Dowd's nun column is proven wrong by flourishing religious orders, commentator says

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Comments: 6

Kathryn Jean Lopez

New York City, N.Y., Nov 4, 2009 / 05:37 am (CNA).- Responding to a pundit’s charge that Catholic nuns are “second class citizens” facing “inquisitions” for their “modernity” and “independence,” columnist Kathryn Jean Lopez has said there are many happy, young women in the convent today and that the Vatican investigations especially concern dying orders which have gone “off course.”

New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd recently claimed that the Vatican apostolic visitation to American women religious institutes hopes to “herd them back into their old-fashioned habits and convents and curb any speck of modernity or independence.”

Dowd also criticized what she saw as bishops’ hypocrisy in rebuking dissenting religious sisters but apparently doing nothing in response to wayward and abusive priests.

Commenting on Dowd’s essay, Katherine Jean Lopez wrote in National Review Online that Dowd needs to meet some of the young sisters she has.

“Young women are willingly devoting their lives to the Church, with veils and all,” she commented.

“It’s becoming common that orthodox orders report waiting lists, as they see themselves filled to capacity with young postulants and their overjoyed older sisters.”

The Vatican investigation is necessary, Lopez wrote, because many orders are “literally dying.”

“They are not recruiting, and they’ve long lost their charisms.”

As evidence, she noted reports of a Dominican sister in Illinois who volunteers as an escort at an abortion clinic.

Many religious orders no longer live or pray in community and even openly dissent on Catholic teaching, she reported.

“The Vatican has taken action because there are ships off course. And the waters are rough; our culture can’t afford to have so many lost at sea,” Lopez wrote. “The fog has come because of surrender to the cultural chaos. Maureen Dowd’s answers involve more of the same — confusing faith with politically correct fluff.”

According to Lopez, Dowd wants the Church to remake herself in the image of conventional mores. However, this itself is the cause of the collapse of dying religious orders.

Pope Benedict XVI’s message is different from that of the New York Times, Lopez continued, but it is a liberating one, “much more liberating than the tired and angry gender politics that offers little hope to the anxious men and women of our time.”

On Tuesday Cardinal Franc Rode of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life announced that a report on the findings of the present apostolic visitation will be made public. He said he is “encouraged by the efforts to identify the signs of hope, as well as concerns, within religious congregations in the United States.”

Comments: 6

Subscriber comments:

Published by: Mike
Indianapolis/IN/USA 11/24/2009 02:48 PM EST

An insightful column from someone who's in touch with what's happening in the Church today. For the past decade, the only religious Orders that have demonstrated any vitality were contemplative communities of men and women who embraced the teachings of their Church. Orders that accommodated themselves to "the world" lost their ability to distinguish between what was good and bad and have themselves become morally and institutionally compromised. It's sad but many of these communities, whose spiritual ancestors (and retired members) did so much for the Church, are today characterized by a post-Christian, anti-Catholic accidie. It may be time that the Church cut these dead limbs from the living tree of the Church and allow the new life to prosper.

Published by: Paul
chicago/il/usa 11/04/2009 02:44 PM EST

Not sure what dream world Lopez lives in, but my experience is very different. I have not seriously talked with any women in the last 15 years,at least, considering entry into the religious live. I have had many more conversations in the last twenty years with religious concerned with leaving their order. If Lopez knows where this abundance of religious are please ask her to share this knowledge. We could use a few,if not the many.

Published by: cathy
West Fargo ND USA 11/04/2009 10:46 AM EST

All these non-believers and their skewed take on the lives of believers! Must be like what our predecessors went through back in the beginning in pagan Rome. It goes back to the idea of unbelievers thinking Christians smell of death - because they cannot understand real Life!

Published by: Andrew Nelson
Columbia, SC USA 11/04/2009 10:25 AM EST

Good repsponse by Ms. Lopez. The Church is to conform the world, not the world conforming the Church. The Church is supposed to be a shining light in the middle of our dark world. Standing up for our faith & confronting our politically correct culture is vital. Too many Catholics are silent. We need to have the courage to speak up.

Published by: Margaret
USA 11/04/2009 08:48 AM EST

I'm irritated by the sweeping claims on what has become "both sides" of a reality. Isn't the important thing to be listening to the Desire of God as it unfolds? I've met women on "both sides" of how one lives religious life, devoted, prayerfu and generous. I've also met women on both sides of the same question who are angry, nasty, and self-oriented. God's Desire may be unfolding in the realities of both: communities that are seeing a decline and communities that are flourishing. It is a reversion to a "Deuteronomic Code" to see what we think are the results of few new members equal not doing God's will and many new members as equal to doing God's will. Is God that mechanical? Please...can we not honor the good will of both and let the chips fall where they do?

Published by: Gary
Milwaukee/WI/USA 11/04/2009 08:35 AM EST

Rate: Regular

It is regretable that Lopez, the National Catholic Register, and now CNA choose to attack the majority of women religious to try to score points against Dowd. Lopez claims that most religious have 'lost their charisms' and implies that, except for a few, most are not orthodox. Her comments shows Lopez' ignorance of and distain for religious life in the United States. Catholics attacking Catholics. No wonder commentators like Dowd feel free to join in and attack Catholics too.

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