Hierarchy's inability to mourn thwarts healing in church

"Along with victims and advocates who have aggressively brought the church to task for the crimes of power inherent in sexual abuse, religious women -- usually much closer to actual human beings trying to live their lives than are the ecclesiastical nobles -- have raised powerful voices exhorting the Catholic community to attend better to the world’s suffering, especially that of the most marginalized. Even more recently, priests in some quarters have assumed a power to insist that attention be paid to the need and the rightness of expanding priestly ministry to the married and the female. In other words, the common citizens of the realm are calling out the royals on their failures to care well for those most in need -- victims of hierarchical neglect and abuse inherent in the sexual abuse crisis; priests who cannot meet the needs of the flock; women speaking on behalf of women and children, minorities, the Earth, and the poor. "

Ok. But why is it necessary to deny the unique salvific element of Jesus as Lord and Savior? Why deny the necessity of the cross? Why is it required by their conscience to defy the Church's authority to declare what is orthodox on such important points of dogma? These are the reasons that underlie the Vatican's recent actions against this American organization of Religious Women. It's not because they are advocating for the poor or speaking for the dispossessed and powerless. It's because they are flirting with heresy, endangering their souls and more.

It's one thing for individual members to hold private views on any dogmatic teaching. It's entirely another matter to say so with the collective voice of their official Church organization. The former effects the state of an individual alone, and is argued in the inner private court of the soul. The latter endangers unto numbers who will accept the voice of these religious sisters as being an authentic expression of Church teaching offered in the public square.


Jesus said that more would be expected of the shepherds than the sheep. He didn't say that all the shepherds were going to be men. I'm sure that in antiquity many a flock followed a female voice too. They are just as culpable as their complicit brothers if they fail to complete the task they accepted at the time of their vows to faithfully represent the teachings of Christ and his Church. I doubt very much of gender is going to be a qualifying factor when we stand in that final judgment should we willingly lead others astray.

Hierarchy's inability to mourn thwarts healing in church