Double secret probation

Seattle Archbishop J. Peter Sartain will take on his “other” job next week, flying to Florida as the Vatican’s point man in a bid to make the largest organization of American nuns toe the Vatican line.

Sartain will be present in Orlando for the entire annual assembly of the Leadership Council of Women Religious, and will speak and answer questions at the gathering of approximately 900 women religious. The LCWR speaks for about 80 percent of the Catholic nuns in America.

“We’re going into this assembly knowing that there’s a cloud over our head and that we are being investigated and they are going to be monitoring us,” Sr. Theresa Kane, a former president of the LCWR, told National Catholic Reporter.

Sartain is “showing up and he’s staying for the entire assembly. It’s monitoring. There’s a cloud … and we’re living through it,” Kane added.

Ever see an older car driving along that obviously had not had a tune up for years or emission repair? The driver seems to be oblivious to the semi-noxious cloud spewing from his car and just driving along. This is the LCWR.

In a article like this you don’t have to wait long for a gratuitous Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI swipe coming in 3…2…1.

With the advent of Pope Francis, the Catholic Church has put on a far more friendly and merciful face. His predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, was a former head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and was informally nicknamed “God’s rottweiler” for crackdowns on theologians.

Although I have to give them props for restraint in not connecting the CDF to the Holy Inquisition, a history lesson often repeated. I do wonder if unsympathetic reporters covering religion have a quota regarding the word crackdown. Perhaps editors reject stories on the Catholics Church unless the word crackdown or slam was used somewhere.

“I think however he (Sartain) presents himself — and especially however he presents what he has learned this year in engaging with LCWR — that will be key: How does he see fidelity to our mission?” Sr. McDermott added.

Ah but the problem is their mission to fidelity.

Sartain can also look around his own diocese and the pivotal role women play in holding it together.

With fewer and fewer priests, there are cases where two Seattle parishes are “twinned” and share a priest, as well as priests in their late 70’s continuing to serve.  Women administrators are running several parishes.

Exactly how is this statement have anything to do with the content of the article? I guess the syllogism goes:

• All members of the LCWR are women
• This is an investigation of women
• Thus all women are being investigated and this is an attack on women.

This is exactly the red herring they always throw in and in this case considering the Bishop it must be at Pike Place Market. It is always framed as an attack on not only women in religious life, but an attack on women in religious life throughout history.

The article ends with another red herring thrown in:

Lately, the Archbishop has received petitions asking that he repudiate a Bremerton pastor who took his parish out of the Boy Scouts after it permitted gay youths to belong.

Still it is interesting to see all the negative comments I have seen by members of the LCWR regarding the attendance of His Excellency J. Peter Sartain.

Still I might suggest tongue-in-cheek to these upset members of the LCWR that Jesus ate with sinners so surely they can put up with an Archbishop. Instead they treat him like the Dean of Faber College after their being put on “double secret probation.”

(Source)