Religion Dispatches
No matter whose name eventually emerges from the fog of smoke over the Vatican this week, it’s safe to say his face will soon grace the cover of Time. Just under the wire for Holy Week, the traditional season of religiously themed magazine covers.
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Critics cite the “devastating” impact of Benedict’s papacy when it comes to the place of LGBT people within the Church, as well as his antagonism toward women religious.
Read MoreI have a better idea.
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It’s easy to understand the Vatican’s consternation when faced with sisters radical enough to think their own thoughts and write them down. Nuns aren’t trained to be troublemakers.
Read MorePerhaps the Vatican’s hard-line tactics are an intentional purge.
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Throughout the history of the Church, bishops and popes have struggled mightily to keep committed celibate Catholic women under control. Already in the early Christian centuries male Church leaders forced virgins to describe themselves as “brides of Christ” rather than use the male martial imagery they had come to use during the Roman persecutions. The early equality between male and female desert monastics was likewise undercut when eighth century bishops began taking control of women’s monasteries and ordained monks to the priesthood for the first time (but not nuns, of course). And as, throughout the following centuries, groups of dedicated Christian women came together—canonesses, Beguines, beatas, recluses—popes, bishops, and male theologians went to great lengths to rein them in.
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For three months, the city of Windsor, Ontario was abuzz with the story of a Virgin Mary statue that wept tears of oil. Ensconced in a small shrine built on Fadia Ibrahim’s front lawn, the statue attracted hundreds of pilgrims, though it caused havoc for neighbors, city officials, and…
Read MoreHis advocacy for the indigenous made him a controversial figure among the wealthy Mexican landowners and led to strained relations with the Vatican.
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Adam Clayton Powell called it “cheap grace,” but we might call it “cheap atonement”: the effort by sinners to select which sins to acknowledge and repent.
Pope Benedict ended his heavily protested visit to England…
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Why has the Catholic Church made so many controversial statements about Jews as it wrestles with a sexual abuse crisis? One could argue that, in the heart of a wounded Church, a play is being made for the shroud of the victim.
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