“The
problem is not with God, but with an all-male clerical culture that
views women as lesser than men.”
I've
always felt like I lived on the fringes of the Catholic Church.
After all, even as a very young girl growing up Catholic in a parish
in upper Manhattan, I had a very hard time accepting all I was
taught. I was troubled by the discrepancy in the way the priests and
nuns lived up to the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. The
priests had cars, ate out in restaurants, dressed in street clothes
to go to the beach, or hang out at the park, and had money in their
pockets for entertainment. The nuns, except for mass and teaching,
rarely left the convent or the square block of the school and chapel.
Some of my friends and I volunteered to grocery shop for the nuns
because they were not allowed to venture out three or four blocks to
the A & P. The unfairness of it all disturbed me, and as a
result, I never really respected the priests in the way that we
Catholics are supposed to. On the other hand, I admired the nuns'
spirituality and the simple and devout way they quietly lived their
vocation.
As an
adolescent, I became aware of the rage that
some nuns and priests would direct at their students in the
classroom. By seventh grade, a few of the nuns were physically beating up on
the boys and shrilly threatening the girls with fear tactics. This was both surprising and frightening, as I viewed the Sisters as my teachers and confidants. As we
have subsequently learned, some of the priests were sexually abusing boys in
the back of the chapel and in the locker room. In the classroom we
were being taught about martyrs who gave their lives defending the
teaching of Jesus Christ. We were taught the new testament stories
of miracles while being physically, mentally and sexually threatened
and assaulted. Silently I questioned everything I was taught. I didn't know who to trust any longer. Most
of all, I questioned an authority that would tolerate, even
encourage, their intolerably bad behavior. I began to believe in
nothing.
Through
my adult years I still considered myself Catholic, saying when asked,
“Yes, I'm baptized Catholic, but I don't practice anymore”. I
would say this because I was embarrassed by my Church. Embarrassed
by the church that would continue to protect child abuse felons
without accountability; the church that was so out of step with
women's issues and insuring woman's health; and the church that has
shut its doors to divorced catholics, gay catholics and to anyone who
would defend them.
Case in point: Father Roy
Bourgeois, who was recently expelled from the Maryknoll Priests
because of his public
support for the ordination of women. He had been excommunicated four
years earlier, but finally expelled in November 2012. Yes,
he was excommunicated because he publicly supported the idea of women
ordained as priests.
And
how about Sister Simone Campbell and the 'Nuns on the Bus' who went
on a nine state tour protesting federal cuts in programs for the
poor. The Vatican tried to silence them and the Leadership
Conference of Women Religious, for speaking out without permission of
Rome. These women are just too uppity (and even called 'radical
feminists'!) and were assigned a bishop to oversee all their future
activities.
Now in the many years since I was a child the Catholic church has struggled with declining
numbers of priests and nuns; Catholic churches are without pastors and Catholic schools have been closing due to declining
enrollment and fewer clergy to run them. We might also note that
most Catholics would be happy to see the inclusion of married
priests, women priests, and a church which would welcome homosexual and divorced people. Most Catholics want to see offending priests held accountable for the abuse of children. Ignoring these realities, the
Cardinals in Rome, with pride and disregard for the faithful,
announced recently that their laws and methods have not changed in over 600
years and will not change.
So
today, I stand beside Father Roy Bourgeois, and Sister Simone Campbell, who live by their conscience, in spite of the non-inclusive, noncompassionate, and rigid church leaders, and I excommunicate
myself. Fearlessly, I say I am not a Catholic.
============================================================
Read
Father Roy Bourgeois' story: My Prayer:
Let Women Be Priests
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/21/opinion/my-prayer-let-women-be-priests.html?smid=pl-share
