmed.
And that was a long time ago.
I always had issues with the sacrament.
I always felt like God knows my sins, why must I voice them to this man.
I have to say, though, not every Catholic is pro-life.
I’m not fully informed on Catholicism, but aren’t you not considered Catholic by the Pope if you’re pro-choice?
This is technically correct, I remember when John Kerry was running for president the Pope issued an edict that he should be denied communion due to his pro choice stance. But I live in a pretty liberal, largely Catholic city. I don’t know a single devout Catholic. Most of the Catholics I know should technically be excommunicated, right down to the openly gay man that I would go to mass with on Ash Wednesdays during lunchtime at work.
I don’t really know how we reconciled any of our religious beliefs with our liberalism.
