Tuesday, March 19, AD 2024 3:49am

Dying Nuns, Liberalism, and Time Magazine

Soon to be Extinct Nun

Time magazine, yes it is still being published, serves one useful function.  It normally gives insight into how doctrinaire liberals view the world.  It is often unintentionally hilarious as the writers demonstrate a cluelessness about the subject that they are writing about, which would rise to the level of Swiftian if it were intentional, instead of being the product of a mentality that cannot rise above the purely parochial mindset of the left that dominates most of those whose scribblings are published by Time.  Case in point:  Jo Piazza and her take on the coming extinction of liberal nuns:

Why would a generation of young women raised to believe that they can be anything join an institution that tells them there is something they absolutely cannot be, that there is a certain level they will never reach? Many of the women who are nuns today joined the vocation because it was a way to become highly educated, travel the world and dedicate themselves to a higher good without being beholden to a husband or children.

Young women today can do that with a passport and a Kickstarter account.

I am constantly reminded of something Sister Maureen Fiedler, a feminist and the host of the public radio program Interfaith Voices told me when I interviewed her for my book: the fact that Jesus was, and is, an “equal-opportunity employer.” He loved everyone the same.

If Catholic nuns are to survive in this country, something has to give. The Vatican needs to treat the nuns with more respect. The rules will have to evolve. Women will need to be given more power and leadership roles in the church.

Speaking at the annual LCWR assembly earlier this month, Franciscan Sister Ilia Delio described exactly what it means to be a nun today: “We are about drawing in the poor, the lonely, the marginalized, all those seeking to be part of a whole,” she said. “This is nothing more and nothing less than the most awesome vocation.

It is awesome. The nuns are awesome. But if the Vatican doesn’t start treating them as such, there is no incentive for more young women to aspire to join their ranks.

Go here to read the rest.  I guess I should cut Ms. Piazza some slack as her education seems to consist of a master’s degree in religious studies from NYU, but really, could she be more adept at missing the point if she tried?  Nuns have thrived from the earliest ages of Catholicism because living a lives in service as brides of Christ is a magnificent way for  women to make their paths through this Vale of Tears.  Since Vatican II, hordes of female religious orders have abandoned this vocation to embrace every trendy lefty cause rolling down the pike.  Their orders are dying off, not because of any action of the Vatican, but because being a trendy leftist does not require being a nun.  Orthodox female religious orders, completely invisible in the blinkered universe of Ms. Piazza, are doing well with vocations because being a bride of Christ does require being a nun.  Contemporary liberalism, in its myopic view of the World, assumes everything is about it and is astonished when liberalism leads to the death of institutions that embrace it and ignore what the institutions are supposed to be about.  As Christ said so long ago, “Where your heart is, so will your treasure be.”

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Mary De Voe
Tuesday, September 2, AD 2014 10:30am

No woman, female human, has ever claimed that Jesus Christ has called her to Holy Orders. Even the New York Times cannot testify to a woman being called to Holy Orders unless they own that person, which is unconstitutional.
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It is patently nonsense for a female to hold up the bread and say: “THIS IS MY BODY”, the words of Consecration, because it is not. The bread is confected into the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, true God and true man by the will of God, the Father, God, the Son, Jesus Christ, and the actions of the Holy Spirit, through the Catholic Church by a man ordained through the Catholic Church to the Sacrament of Holy Orders. ORDERS, ORDERS are indeed orders, even when holy, are not being observed by these heretical persons. Unless the woman claims to be a man, a finite man, the woman bears false testimony in a court of law and commits blasphemy. Blasphemy against the Son of God, Jesus Christ is perjury in a court of law and heresy in the Catholic Church.
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Too many individuals refuse to accept the fact that a new human being comes into existence as science has proved through DNA, time and time again, (perhaps not the New York Time(s), pun intended), that the frozen embryos are persons who are cheated of a warm and nourishing womb in a woman body through “in vitro fertilization” test tubes, imprisoned in liquid nitrogen, and at the mercy of cold, merciless individuals. The three choices the parents of an in vitro fertilized human child are given are: 1. Freeze the living child for future implantation. 2. Destroy the child. (kill the child) 3. Put the frozen child up for adoption.
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When these frozen children are adopted and allowed to grow in a warm and nurturing woman’s womb these living, human children are called Snowflake Babies, several of whom have testified and bear testimony to being human beings from the very first moment of existence. The Snowflake Babies are scientific proof that a sovereign person exists from the very first cell of a fertilized human egg.
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This comment must end here. But unfortunately, the women running around like chickens with their heads cut off, with nothing but political correctness, are an embarrassment to themselves, other women and the Catholic Church.
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Has anyone any suggestion that would enable these misguided, pitiable creatures to ascertain for themselves the truth? The whole world is watching this circus act of idiocy and using these laughable creatures as items for their stories. Or maybe this is the beginning of hell?

