"Nuns on the Frontier" By ANNE M. BUTLER/ New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/16/opinion/nuns-on-the-frontier.html?src=recg

Fernandina Beach, Fla.

THE recent Vatican edict that reproached American nuns for their liberal views on social and political issues has put a spotlight on the practices of these Roman Catholic sisters. While the current debate has focused on the nuns’ progressive stances on birth control, abortion, homosexuality, the all-male priesthood and economic injustice, tension between American nuns and the church’s male hierarchy reaches much further back.

In the 19th century, Catholic nuns literally built the church in the American West, braving hardship and grueling circumstances to establish missions, set up classrooms and lead lives of calm in a chaotic world marked by corruption, criminality and illness. Their determination in the face of a male hierarchy that, then as now, frequently exploited and disdained them was a demonstration of their resilient faith in a church struggling to adapt itself to change..."

Anne M. Butler, a professor emerita of history at Utah State University, is the author of the forthcoming book “Across God’s Frontiers: Catholic Sisters in the American West, 1850-1920.


Bridget Mary's Reflection:
Will the bishops ever learn! They keep repeating the same bad behavior- treating women as second class citizens in the church- through the centuries.  As Anne Butler concludes, Catholics in the pews appreciate the nuns. The bishops should hang their heads for their despicable treatment of the nuns who in many cases are the unsung heroes of the American Frontier. The power behind the Sisters, (not ecclesiastical!!) was greater than the challenges they faced in founding schools, hospitals and orphanages under the most trying of circumstances! Let's just admit that the hierarchy, then or now, cannot handles gutsy women who usually find a way when there is no way! Perhaps, in this latest clash with the Vatican, they will declare their independence from male control, and open the door to a future of nun priests. Now wouldn't that be grand!
Bridget Mary Meehan, ARCWP
www.arcwp.org