As you know, I was recently crushed by the LCWR’s second rejection.
I had reached out in hope. I had applied, again, for media credentials for the upcoming LCWR assembly in Nashville. They have rebuffed, again, my application.
“Where’s their prophetic spirit?”, I cried, more from hurt than from surprise. “What are they afraid of?” You read of my anguish HERE.
Today, I found that my pain is shared, and by an unexpected corner.
Tom Fox of the National Schismatic Reporter (aka Fishwrap) stands with me.
He wrote, HERE:
A group that once prided itself on fearless leadership and modeling transparency is now more media restrictive than most other Catholic organizations, including the U.S. bishops.
WHOA! More than the bishops. That’s pretty bad!
Even Fishwrap’s Sr Joan Chitister, fairly quiet since her Triumph in Tahir, and her sister sister, Sr. Mary Lou Kownacki, have felt my pain. They, too, decry the LCWR’s timidity, which has manifested in their acting out, their straight-arm against those who only seek to dialogue.
Sr. Joan and Sr. Mary Lou think that the LCWR sisters should cry out!
Dearest Sisters [of the LCWR], you have done nothing wrong. It is your obligation as religious to ask the questions that need to be voiced. It is the holy responsibility of religious to stand with those who are most bereft. Be proud of the questions you have asked, the speakers you invited to your assemblies, the statements you issued, the liturgies you celebrated. Go to the microphone and say: We believe in feminist theology and in women’s ordination; we believe in the rights of gay, lesbian and transgender population and we will continue to speak aloud on these issues.
They want the assembled sisters to be prophetic.
But HOW? HOW can they be prophetic when they shut off access to people who can bring their message to the world?
This is so hard. It’s like… like… the stitches in the deep would I endured the other day have been ripped. Again, I bleed and wonder about what might have been.
What might have been….
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Recitation of an extra sorrowful mystery, perhaps?
“But HOW? HOW can they be prophetic when they shut off access to people who can bring their message to the world?” THANKS, Father! I needed a good laugh today! ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!!!
The answer, of course, is “systems management.” Anyone, from anywhere, can influence the whole if they TRY really really hard. Without, you know, telling anyone they’re doing it or anything.
Father, I assume you have already considered the possibility of slipping in unnoticed by disguising yourself as a modern nun?
It would mean putting on, oh I dunno, a pair of baggy trousers, a shirt, a pair of butch trainers? cutting your hair short? not wearing any makeup…?
So not a lot of effort needed, really. But you might just need to work on your liturgical line dancing. Those finger-clicking Zorba-the-Greek zembekiko Offertory ballets can be tricky. (The customary Offertory-plate smashing is better not attempted by beginners.)
Just to guarantee a trouble-free time, you could carry a placard that reads: ‘Fight Transphobia Everywhere!’ That should deter any close questioning.
And may the force be with you!
nb – by ‘modern nun’ I meant LCWR, of course…
A cleric and a poet, too! The Church is indeed blessed.
I wonder if any interns from “America” magazine will be there.
So to misquote Woody Allen, 90% of life is just showing up. Fly down there, get yourself a room, and camp out in the hallways.
Call yourself the PadreRatzi.
They will be prophetic. Our Lord’s words will be fulfilled when they die out. “Behold, I make all things new.”
Not sure if Father looks butch enough to pass. But if he insists, I still think the pearl stud earrings, and twin set and pants suit. Shaving optional.
Fr. Z., you realize, of course, that if you were to attend the LCWR’s self-congratulating love-fest, you would, upon your death, be instantly swept into heaven, bypassing purgatory and all its attendant purifications, right into the very lap of God Himself?
I say: go with the violet pantsuit pearl necklace-combo with orthopedic shoes. And don’t forget the dream-catcher earrings.
Fr. Philip Neri, OP
Fr. Z, if you cannot get into the LCWR meeting as a reporter, how about offering to attend as a liturgical dancer? Here in Massachusetts, Boston College has two (liturgically) dancing priests on its faculty; one is a Jesuit, the other a Paulist. All you need are robes and a tambourine and a certain attitude.
“As you know, I was recently crushed by the LCWR’s second rejection.”
Ah, so that’s what happened to the cases of Haut Sauterne and Chunky Monkey. Chin up, Father, it’s not the end of the world…
[I am more for the Château d’Yquem and pâté de foie gras… or my mom’s chocolate chip cookies. I have some of the later in my freezer. Of the former, not too much.]
“We believe in feminist theology”
I lolled so hard. These identity-politics word-marriages are so weird. What next? Counter-patriarchal mathematics?
Coming soon to a bookshop near you: Transgender-Quantum Physics: Towards a gender-neutral dialectic of Bohr’s atomic theory.
The really annoying thing about this sort of language is how it sets a rhetorical trap, placing any counter-argument or critique automatically within the purely arbitrary and none-existent category of “masculine (or patriarchal) theology” by definition.
Not satisfied with burning bras, is this how they begin the process of defining which books to burn?