St. James Cathedral is often the scene of vigils, but the crowd outside its front door on Tuesday night was there to dissent from rather than proclaim Vatican policy:
The praying, singing gathering of Catholic was protesting the Catholic Church hierarchy's crackdown on American nuns.
One by one, vigil participants took the microphone to praise the good works of American nuns they have known. Among those mentioned was Sister Jean Prejean, the Louisiana nun who has devoted her life to working with death row inmates. (Susan Sarandon won an Oscar for her portrayal of Prejean.)
With its guitars and folk songs, the St. James gathering evoked the era of the Second Vatican Council and Pope John XXIII, a half century ago, when the Catholic Church appeared to be opening itself to the modern world and embracing other faith traditions. Future Seattle Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen was the youngest American prelate at Vatican II.
Cardinal Raymond Burke, the head of the Vatican's highest court, excoriated American nuns for what he called "the public and obstinate betrayal of religious life by certain religious."
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops last week began to investigate and assess ties between Catholic parishes and the Girl Scouts. The reason is Scouts' association with Doctors Without Borders, Oxfam and the Sierra Club -- groups which have shown sympathy for family planning.
The Catholic hierarchy is also angry with American nuns for seeking accommodation with the Obama administration on inclusion of birth control in health plans offered by Catholic hospitals and universities. The bishops, by contrast, seem spoiling for a fight and denouncing what they claim are attacks on "religious liberty."
The nation's bishops and cardinals -- and their counterparts in Rome -- are not known for listening to "the branches" despite what's written on the face of Seattle's cathedral. Lay protest did force the Vatican to back down in the late 1980's when it tried to strip away authority from the pacifist Archbishop Hunthausen.
It galls some of the Catholics who turned out Tuesday.
"They haven't explained it (the crackdown on nuns)," said Don Sly. "They don't have to. This is about power. That's the stance of power. You can investigate someone without offering any real investigation."
There were "Support the Sisters" vigils outside 27 cathedrals across American on Tuesday night, in locales ranging from Anchorage, Alaska, to Austin, Texas. Songs were sung outside the cathedrals of the country's two best-known hard line bishops, Cardinal Timothy Dolan in New York and Archbishop Charles Chaput in Philadelphia.
The vigils will continue on Tuesday nights through the month of May.
No comments:
Post a Comment