The Relentless Damage of Pope Benedict XVI

It’s not enough that he has set Catholicism back several decades (you should have known that was his objective when he chose the name of the last pope he could actually respect, Benedict XV, 1914-1922, who invented canon law). Having torched seminaries with his witch hunt for homosexual candidates for the priesthood, he has now turned his bloody eye on that weakest and most endangered workforce of the Roman Catholic Church, the nuns.

As reported in The New York Times, B16 has initiated what he is calling a “visitation”, but let’s call it what it really is, an inquisition. He’s gotten wind of the fact that some nuns don’t wear habits, some nuns have secular work (gotta pay the bills on those vast and empty convents) and some nuns have supposedly developed an interest in Reiki. B16 in usual Vatican fashion lumps Reiki in with voodoo and sees it as opposed to Catholic faith. (This is a subject for another day, but Reiki actually talks about the flow of healing energy from and within the human body. Substitute grace for energy and you’re on safe Catholic ground. Plus, the “laying on of hands” is part of ancient Catholic tradition and ritual. Reiki just does it more intently.)

Because B16 can’t ride his dark horse up to the gate of each and every American convent, he has deputized an American nun as his grand inquisitor visitator. The New York Times calls her “apple-cheeked” and with “smiling eyes” but make no mistake. She is B16 in a dress. Oh wait. A different dress (supply any reverse drag joke you like). Mother Mary Clare Millea has a degree in canon law from the Lateran University in Rome. She’s a well-connected Vatican tool. Beneath her sweet words of overture to the nuns of America is the obvious disciplinary intent. Don’t believe me? Read the letter she wrote to the Superiors General of orders of American nuns, encouraging cooperation in this Apostolic Visitation. Did you miss the part where she, unable to ride her own dark horse up to the gates of those dusty convents, asks for a supply of deputies to do the inquisition visitation for her?

Please note that all those who take part in the work of the Apostolic Visitation will be acting in the name of the Apostolic See. For this reason, they must be willing to make a public profession of faith and take an oath of fidelity to the Apostolic See.

I guess the vows that nuns take and the creed that all Catholics recite at Mass are not enough for grinning Sister Cheeky. She’s demanding a special allegiance to B16 that will assure her of a compliant army of like-minded tools.

Any nun who participates in this nonsense should have her head examined. Already treated like second-class–wannabe-priests-without-dicks, nuns have in recent decades had to fend for themselves in designing their role in the church. In that process and with no chance to actually administer the sacraments they are taught to revere, they have become educated and ministerially effective in non-traditional ways. I would venture to say that in many communities, nuns are more respected than priests because they obviously lack institutional clout but still do the drudge work of mercy that is closer to the intention of the authentic Jesus rather than that of the sock puppet Jesus into which B16 daily shoves his fist.

To be sure, I’ve got some bad memories of working with some miserable nuns, but I also knew and respected an equal number of really good ones. As you would guess, there were many lesbians among both the good and bad lots. They get a doubly raw deal from the Catholic Church and I always wondered why they didn’t all walk away from it.

I have one thing to say to all the nuns that remain. Ladies, this is your chance to grow some big ones. With one voice, you need to send a resounding “F__K You” to B16 when Mother Mary Clare Millea and her minions come to inspect your skirts. I am rather sure that is what Miss Jesus would do.