A community of Benedictine sisters in Atchison, Kansas has announced that it will discontinue its active sponsorship of and governing responsibilities with Benedictine College.
Canonically, does the school remain a Catholic institution? Benedictine? Curious, because I could see this being a growing trend as orders age up and cannot sustain the same operations as in the past.
Yes—as mentioned in the article, the monks of St. Benedict's Abbey remain active at the college through teaching, ministry, and membership in the board of directors. (Full disclosure: as an alum and current employee of the college, I am admittedly biased in its favor—to a point—but I should also be clear that I have no control over official policy or insider knowledge of the split by the sisters. It was a surprise to everyone.)
Praying the college remains a faithful college--I have several friends sending their kids there. I'm not sure that this will actually change anything for those attending school there.
Not so much transitioning as remaining, I think. The college was originally 2 colleges which merged. One was run by the sisters and one by the monks and they both had 3 governors on the board of the merged college. Now it only has the 3 monks on the board. That's what I understood from the article
What is wrong with homemaking? There is nothing more important than a mother, and nothing better for a kid than to be raised by a stay at home mother who dedicates her life to raising her kids by staying at home. The kids are always much happier and spiritually and psychologically healthier that way. Meanwhile, the father's role is to do his best not to make a career either, but to be able to provide for the family, which also means sacrificing any selfish ambitions and career goals he may have as well. By the way, data shows that stay at home dads are one of the worse things that can happen psychologically for children when growing up (unless of course the father actually works out of the home, like a farmer or a skilled craftsman--in which case his kids see him work in his profession which is great).
Frankly, working in the medical profession, I see many nurses and physicians who have chosen a career over a family, showing off their "babies," meaning dogs and cats they own or spending only an hour or two at night with their kids even if some had husbands who were making 6 digit salaries on their own. They may work hard at building a career, but they frankly copped out and picked a much easier life. Being a mother and wife at home is a much more difficult life which requires much more talent and dedication than any professional career. Give me a CEO or an excellent mother and the mother deserves much more respect and honors. Though many women are forced because of financial constraints to have to work instead of being a stay at home mother, the Catholic Church should promote a situation where, like in the past, a family can have a decent living just based on the wages of the father. That is the ideal that is best for the children and actually most fulfilling for the woman, as being a stay at home mom is the most dignified and honorable profession or rather vocation. These dedicated mothers are like the Navy SEALS of women, the elite who bring up the best kids and allow their nation and the world to prosper. I thank God I had such a mother and I have such a wife and mother for my children (even though both had an excellent career when they resigned because they rightly realized the good of the family always trumps a career for mothers AND fathers).
I agree that stay at home moms are fantastic. My husband and I both had the joy of having them, but I your comment on stay at home dads was a bit unnecessary. I do think the stay at home dad arrangement can end up in a situation where the working mom works full time and does the majority of the house work and childrearing. I agree that is a disaster. When my husband and I met we had a very honest conversation. We wanted a parent to stay at home. I am a surgeon and staying at home didn't make a lot of financial sense. Plus my mothering skills consist of cooking, reading all the time, and assuming my kids will figure life out somehow. My husband does a great job and is raising 3 fantastic girls with a 4th baby on the way. It isn't easy, but he is a strong man who does the lions share of the housework, the yard work, and all the heavy lifting. Considering he ran me down at mass and asked me on a date 15 years ago leads me to believe our marriage is truly heaven blessed.
I guess there are exceptions to every rule, but I have also seen, and data proves it, that stay at home dads can result in bad outcomes for kids. This especially concerns raising boys, in which case the father staying home is a bad example to them.
Tamera, thank you for your witness. God blessed you with the intelligence and talent to become a surgeon and you are probably touching lives and quietly evangelizing in the workplace as a faithful Catholic doctor. Staying at home would be like putting your lamp under a bushel basket or burying your coins in the ground. I guess those who disagree with you would probably also disagree with Catholic allstars like Justice Amy Coney Barrett, Helen Alvare, or Ambassador Mary Ann Glendon.
