Brethren, Peace and Good to All – including to Maureen Dowd, the house Catholic at The New York Times. Her latest screed was completely predictable, and it follows closely the talking points the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) and their supporters in the mainstream media have conjured and adhere to:
- Women in the 21st century are being persecuted for the crime of being women.
- Republicans want to force women into chastity belts
- The Vatican is bullying nuns “by the crepuscular, medieval men who run the Catholic Church.”
- The Holy See’s admonition of the LCWR recalls “is reminiscent of the Inquisition”.
- The Holy See is more interested in punishing nuns than pederast priests.
- All the nuns have been doing is God’s work of social justice.
- Pope Benedict is “God’s Rottweiler”.
Etc. etc. ad nauseam.
Dowd’s screed follows the standard script echoed by so many in the media. It’s not original at all and sometimes, it is somewhat conceited. How about that line that the poor nun’s repression comes from “by the crepuscular, medieval men who run the Catholic Church,” isn’t it absurd and full pathos Dodd is no spring chicken herself either – and most of the men she derides are her own age.
Dowd herself represents the uplifted bow stern of the sinking Titanic of a species of feminism at odds with the Gospel and Christian life. The age of angry girls with unresolved penis envy is rapidly coming to a close in the Church. Dowd’s screed represents the last rays of an illusion, of an ideology that once sought to redefine the nature of the Church and of men and women according to pagan tenets, but that now finds no place in the lives of observant Catholics. Good bye and good riddance!
Our duty as lay Catholics is to sweep the debris the dissidents left behind away from our parishes, hospitals, and centers of education so that we can be Catholic Christians once again, with our eyes and hearts set in the Lord in the service of one another. The dissidents are invited to join – including to Maureen Dowd – and even lead us, but in accordance to the Mind of the Church. Otherwise they should follow, or get out of the way.