Saturday, June 15, 2013

Is Francis Backing the Vatican Off the LCWR?

Everyone is somewhat abuzz over Pope Francis’ admission last week in a talk to the Conference of Latin American Religious (CLARR) that there is “gay lobby” among Vatican officials.  DUH! Yah think so, Paul Revere?  But there is something else that needs attention in his remarks.   
 They will make mistakes, they will make a blunder [meter la pata], this will pass! Perhaps even a letter of the Congregation for the Doctrine (of the Faith) will arrive for you, telling you that you said such or such thing... But do not worry. Explain whatever you have to explain, but move forward... Open the doors, do something there where life calls for it. I would rather have a Church that makes mistakes for doing something than one that gets sick for being closed up...
Perhaps even a letter of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith will arrive for you….but do not worry….move forward….do something there where life calls for it. 
Now in the days before Francis the Gamechanger, this would be popespeak to tell the American ladies of LCWR not to sweat their run with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the faith.  I am not sure that it isn’t still Popespeak; it is just that Francis is, as I have said, a gamechanger and has often spoken far more bluntly than his predecessors.  You know, bluntly like Jesus in the Gospels rather than with hidden messages like the Scribes and the Pharisees.  Nevertheless, I think this is a hopeful sign to the good Sisters and a flag to Archbishop Müller to ratchet down the witchhunt.  Frankly I am not surprised, Francis, as a religious himself—and one from a once persecuted Society—and as a Latin American, is not as threatened by women who not only can think but are articulate.  Let’s hope this is the dawn of a new day where the intellectual ice-jam introduced by John Paul II and maintained by Pope Benedict sees the spring thaw of which Vatican II was the harbinger.  Like Francis, I too, “I would rather have a Church that makes mistakes for doing something than one that gets sick for being closed up...”

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