I decided to re-subscribe just to respond to this comment. Frankly, I don't feel like this website is a positive influence on my spiritual health - seeing and engaging in the comment section often leads me towards having a more negative and bleak outlook on our Church. But someone needs to call this out exactly for what it is: junk.
No one is saying there is anything wrong with homemaking, at least as far as I can tell. I can completely understand why our sisters in Christ were offended by Harrison Butker's comments. To tell a cohort of graduating women:
"I think it is you, the women, who have had the most diabolical lies told to you. How many of you are sitting here now about to cross this stage and are thinking about all the promotions and titles you are going to get in your career? Some of you may go on to lead successful careers in the world, but I would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world..."
Yeah, that rubs me the wrong way too. And for these women, many old enough to be Butker's grandmother, who have dedicated their lives to serving God, their communities, and EDUCATING WOMEN, that the most important thing for a woman is solely to raise children? Do you not see how this denigrates all women? And how it might be a smack in the face to these women in particular?
This whole trad-wife revisionist history makes me sick. Your post includes one of the lies -- "the Catholic Church should promote a situation where, like in the past, a family can have a decent living just based on the wages of the father" -- without acknowledging that is a very, very small blip (let's just call it an anomaly) in human history. Women have always worked to produce in some form or fashion. And yes, being a stay-at-home mom is a ton of work, but this illusion of an idyllic post-War stay-at-home mom utopia is just that - an illusion. My grandmothers worked, all my aunts had careers (they are in their 70s now to give you an idea of my age & I am fortunate to have a dozen of them), and so did my mother.
You fail to recognize very important things like women were unable to have their own credit cards until the 1970s. Marital rape did not _start_ becoming illegal until the 1970s as well. Many women were, and unfortunately still today are, in incredibly vulnerable positions without careers if their husband/family was abusive (or dead). That is why women have been encouraged to have an education and career in this day and age. Your judgmental comments about your colleagues/coworkers also fails to recognize that even today there is a gender-wage gap.
As men we need to do better. Yes, being a stay-at-home mom deserves respect. An equal amount of respect as being a CEO. There is nothing wrong with homemaking and it is a ton of hard work. But that is a two way street - - women who do not have children, or who have chosen to prioritize their careers, ALSO deserve our respect and appreciation.
I did not say religious women are not important. I would consider my daughters having a vocation to the religious life as the greatest gift of God, even greater than motherhood, the other great vocation. I want my daughters to have as equally a strong education as my sons, even a doctorate if possible. But if they get married they should stay home in order to use their intellectual skills to perform the most important career in the world, educating the next generation of Catholics who are both strong intellectually and spiritually. My model is Saint Thomas More, who gave his daughters an education equal or better to any educated man in his era. Yet we have to stop equating the vocation of men and women. Women should not try to be men in their ambitions by competing with men for positions that take them away from raising their children. Men should also never strive for a career that prevents them from having time for their wife and children. So frankly no one, absolutely no one, priests, religious, married or single laity should never ever prioritize their careers, but dedicate their lives to God either by raising good, holy kids or in some other endeavor that glorifies God and brings souls to Christ.
Agree. I am a woman who had a desire to go to medical school and would have been a great physician, but even in college and not in the greatest of spiritual health, I could sense that it would impossible to be simultaneously the kind of mother I imagined being and the kind of physician I imagined being. I’ve met one woman ever who did both exceptionally well.
I left the top of my non-medical career to stay home with my children, not because I’m more virtuous or anything but because I got lucky enough to sense the value in it long before understanding it. And doubly fortunate to have lucked into a marriage where my husband values what I do and takes his responsibility to provide seriously.
Working friends have asked me how my daughter will have the example of a career, but that is really a poorly thought out question. After all, the world will always provide an example of that. What it won’t provide, if I don’t provide it myself, is an example of how to be a full time homemaker; how to educate your own children; how to put your time and talent into hidden things the world deems secondary.
All women deserve respect, there is no doubt of that. And all moms who love their children are heroes. I’ve worked full time and put a child in daycare; I’ve stayed home and worked part time from home with kids in part time school; I’ve stayed home with no outside work and homeschooled full time. Eventually life will change again and I’ll work in some capacity. All of these choices deserve recognition for requiring sacrifice in varying forms.
