Charles Lewis: Nuns, Pope Benedict and Maureen Dowd’s Nazi Slur

The National Post ^ | 10/25/09 | Charkes Lewis

[marshmallow]

Columnist Maureen Dowd, in Sunday’s New York Times, has weighed in on the Vatican investigation now taking place into the state of American nuns.

The investigation, officially called an apostolic visitation, has been met with a fair bit of skepticism because there is a strong sense, among many sisters, that this is an attempt to put American nuns back where they belong: behind convent walls and dressed in the traditional habit.

Since Vatican II, many nuns have opted for less structured lives, taking on a range of secular jobs and living on their own instead of in a community. All the while, of course, staying true to their vows.

Those in charge of the investigation, which began earlier this year, have been vague in what they expect to find and what they may recommend when they wrap up in 2011. Personally, I don’t find this alarming. The Vatican has every right to keep what they are doing quiet while they complete their work. Nor does the fact that they are not sharing every shred of their investigation with the media a sign of a dark conspiracy. So Dan Brown fans take a pill and chill out.

Ms. Dowd notes that American nuns are quickly aging and then adds that the investigation — she calls it an “inquisition” — hopes to “herd them back into their old-fashioned habits and convents and curb any speck of modernity or independence.”

If that was the entire point then Ms. Dowd could be forgiven her mocking tone. The idea of Vatican thugs dragging nuns out of their private apartments, forcing them into habits, and then locking them inside cloistered walls would be pretty horrific. In actual fact, the idea is somewhat ridiculous.

What the Vatican is worried about, as it should be, is that...........

[marshmallow]

Community life and obedience are part of the deal for religious life. The Vatican would be perfectly within its rights to "drag" nuns back to their convents. Religious life is voluntary and nobody is obligated to sign up for it so Dowd's "Nazi" references are entirely inappropriate.

Furthermore, if independence, living in private apartments and working secular jobs is the preferred lifestyle for these women, then religious life is the wrong vocation.

These crazy nuns are the real "Nazis" with their feminist, secular agenda which they thrust in the face of the Church whose acceptance they demand.

[wombtotomb]

Preach it sister! A-MEN!!!

[Tax-chick]

No mention of the “nuns” working as abortion clinic escorts and publicly teaching heresy. (Not that the article isn’t accurate as far as it goes.)

The deranged exaggeration and paranoia of MoDo and the leftist “religious” she champions are just so exhausting. The Apostolic Visitors (and the Pope, bless his heart) have my deepest sympathy. If I had to deal with those people, I’d probably drink myself to death or drive into a telephone pole.

Btw, doesn’t mentioning Maureen Dowd require Catherine Zeta-Jones pictures?

[DManA]

Dowd apparently is a practicing Catholic. I wonder if it might be time for her priest to have a long talk with the girl.

[Pope Pius XII]

I say excommunicate her!

[Mac from Cleveland]

Maureen suffers from Dowd Syndrome.....

[Oratam]

As a secular materialist, MoDo is unable to understand the life of a religious is one of service, sacrifice and obedience. To her, it's just another career choice, albeit a tough one, sort of a hyper-social worker that she wouldn't take on herself.

Tell her women religious are "the mystical brides of Christ" you'd be met with a look of incredulity no different than if you told her you'd just returned from a trip aboard a flying saucer piloted by little green men.

[bronx2]

I read a comment that refers to her as a self hating Catholic much like the self hating Jews of years past who were demeaned their ethnicity or attacked Israel in various liberal publications . I remember listening to and reading many of their articles but they quickly faded as will her type. She offers no insights, merely parrots the same line repeated by other self hating Catholics. The politically correct crowd defend these self haters with the social flavor of the day. She has no appreciation of the sacred only the profane.