Sunday, May 2, 2010

The Vatican hates women

The following is a section from this article: http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2010/0502/Catholic-sexual-abuse-scandal-sharpens-church-rift-over-what-a-priest-should-be/

At the largest Benedictine school in the US, the education of new priests – which started 10 years ago under the influence of then-Cardinal Ratzinger – moved sharply toward the model of the priest educated in isolation, when Vatican directives began to forbid men and women educated together.

One member of the Benedictine order who is close to the university but was not authorized to speak to the media described the directives, which came out of Cardinal Ratzinger’s office, as part of a “purification of the church concept in which women should not be in the classes. A lot of us feel this creates instead a fortress church, a reclusive model…priests leave school and immediately go into communities and work with married people, and women, but have had little contact with either group in their priestly formation. This all originated in the Vatican.”


My friend and fellow activist Dee Miller has stated the split in the Baptist Church boils down to the "woman problem." (I hope I'm quoting you right, Dee!) The fundamentalist Baptists couldn't bear the thought of women in leadership positions, preferring them to "submit graciously" to their husbands, and presumably other male authority.

Will the Catholic church go the same route? Most educated women and their families are not going to tolerate being locked out of leadership roles indefinitely, and that is the direction this church is headed. We'll have to wait and see what will be the outcome of this Neanderthal-type of thinking. It doesn't bode will for the church's ability to deal with the abuse crisis, that's for sure.

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