The Roman Taliban

MANIFESTO

Atrios points out this story:

The Vatican is quietly conducting two sweeping investigations of American nuns, a development that has startled and dismayed nuns who fear they are the targets of a doctrinal inquisition ... [M]any fear that the ... motivation is to reel in American nuns who have reinterpreted their calling for the modern world.

Some sisters surmise that the Vatican and even some American bishops are trying to shift them back into living in convents, wearing habits or at least identifiable religious garb, ordering their schedules around daily prayers and working primarily in Roman Catholic institutions, like schools and hospitals.

I've always been of the opinion that when an institution is dying, it gets more authoritarian, and I think this is a case in point. At any rate, the threat of an Apostolic Visitation, wherein all aspects of fidelity to the cause are investigated, shows just how paternalistic the male-dominated Church of Rome is.

The church seems to know one thing about women: It doesn't like them. But as long as they stay in their place and do what they're bidden, perhaps they can stick around and do some heavy lifting like "planting schools and hospitals and keeping parishes humming." Any variance from that set-up and suspicion immediately arises.

It's no wonder, then, that one

Sister Schneiders, [a] professor in Berkeley, urged her fellow sisters not to cooperate with the visitation, saying the investigators should be treated as "uninvited guests who should be received in the parlor, not given the run of the house."

This could be an interesting story, but it's likely that it'll be kept under wraps—or vestments.

Perhaps the church should just get it over with and put all the sisters in burkas and let the chips fall where they may.