Nuns Ain"t What They Used To Be
Atheist, lesbian, abortionist, €progressive€ Valerie Tarico, member of Planned Parenthood's Board of Advocates, recently predicted on Salon.com that €religious fundamentalism [i.e., orthodox Christianity] is going down.€
Based on the current state of Catholic nuns in America, Ms. Tarico may have a point.
Back in the good old days when I sometimes studied under the tutelage of the Sisters of Charity at Saints Peter and Paul's Elementary School in the South Bronx, nuns were a different breed altogether from what they are today.
Mostly tough, old teachers, with a smattering of sweet, younger women, they all shared common religious convictions and dedication to their Church and to educating the young, sometimes with the help of a yardstick.
Not so much, today.
Freed of the religious habit and the convent, most American nuns have turned in their yardsticks and now live out in the real world dressed in everyday clothing and many have adopted that world's liberal-leftist attitudes and mores to the detriment of their vocations, a radical change that plays right into the hands of liberal-leftist politicians.
In case anyone hasn't noticed, religion - principally the Christian religion and particularly the Roman Catholic religion - has been under unrelenting attack by our president and his acolytes in the state-run media who are committed to secularizing America at the same time they undermine religious foundations.
Aiding and abetting that secularization and undermining is Sister Joan Chittister, member and former prioress of the Benedictine Sisters of Erie, Pennsylvania, a typical example of today's new nuns. She has been aptly described as a malcontent who serves as the mainstream media's €favorite lib nun€ because of her penchant for unjustly criticizing her own Catholic Church.
At the opposite end of the political-religious spectrum stand the Little Sisters of the Poor, a congregation of totally a-political Catholic nuns who have selflessly tended to elderly, dying, and impoverished people in some 31 countries, including America, for almost a century and a half.
Yet, the Little Sisters were described as €weasels€ by Michael Hiltzik of the LA Times and Amanda Marcotte of Slate.com for the grievous sin of refusing to cave to Obamacare demands they deny basic precepts of their faith while Sister Chittister is recognized as a celebrity for her activism on behalf of liberal causes.
An article by Sister Chittister was included in a free e-book €The Shriver Report: A Woman's Nation Pushes Back From the Brink,€ a collection of feminist essays compiled by Maria Shriver to mark the fiftieth anniversary of President Lyndon Johnson's €War on Poverty,€ a €war€ that has not only been an abject failure by all objective accounts but which has actually exacerbated poverty among women in the United States.
Sister Chittister contends that, €women are still one class of people who are set apart, separated, and given less value and worth by multiple religious traditions€ and that religion is a major cause of women's poverty and illiteracy.
And, she's a nun?
Maria Shriver's collection included pieces by such other intellectual giants as Beyonce Knowles and Eva Longoria and focused on the irrational supposition that Johnson's War on Poverty failed women due to negative religious attitudes in America that €devalue€ and marginalize women and not because it was a misguided liberal-leftist scheme designed to get every poor person to fail in order to make them virtual beggars and dependent on the Democrat Party to save them.
As Kristine Marsh observed on Newsbusters.com, €It's rather like the old joke about The New York Times headline: €Asteroid to destroy Earth; Women, Minorities Hardest Hit.€
The poor Little Sisters of the Poor have estimated that failing to agree to conform to Obamacare mandates that their order not simply cover contraceptives but also abortafacients that kill already-conceived babies would expose them to fines of $6,700 a day, fines that would cripple their dedicated mission to the poor and sick.
Ignoramus leftist Amanda Marcotte of Slate.com characterized the Little Sisters' refusal as the spectacle of plaintiffs €trying to weasel out of nothing more onerous than signing a piece of paper.€
It's obvious that adhering to moral principles and religious doctrine constitute weaselly behavior to leftists like Marcotte which complements Sister Joan Chittister view that radically feminist issues are the most important issues on America's plate today.
Is no one aware that the €War on Women,€ touted by Democrats as a Republican-inspired attack, is actually being waged by the largely-leftist Democrat Party and its MSM cohorts who distort the truth by revising history and by reviling good nuns with impunity? With allies like Sister Chittister, it's no wonder the left is winning that war and destroying Christianity.
