UNITED STATES
Questions from A Ewe
75 years ago yesterday, Franklin Roosevelt said it was a “date which will live in infamy.” However, yesterday in Catholic hierarchy land was a day which will live in irony. Here are a few highlights:
* The Vatican began its first organization for female workers in the Vatican.
* Pope Francis begged media outlets to be responsible and not spread disinformation.
* The Vatican updated its guidelines for priestly formation.
Since it first emerged in the 15th and 16th centuries, the Vatican never had an organization for female employees – a group currently numbering around 750 or 20% of the Vatican population. I’ve not found many details on the new organization’s activities but I suspect they do not include grooming women for executive positions in the Vatican. In general, women are not groomed for anything in the church other than obedience and servitude.
However, boys and men willing to consider the priesthood merit volumes of guidelines, programs and efforts to support their development. The latest in the lot was published yesterday.
Reading the updated priest formation guidelines kind of reinforces my sneaking suspicion about the Vatican’s women’s organization lacking executive leadership development. The document is a masterpiece of self-admiration for clergy calling themselves “diamonds” and emphasizing how grateful we all should be that priests are better than other humans. It is a truly bizarre document feigning humility whilst reeking of hierarchical arrogance. It scorns clericalism but is so very clerical itself. It says priests should be shepherds that smell like sheep but then extols priests hanging out with other priests. It says priests should learn how to interact with women but then suggests myriads of clerical figures to help, etc….
Meanwhile, Pope Francis, who leads an organization which sometimes makes stuff up and declares it “truth,” appeals to media outlets not to spread misinformation or disinformation. He thinks the media shouldn’t just make things up and pass them off as factual news.
Though I agree that spreading disinformation is reprehensible, I found the pope’s plea rather ironic. I can provide a litany of examples where hierarchy members spread disinformation…from various hierarchy members’ lies covering up for abusive priests, to rejecting scientific understandings about human physiology and psychology, to pretending women were never ordained as deacons though they were for centuries, to made-up “facts” about women and their roles, to a September, 2015 US bishops’ smear campaign which propagated false news that a US social service organization sold aborted baby parts.
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