Get thee to a Lesbian Seperatist Commune, err, Nunnery?

[commodorified]

Oh, Benny The Rat.

Pope Says American Nuns Too Focused On Poor, Not Enough On Gay Bashing.

Also, Commenters Not To Be, from this story

Hey in the US no one is entitles to any maternity leave - count your self lucky.

Thanks, I won't.

Comments

[sage]

Did you see their reply? I've no idea what they're talking about. *g*

[commodorified]

I wonder what the Bishop of Seattle did to bring this down on himself?

[sage]

That last line! I hope she's as awesome as she seems!

[sara]

We are, in fact, entitled to some maternity leave.

Some of us even take it.


Our local RC bishop came down to town from up in Portland last year and told Catholic Charities that they could no longer accept United Way funds to feed homeless vets, because United Way also passes funds to Planned Parenthood. So Catholic Charities figured they had to give up the local government contract to serve the homeless vets.

Mmmkay, said our local St. Vincent de Paul's, we'll feed the vets. And the bishop said, then I will excommunicate you! And the St. Vinnie's guys said, go right ahead. We're pretty sure we're on Jesus' side on this one.

I was entertained.

Waldo, the question is what are you doing out there?

[commodorified]

We are, in fact, entitled to some maternity leave.

Some of us even take it.

I know. I was just ... no, that doesn't make it not an injustice. You should all have more.

Excommunication is starting to strike me as a badge of pride...

Re: Waldo, the question is what are you doing out there?

[sara]

Oh, I don't disagree. Few things piss me off as much as the very limited support which the mothers of young children get in this culture. We talk about venerating motherhood and we do absolutely no such thing (unless by "venerate" you mean "get up in ladies' business and tell them how to do everything without offering them any help to do any of it.")

Yeah, in a world where the Church says don't feed the poor, I think not feeding the Church is just fine.

[muccamukk]

Lines in the Bible about gays: 5 (and they're theologically debatable). Lines in the Bible about helping the poor and hungry: over two thousand.
Yeah.

I don't like this Pope. I don't wish ill on the man, but maybe he could... step down and they could pick someone else?

[commodorified]

It's a bit hard to miss: We are to love our neighbour and leave the judging to God. No if, and, buts, or special pleading.

[sollers]

How many of those 5 are in the New Testament? "My daughter the theologian" has pointed me to several bit in it that view the Old Testament simply as interesting background reading. I do remember a bit in the Gospels disapproving of widows who remarry, but re gays the only reference she could think of was the centurion whose slave was healed - she said the words he uses in the Greek imply that they are in an affectionate sexual relationship.

[emceeaich]

Does anyone listen to the Hierarchy? I mean other than the politicians pandering for votes from conservative evangelicals?

[commodorified]

My answer to that is more complex than I want to get into that this time, except to say that being pushed out by your spiritual home is painful and wrenching no matter how evident it may be to you that no other answer is possible.

[recessional]

Ratzinger makes me unhappy.

Those nuns make me happy.

That is all.

[commodorified]

May the Ruler Of Justice sit lightly in their hands.

[staranise]

God be with those women.

[trolleypup]

I think choosing the side of the angels is pretty easy here.

[cynthia1960]

For the nth umpty-upth time, let me chant in full Gregorian splendor, "The Hierarchy Can Bite My Shiny Metal Feminist Ass". Amen.

[lizbee]

Growing up in a conservative Catholic family, I was always aware that Dad didn't quite trust nuns. The ones who ran the aged care facilities near our home were fine, but he was deeply suspicious of nuns in educational roles. They might teach us some kind of hippy liberal doctrine about loving others, or promote feminism, and they were probably all secretly lesbians. The only thing he could imagine that would be worse was sending his children to state schools -- where we ended up eventually anyway.

TL;DR, I've always admired people who stand up to the Catholic hierarchy in the name of social justice and doing what's right; and I really regret the hierarchy these days makes Dad look liberal; and I do enjoy telling people about the thorough and excellent sex ed I got from the nuns when I was 13.

