U.S. Catholic nuns go about work after rebuke

[rug]

May 30, 2012 7:05 PM
By Wyatt Andrews

(CBS News) Pope Benedict XVI is feeling a backlash from American Catholics over his crackdown on America's 57,000 nuns. A letter from the Vatican warned them warned that a group that represents most of the nuns is straying from church teachings on abortion and homosexuality.

As the group's leaders meet in Washington this week to talk about a response, the rest are doing what they do every day: God's work.

In the emergency room at Johns Hopkins Children's Center in Baltimore, Dr. Karen Schneider is about to save an infant boy who can't breathe.

For Schneider, saving children is not just a job, it's also her life's mission as a Catholic nun. Sister Karen Schneider became a Sister of Mercy 29 years ago, before she attended medical school.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-57444092/u.s-catholic-nuns-go-about-work-after-rebuke/

Video at link.

[meow2u3]

1. The sisters are too busy actually living their faith to lecture people on culture wars

Last edited Fri Jun 1, 2012, 11:34 AM - Edit history (1)

At the hospital Sister Karen is planning her third trip this year to treat children in Haiti. Her attitude on reform is simple. Let Rome keep its focus on the rules of the church. She'll stay focused on the work of the church.

I call foul on the accusations that the sisters "straying from church teachings on abortion and homosexuality" and promoting "radical feminist themes" such as the idea that women are also human beings in their own right. To me, the crackdown is both a pretext for the bishops to deflect attention from their abetting male child molesters and old-school bully-boy machismo. IMO, the male hierarchy needs to grow up and quit harassing the sisters and get their own house in order instead.

[rug]

2. I kind of like the image of them ignoring the "rebuke" and going on about their business.

[hedgehog]

3. Isn't that what a lot of us lay people are doing?

People forget that technically, the sisters, nuns, brothers and friars are all lay people!

[rug]

4. It is and they are.

It's funny how many of Jesus' parables come to mind with this.

[CBHagman]

5. A telling passage.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-57444092/u.s-catholic-nuns-go-about-work-after-rebuke/

While many Catholics remember nuns as habit wearing school teachers, Sister Karen is the new version of Catholic nun. Most are highly educated and are managers of schools, colleges and hospital chains.

I don't have a separate reference to hand to confirm this, but I recall reading that nuns, as a group, are much more highly educated than the bishops -- i.e., that the sisters are more likely to hold advanced degrees.

It's not clear how many parochial school students are taught by nuns these days, so perhaps that image is dying out and/or gone, but even the comedian George Carlin, who belonged to the generation before the baby boom, spoke warmly of the well-educated nuns in his school (Yes, he really did -- even with Class Clown and all).