A Nun-Issue

(Reuters) - A prominent U.S. Catholic nuns' group said on Thursday it was "stunned" that the Vatican reprimanded it for spending too much time on poverty and social justice concerns and not enough on abortion and gay marriage.

In a stinging report on Wednesday, the Vatican said the Leadership Conference of Women Religious had been "silent on the right to life" and had failed to make the "Biblical view of family life and human sexuality" a central plank in its agenda.

It also reprimanded American nuns for expressing positions on political issues that differed, at times, from views held by American bishops. Public disagreement with the bishops - "who are the church's authentic teachers of faith and morals" - is unacceptable, the report said.

In other words, shut up and do what the men tell you.  Not a surprising statement, considering the source, but maybe the nuns will come together and be heard.

Nuns spending too much time actually doing something to make the world a better place aren't falling into line, and that is a major problem.  They haven't stopped producing good works to jump through the hoops their superior men wish they would.  They dared to think instead of repeating what they are fed by their superiors.

That they were judged failures for failing to dive into human sexuality and family business says all I need to know.

While I'm not Catholic, I have known a few nuns in my life.  Each one was an awesome woman in her own right, balancing faith while keeping true to being a person just like any other.  Of course there are nun horror stories as well, but I want to say directly that I respect those women a lot for what they do, and what they put up with from the world in general.  The few nuns I have personally known were committed to working to bring goodness and demonstrate compassion by example.  Merely disagreeing is deemed unacceptable, imagine what might happen if these women tried to actively told the bishops to shove it up their pious little arses.