Why the Pope Hates Nuns
http://www.alternet.org/reproductivejustice/155696/why_the_pope_hates_nuns/
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It's tempting to simply view the church hierarchy as a cult of misogyny. But at its heart, it's a cult of power; misogyny is but one tool for securing that power.
In 1979, Sister Theresa Kane was given a very special task. As president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, an umbrella group for most orders of U.S. Catholic nuns, Kane was asked to deliver four minutes of welcoming remarks, on behalf of American sisters, to the newly elected Pope John Paul II during his first papal visit to the United States. At a gathering inside the grand church in Washington, D.C., known as the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Kane offered the pope a warm greeting, and then launched into this:
'As I share this privileged moment with you, Your Holiness, I urge you to be mindful of the intense suffering and pain which is part of the life of many women in these United States. I call upon you to listen with compassion and to hear the call of women...As women, we have heard the powerful messages of our church addressing the dignity [of] and reverence for all persons. As women, we have pondered these words. Our contemplation leads us to state that the church, in its struggle to be true to its call to reverence and dignity for all persons, must respond by providing the possibility of women as persons being included in all ministries of the church."
All ministries -- including, of course, the priesthood. Her meaning was not lost on the pope or, it seems, his henchmen in cassocks.
Chief among the new pope's enforcers was Joseph Ratzinger, the bishop from Bavaria, whom, three years later, JPII would appoint to the position of prefect for the Congregation of the Doctrine the Faith, an entity once known as the Roman Inquisition. As prefect, Ratzinger soon had his Congregation all but living up to its historical inquisitive reputation as he conducted a jihad against liberal bishops, clerics and nuns in the U.S., and around the world. Today, the former prefect is known as Pope Benedict the XVI, still an enforcer, and one with a long memory.
On April 28, nearly 33 years after Theresa Kane's unprecedented challenge to the pope, the Vatican delivered a verdict against LCWR, the nuns' group led by Kane in 1979: Its members were defying Catholic doctrine, Vatican investigators said, by promoting "radical feminist themes," as well as contradicting church teaching on homosexuality and the no-girls-allowed priesthood. Further, as Laurie Goodstein of the New York Times reported it, "The sisters were also reprimanded for making public statements that 'disagree with or challenge the bishops, who are the church's authentic teachers of faith and morals.'"
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You have to believe in original sin as your starting premise, which is a fairy tale and a LIE. Eve was weak (beguiled) and ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge. Therefore all the troubles of the world are set on women as Eve was the cause of the downfall of man. But she was convinced by a snake that talked and walked upright. If you accept that concept, you have serious problems.
And therefore women must suffer in childbirth. There were debates over this in the 19th century, as women started receiving anesthesia (ether and chloroform) during childbirth, by men who cited the Bible.
I'll reduce it to an equation: penis=wisdom.
Why any woman would be a Christian, accepting the woman-hating writings of Paul and others, is a total mystery to me.
The Catholics had to accept the veneration of Mary when converting indigenous peoples in what is now Latin America. The native religions had gods and goddesses. The indigenous peoples would not accept an all-male Trinity and no female goddesses.
That is simply the most obvious misinformation in your post.
