Posted on 09/08/2001 6:15:50 AM PDT by Orual
Scores of women preach every Sunday from pulpits in New York, but Carol Perry is highly unusual: She is a Catholic nun, and she preaches at a Protestant church. The church is Marble Collegiate, the historic Fifth Ave. Reformed Church where she also is the resident Bible scholar. She has not heard from the Vatican, which doesn't allow women — nuns or not — to deliver homilies. But if she worries about what the Pope might think, she disguises it well.
"I think I'm the only nun in the country employed by a Protestant church, and it would take a lot to make me give up what I do," Perry said this week. She preached her annual Labor Day weekend sermon Sunday, basing it on a passage in the book of Nehemiah about sharing work.
"The first time I preached here was in 1986," she said, "and not only was I the first Catholic woman to preach at Marble Collegiate, I was only the second woman since 1628" — when it was founded.
Biblical scholar Sister Carol Perry addresses congregation at Marble Collegiate Church on Sunday. Now, of course, it's old hat.
"I call myself the last rose of summer, because every year I am the last speaker before the start of the new church year in September," Perry said.
The new year starts tomorrow, with Arthur Caliandro, the senior pastor, at the pulpit for a ceremony to celebrate the 95th birthday of Ruth Stafford Peale, widow of Marble Collegiate's longtime, nationally known pastor, Norman Vincent Peale. Perry is starting a new year, too. It is her fifth as a full-time employee of Marble Collegiate, where she teaches adult Bible classes, beginning tomorrow and ending next spring with five sessions on "Wonder Women of the Bible." She also leads twice-a-week Bible discussions that deal with problems in the workplace, everything from downsizing to office politics. (For information, call (212) 686-2770.)
"It's a natural," Perry said. "The Bible is all about working people, starting with God on page one. After all, what's he doing? He's working, creating the universe."
A member of the teaching order of St. Ursula of Tours, which is celebrating its 100th anniversary in the United States, Perry taught high school English and religion for 43 years before joining Marble Collegiate. "I was giving a talk at a retreat, and somebody at Marble Collegiate heard me and invited me to talk to a group of businesswomen," she said. "That was in 1980."
At the talk, someone asked her a Bible question, and she answered it so impressively, she was asked to lead Bible lessons for adults. "I wasn't so sure," said Perry, the only daughter of an undertaker in upstate Kingston, "but we agreed to give it six weeks. Well, here I am, 21 years later."
She has about 90 regulars, among them several Catholics. "They come because there isn't anything comparable in the Roman Catholic Church," she said.
But she did not quit teaching high school until five years ago, when Caliandro asked her to conduct the workplace Bible classes and become a full-time staff member. She still lives in Kingston, in the order's house, and commutes by bus, a 90-mile trip that takes two hours each way. That's okay, she said, because she uses the time to study. She joined her order 52 years ago and was sent to Rome for graduate study at the just-opened Regina Mundi, a center for women's theological studies. She was part of its first graduating class in 1957. Back home, she received a master's degree in theology at St. Mary's College in South Bend, Ind., and began teaching, first in Manhattan and then in Kingston.
She does not wear a habit. The order, which is down to 34 members in the U.S., including four who work in the city, officially abandoned religious garb in 1976.
"I'm glad," Perry said. "I don't want people to define me by what I wear."
Although she cannot preach in Catholic churches, she is often invited to address parish audiences, and she happily accepts. "I don't call it preaching, of course," she said. "I call it reflecting."
And a fine witness she makes to the discipline of obedience. /sarcasm off
Catholics make terrible Protestants.
I have a feeling that St. Ursula is asking the same question.
It's a question you could ask a lot of dissenters who remain in the Church. The most positive construction you can put on it is that they think they are doing the right thing, changing the Church into something they think is better. The most cynical construction is that most of these people have job tenure and at least minimal financial and social support, and they don't want to give it up. If she left the Church, she'd have to go out into the cold world, get a job, find a place to live, and pay for her meals.
Ouch.
She does not wear a habit. The order, which is down to 34 members in the U.S., including four who work in the city, officially abandoned religious garb in 1976.Merely a sign of a deeper rot. Not wearing the habit, while generally reflective of the deeper problems, is not nearly so dangerous as the rest of her theology.
patent +AMDG
I thought this the significant passage in the quote.
An awfully high number for a group like that. It will soon be zero....The order, which is down to 34 members in the U.S...I thought this the significant passage in the quote.
patent +AMDG
Wonder what her Bishop thinks?
The church is Marble Collegiate, the historic Fifth Ave. Reformed Church where she also is the resident Bible scholar.
Does she preach using the Douay-Rheims Bible or a Protestant Bible?
And a fine witness she makes to the discipline of obedience. /sarcasm off
Yes, indeed. A true testament to what is possible, rather
than letting someone else tell you what is permissible.
Why, it's positively American!
There is nothing 'positively American' about ignoring one's obligations and responsibilities.
".... she was asked to lead Bible lessons for adults. "
Looks to me like she is answering the Great Commission.
Of course, if she should be taking orders from someone higher
than God, I could only but agree with you. And, she
could be wrong. I mean, even Jesus Christ blew one out of twelve. :)
She was probably doing that when she took on her vocation in the first place. Why she acts one way while claiming to follow another path is anyones guess.
>>>Of course, if she should be taking orders from someone higher than God, I could only but agree with you.<<<
Very cute, but hardly amusing. The fact is that has obligations as a Roman Catholic nun. I don't think we'd like if very much if our servicemen, who have sworn to uphold our Constitution, suddenly reinterpreted that obligation.
>>>And, she could be wrong. I mean, even Jesus Christ blew one out of twelve. :) <<<
Very cute, but hardly amusing. Do you find ridiculing the faith of another to be a heartening experience? Perhaps you should consider who you serve when you act in that manner.
Why, of course. I'm ole Scratch hisself, with a coterie of sinning nuns. Oh, sorry. Make that singing.
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