“More trouble in Catholic land” is how a friend prefaced a link to a MSNBC.com story about Pope Benedict XVI (pictured) ripping a prominent association of American nuns called the Leadership Conference of Women Religious for spending too much time on trivial issues like poverty and social justice and not enough on really serious matters like the “Biblical view of family life and sexuality”. That would involve the nuns opposing and working to limit access to everything from contraception and abortion to same sex civil marriage.
Many of the nuns who are part of the organization are guided by the more liberal precepts laid out in the Second Vatican Council that was held in the early 1960s to help modernize the Church. They’ve spoken openly about allowing women to have a more active leadership role in the Church, and haven’t been afraid to work in opposition to the Church hierarchy to advance progressive social causes — most recently, the health plan passed by the Obama administration.
Now, Pope Benedict has issued a formal reprimand, and appointed Seattle Bishop Peter Sartain and a couple of other pointy-hatted men to revamp the organization to better reflect the Church’s medieval doctrinaire philosophy. Here’s a link to the article here.