Based on the current state of Catholic nuns in America, Ms. Tarico may have a point.
Back in the good old days when I sometimes studied under the tutelage of the Sisters of Charity at Saints Peter and Paul's Elementary School in the South Bronx, nuns were a different breed altogether from what they are today.
Mostly tough, old teachers, with a smattering of sweet, younger women, they all shared common religious convictions and dedication to their Church and to educating the young, sometimes with the help of a yardstick.
Not so much, today.
Freed of the religious habit and the convent, most American nuns have turned in their yardsticks and now live out in the real world dressed in everyday clothing and many have adopted that world's liberal-leftist attitudes and mores to the detriment of their vocations, a radical change that plays right into the hands of liberal-leftist politicians.
In case anyone hasn't noticed, religion - principally the Christian religion and particularly the Roman Catholic religion - has been under unrelenting attack by our president and his acolytes in the state-run media who are committed to secularizing America at the same time they undermine religious foundations.
Aiding and abetting that secularization and undermining is Sister Joan Chittister, member and former prioress of the Benedictine Sisters of Erie, Pennsylvania, a typical example of today's new nuns. She has been aptly described as a malcontent who serves as the mainstream media's €favorite lib nun€ because of her penchant for unjustly criticizing her own Catholic Church.
At the opposite end of the political-religious spectrum stand the Little Sisters of the Poor, a congregation of totally a-political Catholic nuns who have selflessly tended to elderly, dying, and impoverished people in some 31 countries, including America, for almost a century and a half.
Yet, the Little Sisters were described as €weasels€ by Michael Hiltzik of the LA Times and Amanda Marcotte of Slate.com for the grievous sin of refusing to cave to Obamacare demands they deny basic precepts of their faith while Sister Chittister is recognized as a celebrity for her activism on behalf of liberal causes.
An article by Sister Chittister was included in a free e-book €The Shriver Report: A Woman's Nation Pushes Back From the Brink,€ a collection of feminist essays compiled by Maria Shriver to mark the fiftieth anniversary of President Lyndon Johnson's €War on Poverty,€ a €war€ that has not only been an abject failure by all objective accounts but which has actually exacerbated poverty among women in the United States.
Sister Chittister contends that, €women are still one class of people who are set apart, separated, and given less value and worth by multiple religious traditions€ and that religion is a major cause of women's poverty and illiteracy.
And, she's a nun?
Maria Shriver's collection included pieces by such other intellectual giants as Beyonce Knowles and Eva Longoria and focused on the irrational supposition that Johnson's War on Poverty failed women due to negative religious attitudes in America that €devalue€ and marginalize women and not because it was a misguided liberal-leftist scheme designed to get every poor person to fail in order to make them virtual beggars and dependent on the Democrat Party to save them.
As Kristine Marsh observed on Newsbusters.com, €It's rather like the old joke about The New York Times headline: €Asteroid to destroy Earth; Women, Minorities Hardest Hit.€
The poor Little Sisters of the Poor have estimated that failing to agree to conform to Obamacare mandates that their order not simply cover contraceptives but also abortafacients that kill already-conceived babies would expose them to fines of $6,700 a day, fines that would cripple their dedicated mission to the poor and sick.
Ignoramus leftist Amanda Marcotte of Slate.com characterized the Little Sisters' refusal as the spectacle of plaintiffs €trying to weasel out of nothing more onerous than signing a piece of paper.€
It's obvious that adhering to moral principles and religious doctrine constitute weaselly behavior to leftists like Marcotte which complements Sister Joan Chittister view that radically feminist issues are the most important issues on America's plate today.
Is no one aware that the €War on Women,€ touted by Democrats as a Republican-inspired attack, is actually being waged by the largely-leftist Democrat Party and its MSM cohorts who distort the truth by revising history and by reviling good nuns with impunity? With allies like Sister Chittister, it's no wonder the left is winning that war and destroying Christianity.