And all of that can be true while it is still true that women ARE sold a bill of goods because the entire K-university pipeline operates from the baseline assumption that the purpose of education is to obtain a career. And thus, women are molded to believe that they have to “balance” work and family. Go find any woman advancing in her career and motherhood at the same time and ask her how much balance she feels. Ask her if she really, truly, deep down feels that as a general baseline she is fully and totally satisfying both career and home. I doubt it. Someone is always sick or has a school program or a game at the same time that something blows up at work or a meeting runs late or a boss has a new expectation.
So, women deserve to be told the truth that life is full of hard choices and that “having it all” is a lie. Mr. Butker told them the truth. Maybe inelegantly. Maybe harshly. But he didn’t lie.
I agree you definitely can't have it all. The only reason I do feel pretty balanced is because my husband stays at home. He's there when the kids are sick, and when I work late nights or rarely don't make it home at all because I'm in the OR. I've watched so many women try to do it all and I don't think you can do that and be satisfied. At least I can't. I know my limits. I recognize I will never be PTO president, and I have to call my husband when I go shopping because I don't know my kids shoe sizes. However my daughter brought a rosary to her public school for show and tale on R day and told her teacher if she could have dinner with anyone it would be St. Therese. So feel like we are doing ok. My middle daughter wants to be a mom more than anything when she grows up and I have told her that is wonderful. I think we all need to realize we are all in this together and although one size fits most it certainly doesn't fit all.
Not sure what to make of the stay at home dad and son discussion. I know my husband really wants a boy this time around :-D. I want one too. I want him to raise a son who respects his wife and cares for his family like my husband does.
Your family sounds beautiful. What a blessing to have two parents who support one another for the good of the children! For what it’s worth, when I was working full time and we had a chronically ill infant, my husband was always SO much better at working from home while caring for the baby than I ever had any hope of being.
Thank you so much for saying this. I couldn’t agree more. I’m an attorney, working full time now- no kids yet. My mother was an attorney and left her big law job once she had kids even though she loved it - it was clearly incompatible with raising kids.
Every situation is different, and of course there will be times when a mom is forced to be the sole income for her family or the family needs two incomes to make it work. This is different from what I see most often in my career, which is both parents continuing to work (and find daycare out of the moms salaries) because they want two high paying salaries rather than one. It’s pretty clear to me this was the situation being addressed in the speech.
You could believe that your daughters should dress so that the only flesh they were showing in public was on their face and their hands. You and your wife could have the opinion that that is most pleasing to God, the most morally just approach to clothing, and the most prudent decision for a woman's safety. And I would completely respect that. But I would argue strongly against you believing that _all women_ should dress in that fashion, and in fact, I want the opposite kind of world: women to have the freedom to walk in public wearing next to nothing, without the fear of being leered at, sexually harassed, or assaulted because of it.
I may not believe that is most morally appropriate clothing, the wisest decision, or even plainly the most comfortable choice, but any issues with temptation or sin that would cause on my end are for me myself to deal with. I appreciate you mentioning St. Thomas More. I've been reading the autobiography of St. Ignatius of Loyola lately and it paints a pretty clear picture of an era where women were unable to travel outside unaccompanied without the fear of being attacked and raped (or judged negatively). I have absolutely no desire to regress to that kind of world, and my mentioning of women's civil rights -- which are very recent, hard-won, and like all civil rights, a tenuous thing (despite any of our beliefs on how difficult modern life may be) -- is because I feel it is too easy for us modern Americans to diminish and devalue the impact of these things.
I'm not interested in getting into culture war nonsense or a political battle. I believe you and I are on the same team. I want young women and men in our country to have the freedom to have as many children as they want and for us to have a conducive environment towards protecting human life and dignity. I believe our Church is in agreement and provides us with some tools to help do this, but I also feel like we need things like universal healthcare, affordable housing, free daycare, and other social safety nets to lift up our poor and most vulnerable. Unfortunately, in my lifetime, we seem to be trending in the opposite direction, and so seeing young people peddled what I would describe as reactionary views is difficult for me to stomach, especially when it seems to be on the side of fueling growing inequality.