[nineveh_uk]

I had never thought of the surrogacy loophole before, despite having to do with the various sorts of family leave in the day job. Presumably the legislators didn't either, or did and hoped it would just go away (legislators, that never happens). It ought to be closed, and it will be interesting to see how it is, but it does present some challenges not least because of the non-binding nature of surrogacy agreements in the UK and the required period before there can be a parenting order*. I wouldn't expect it to be an extension of maternity leave rights**, but through a specific development of existing adoption leave and parental leave rights, the first of which in particular closely echoes the basic maternity leave pattern. Off the top of my head as a layperson, if I were looking for a quick fix to the law, then an extension of statutory parental leave for a biological father caring full-time for a child carried by a surrogate mother looks the most straightforward option (as well as promoting gender equality in parenthood!), though that would still leave cases where the father wasn't named on the birth certificate, so a complete solution would still be needed. I wonder if any of the Scandinavian countries have worked it out?

/thinking aloud imagining someone walking into the office about this.

*I would also imagine they would have to consider if it should just be leave to care for surrogate babies. If statutory leave for surrogacy without adoption, how do you legally justify not giving leave for infants in family fostering from birth? Maybe there should be leave for people in the latter situation as well, but I doubt it would be as popular with the Telegraph.

**Which are about the pregnancy as much as caring for the baby. And surely giving parental leave rights only to female parents of a baby carried through surrogacy would be open to a charge of sex discrimination against men.

[legionseagle]

I agree with you about the "hoped it would just go away" aspect. I've not kept up with the rule changes - I suspect the legislation review probably ran up against the issue that - to the best of my knowledge (which, being as this is family law, should be assumed to be that of an intelligent lay person with legal training) - surrogacy has no formal legal status; that is, it's definitely illegal to pay a surrogate "reward" money as opposed to "compensation" money (and the availability of maternity leave for the surrogate mother presumably massively affects that calculation) but I understood everything else falls into a mishmash of "child of the family" (husband's acknowledged illegitimate offspring?) and arranged adoption?

[legionseagle]

First, Dave Allen on the topic of religion (specifically, scary nuns).

Secondly, when I saw that item I forwarded it a friend who's a feminist, a Catholic and an academic, all relevant in this case and her view is that there's a lot of spin in how the report's being treated and that the issues are a lot more complicated and nuanced than's coming out; yes, there are clearly areas of concern but it's a longer-running issue of authority between different segments of the Church going back possibly a decade and the spin being put on it - and pinning it just to a single health-care leaflet - is unhelpful and inaccurate.

[commodorified]

her view is that there's a lot of spin in how the report's being treated and that the issues are a lot more complicated and nuanced than's coming out

I am completely unsurprised, though I'll hazard a slightly snarky guess that the nuanced version doesn't look too good on Benny And The Bishops either.

And very fond of Dave Allen, who used to be on British Columbia television in the 70s and who I therefore grew up with, weirdly enough.

[tei]

I love the video! Where Simone Campbell basically says that the male heirarchy in the Catholic chuch are a bunch of big babies.

[oursin]

Hey in the US no one is entitles to any maternity leave - count your self lucky.

Somewhen prior to WWI, my beloved Rebecca pointed out the tendency of men in positions of power to think of maternity as a frivolous hobby indulged in by women (rather than something to be encouraged by providing maternity care services). This mindset does not yet appear to have gone the way of the dodo.

[oursin]

Oh yes, and let me also cite her remarkable sister Letitia Fairfield, a convert to Catholicism who spent a lot of her time being about the social activism stuff (she was a doctor), and taking huge smitey swings at a)anti-semitism and b) misogyny within the Church, yay Letty.

[fyrdrakken]

The mindset I keep running across is that maternity is to be indulged in when one has a husband to pay for it -- and that wanting to keep working outside the home after there are children within it to be cared for is a frivolous (and ultimately selfish) desire that should be discouraged. Or such tend to be the excuses used to avoid helping mothers maintain careers on the one hand, and resist supporting stay-at-home single mothers on the other.