"Bishops Search for Condoms in Cookie Boxes" by Mary Hunt/ Religion Dispatches.Org

• http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/atheologies/6002/bishops_search_for_condoms_in_cookie_boxes/
  "The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops is having a Saturday Night Live moment. Emboldened by the Vatican’s hostile takeover of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, the gentlemen have shown their prowess by choosing to investigate the Girl Scouts of the USA. Which would be comical—first the nuns, now the Girl Scouts—if the goal were not so pernicious and the outcome so damaging, especially to the bishops.
  The tactics against the girls and the women are taken from one playbook, the goal of intimidation is the same, and the pushback in both cases is distracting from more pressing problems at hand. Still, you wonder who does their public relations, as the bishops are now about as popular as a recession.The apparent goal of this exercise of “investigating” gender female persons is to set up and enforce a male-defined model of girlhood/womanhood. A Vatican-, or in this case, USCCB-launched investigation is what Sister Sandra Schneiders, IHM, calls the equivalent of a grand jury investigation. There is the presumption that something is wrong, not something right, that there is guilt to be uncovered, not virtue to be unleashed. What is wrong seems to be women and girls thinking for themselves and acting for the common good.
  What boggles the mind is why the Roman Catholic Church would be so presumptuous as to investigate what does not belong to it. Granted, some Scout troops meet at Catholic churches, but that does not make them Catholic entities any more than the Alcoholics Anonymous group that meets in the same basement. In the case of the Scouts, the supposed connections with groups that support reproductive justice are, for the most part, links to websites where girls can find further information on issues, hardly a ringing endorsement of the groups’ missions. Sex education is not an integral part of scouting; that is something left to families. What is really at issue here is that women and girls involved in the Girl Scouts do not ask permission of ecclesial men to live as responsible citizens of a global world..."
• Bridget Mary's Reflection: Right on, Mary Hunt! The "bishops search for condoms in cookie boxes" is another sign of the last gasp patriarchy.  I believe the bishops are tone deaf and do not understand how alienating their behaviour is toward women and girls. Their investigation of the nuns and Girl Scouts have made the bishops a laughing stock, as Robert Kaiser points out. They have become fodder for late night comics! 
• Gender justice, equality, and primacy of conscience are major issues at the heart of our faith. It is time for Catholics in the pews to redirect their giving to challenge the bishops. On the other hands, the Vatican and the bishops are the gift that keeps on giving. This could become a fundraising bonanza for LCWR, the Girl Scouts, and  maybe even groups like women priests and WATER. As the old saying goes money talks!
• Bridget Mary Meehan, ARCWP, sofiabmm@aol.com www.arcwp.org