All to say that I think it is very problematic for a young man, not yet in his 30s, who has won a golden ticket in life by being rich and famous due to athletic gifts & a talent for kicking a ball on the right teams (not realistic for 99.99% of us), to trot out on stage and say those words to a group of young people who have spent countless hours working on their degrees; tens of thousands of dollars of either their own money/debt, or their parents' who are also likely in attendance; and just starting their adult life. I also feel it is incredibly disrespectful to the women on the school's faculty who have put an immense amount of time, effort, and money into their own education and careers, maybe forgoing having a family and children, or maybe faced with the difficult task of trying to balance raising a family and maintain an academic career in this day and age.
I think this messaging, also reinforced by a number of Christian and Catholic influencers who push a message for people to have "as many children, as young as possible" can be very dangerous. For our young women, it can lead to them feeling that the most important thing for them is to be attractive and likeable by men (which you will probably agree our faith teaches is temporary and unimportant), adding on to the horrors of modern day social media, unrealistic beauty standards, and the widespread abuse of cosmetic surgery. For our young men, it can push the idea that they should be able to provide for a large family entirely by themselves (most can't), leading to a worship of money and wealth. You are very clear that you yourself do not believe that is the most important, but I think it is a logical conclusion for impressionable young men. They may also feel that if they happen to have the means, that it is their RIGHT to have a wife and as many children as they want, leading to a view of women as possession & property. God/life will ultimately sort that out in the end, but I don't feel it should be allowed at a commencement speech.
For the school's president to essentially say, "calm down you woke snowflakes" when these women spoke out in public, is also very problematic in my eyes. But I think there is a lot at play with this whole situation - including the idea that attending college is solely to start a career and create efficient little workers. I believe strongly in the importance and value of a liberal arts education, and the place of Catholic universities in particular in that, but that may also be because I myself have never attended a four year university, and I have no college degree. I'm just a working class stiff. So this may all be wishful thinking but I want to have faith, hope, and love for a better world and I want to push back against rising anti-intellectualism and defend the beauty and value that our tradition in particular brings to education. It sounds like you feel the same. I just also feel like comments like Butker's degrade the entire thing.
Thanks for taking the time to read any of these ramblings. I hope at least some of my perspective (which may be completely different from these sisters'...) comes through in an understandable way. Peace and blessings to you and your family, Thomas.
Why do you think that working women should be offended by the idea that being a mom is a more important job than working? Regardless of whether they are choosing to work or not. I’m a full time working woman with no kids and I would never be offended by this because it’s true. That’s not anti intellectual or degrading of work.
I don't believe working women should be offended by that idea. I don't think there is anything wrong with a woman sacrificing their career in order to be a full-time mother. I'm sorry I was not clear about that. I also certainly do not think that women fear for their safety when alone because of "trads online" like Nic V. implied.
I think that the history of religion (and of atheistic politics too!) shows clearly that they can be used as a tool for oppression, particularly towards women. Look at the recent history of some of our Muslim brothers and sisters: the stark contrast of Iranian culture in the '60s & '70s to the current deplorable situation; the experience of children and women in Afghanistan during the last 20 years. I believe examples abound and it is incredibly arrogant to believe that something similar couldn't happen to us.
I believe that as religious Americans, it is important for us to be vigilant about some of what I view to be as perversions of our faith: fundamentalism, Christian Nationalism etc, that seem to argue for a weakening of the separation of church & state that our country was built on. Or the diminishment of the rights of women in our society, including towards education and the ability to work. And I'm not saying that elevating and upholding the value of motherhood does that, but I do think that it can be a slippery slope and I dislike and distrust some of the rhetoric I see, often from men who likely do not have a direct connection with women who fought hard in order to win these rights.
I think Thomas' comment seemingly to use the Sisters' statement as an attack on motherhood, and of his use of the cruel & judgmental meme-trope of childless women as 'pathetic, lonely crones with their fur-babies' feeds into some of these narratives and it's why I decided to post. I also feel like many, if not most, families in America today can not survive off of solely one parent working, and is just as much of a pipe-dream as my hopes that women can exist in our society alone without the fear of abuse & assault.