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Tuesday, September 2, AD 2014 10:40am

[…] – Aurelio Porfiri Popular News Site Claims Jesus Never Existed – Jon Sorensen, Ct An Dying Nuns, Liberalism & Time Magazine – Donald R. McClarey JD How Do I Heal When Hurt by Those in the Church? – John McNichol […]

Philip
Philip
Tuesday, September 2, AD 2014 11:49am

Disobedience is not a virtue.
Eve’s disobedience opened the beginnings of hell on earth.

The woman of obedience brought forth the dawn of salvation. If wayward nuns could adopt Mary the Blessed Virgin as model, then the lives of nuns would be forever fruitful and fulfilling.

If Jesus wanted women to hold “more power and leadership roles,” then Jesus would of elevated His Mother in those terms. Instead He gives us His mother as a model of humility and obedience.
Nuns who find this out of date need to review their vocation…possibly give it up and join the ranks of the disoriented liberal (c)atholic church.

Paul W Primavera
Tuesday, September 2, AD 2014 5:58pm

No one has more power or more leadership than a mother, whether she be a mother physically or a mother spiritually. These liberal nit wits are incapable of comprehending that by her fiat, the Blessed Virgin Mary through submission contained within her womb more Power than any mortal man could ever possess. The three worst words in the English language are liberal progressive Democrat followed closely by feminist and environmentalist.

Steve Phoenix
Steve Phoenix
Tuesday, September 2, AD 2014 6:29pm

The author’s “Swiftian cluelessness” was indeed hilariously highlighted in another phrase from the original Time article:
“Nuns are dying out because their population is aging and young women are not joining their ranks in the numbers they once did.”
Umm, yah, righhhht…d’ya think?
In an age of heightened nihilism and lack of purposefulness in life, a young woman should join THESE unconsciously self-parodying nit-wits? Havent you answered your own inquiry, Ms Piazza?

CAM
CAM
Wednesday, September 3, AD 2014 11:47pm

Nuns For Choice – how utterly pathetic these women are. It’s a good thing that these liberal leftist orders are dying out. They don’t belong in the classroom poisoning young minds. “Save the Baby Whales”. No, “Save the Baby Humans”, Sister. Ms Piazza should have done more research; she would have found that orders that are traditional have vocations.

Mary De Voe
Thursday, September 4, AD 2014 2:06am

CAM: “Nuns For Choice”
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In vitro fertilization and implantation (test tube babies) and DNA are scientific proof that a new human being comes into existence and life with the first individual cell. The newly begotten human being worships God by being a human being. Peter Singer of Princeton likes to define the new person by citing self awareness and conciousness.
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One cannot drive a car without a car. One can imagine or think about driving a car without actually owning a car to drive. The soul of the person imagines having a brain to think about thinking and the brain comes into being. In the stillness of the womb the baby grows a brain. The thinking person comes into being.
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These people are cheerleaders for Satan, the devil’s spawn. Halloween is coming.

Ronk
Ronk
Thursday, September 4, AD 2014 6:47am

Actually the statististics show that the fall in the numbers of nuns/religious sisters, which had continued at a steady pace from 1970 to 2005, has slowed remarkably in the past 10 years and it appears it will soon turn around and the numbers will start growing again. Tracing the same path as the numbers of priests, and, more recently, religious brothers/monks.

CAM
CAM
Thursday, September 4, AD 2014 10:11am

Ronk, Thanks. Yes… the Nashville Dominicans is one order that has had a large increase in vocations. I doubt Ms. Piazza would have used the statistics because it doesn’t fit her agneda.

Steve Phoenix
Steve Phoenix
Thursday, September 4, AD 2014 6:17pm

Ronk, you are certainly right about (as CAM observes) reasonably traditional Novus Ordo Sisters’ orders recovering in terms of numbers, but here on the VL (Very Left, as in Vladimir Lenin) Coast, I work closely with two women’s religious orders, one of which has participated in the infamous “Nuns on the Bus” protest tour group, for example, as well as prominent openly documented activism in the most explicitly and publicly pro-choice aspects of the LCWR: and they couldnt buy a novice if you paid them (Maybe I should suggest that to them…Naw!). One of the orders hasnt had a novice in about 4 years, and their median age must be 65…or more.. So, by their fruits ye shall know them.

SouthCoast
SouthCoast
Monday, September 15, AD 2014 1:15am

Alas. No light on the Piazza.

Jim
Jim
Monday, September 15, AD 2014 1:18pm

Jo Piazza’s garbage is typical of Time Magazine, a liberal victim’s rag. I can’t believe it didn’t go financially bankrupt decades ago. Miss Piazza doesn’t address the legitimate reasons for Vatican concerns. These include fidelity to Catholic teaching, arrogance and contempt towards authority to which they professed vows, obsession with “women’s ordination,” the compulsion of many nuns to revel in their delusional “victim” status ad nauseum. Miss Piazza reminds me of those radicals who came of age in the 1960s (Hillary Clinton, and her ilk) who never grew up and can’t stop their adolescent rebellion again the relentless oppressors who are everywhere. Like Time Magazine, they never wanted to grow up and become adults, and will die as miserable ranting and raving rebels because that’s all they know and are capable of doing.

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