Thanks for your thoughtful response. I totally see where you are coming from, but I also think Thomas has some good points (I don’t agree with all he says). To me, what it comes down to is that it IS more possible to have one parent (normally the mom) stay home than people say it is. The problem is you do have to give up some things, and those happen to be things that a lot of American families have come to view as necessities even though they’re not. This is not me making a judgment about anyone in particular, as this is a decisions for each family/couple. But as someone who is young and work in a high profile career I know a lot of people with young kids who have chosen to have a parent stay home even though it’s hard and requires financial sacrifice from both parents. Imo this shpild be encouraged. Our society is too materialistic and we are all steeped in this our whole lives.
Dads need to sacrifice too of course. But work in law and there are a lot of divorced dads out there who billed 80 hours a week throughout their kids childhoods. Obviously it would have been better to take the pay cut for a Less demanding role that allows seeing your wife and kids in the evenings! But why are a lot of people specifically call women? Because women are the ones most hit by the messaging their entire lives in modern day America thst you “have” to work or you ”should” work. I still get these messages constantly from non Catholic co woeks and other well meaning peers/ older adults. The extent of this may escape your notice if you’re not yourself a woman. It does get exhausting.
I noted that many women are forced to have to work, so I am not blaming women and men who have no choice in the matter. The Sisters did not resign over the societal injustice of the fact that many women are enslaved by the modern financial system that does not allow men to make a decent living by themselves like they could 50 or 60 years ago and therefore not have to have their wives work and have their kids raised in day care centers.
It reminds me of the conversation between two nurse assistants I overheard, in which one stated that she was needing to apply for a job at Walmart to make a better living, but the shifts would take her away from being with her family and even possibly from going to church, because Sunday shifts would be required. She did not sound like she wanted to work for Walmart, but had to. If the Sisters and other feminists worked for the right of women to be able to raise their kids as stay at home moms, maybe this cruel system of children not being raised by their mothers like the mothers would usually like them to be could be ended.
Joseph, with all respect it sounds you want Eden (who wouldn't!), but we aren't in Eden. Men and women are called to care for each other and not cause scandal to each other. In fact, one can argue that our societal loss of any dress standard has furthered the world that you don't want us to return to. If you have talked to the average young woman, they are typically wracked with anxiety about their safety when alone (and I don't think it's because of trads online).
I think much of the debates people have on the topic of gender are trying to justify particular situations which doesn't do much to further the discussion (exceptions prove the rule). I agree Butker's statements were fairly ham-fisted, but I think there is a kernel of truth in them that anyone who has a strong reaction against them should sit with.
Peace to you!
P.S. I completely agree with you on the role of a liberal arts education and the detriment of it becoming "job-training."
When the sisters condemned the Butker statement—which I think was a poor choice—they did write this gem of a sentence that really ought to have been their whole comment on the situation:
“Our community has taught young women and men not just how to be ‘homemakers’ in a limited sense, but rather how to make a Gospel-centered, compassionate home within themselves where they can welcome others as Christ, empowering them to be the best versions of themselves.“
Well, I’d propose to them that you can’t make a home in what they’re calling a limited sense (and I’d argue there’s nothing limited about homemaking in what might be better described as the ordinary sense) without first living out their advice to make one in one’s own self, but yes, that would have been the better statement to issue.
"Frankly, I don't feel like this website is a positive influence on my spiritual health - seeing and engaging in the comment section often leads me towards having a more negative and bleak outlook on our Church."
I subscribed because I wanted to learn from other people's perspectives and participate in Catholic conversations, but too often comments reveal the dark hearts of those who are asleep to the call for compassion and charity for those who are marginalized. I had hoped to be inspired not just by the articles, but also by a gathered, faithful community sharing thoughts about how we can lift up everyone.
I have engaged with some wonderful hearts here, but too often some have used this space to prove their perspective is right without any humility or charity for the least among us. Advising me to not read the comments is asking me to not grow. I want to be a better Catholic.
This world is troubled, so isn't it sad that some regular commenters here only add to an already heavy plate of struggle, suffering, and grief. I'm not weak. I'm trying to grow, and my prayer is that going forward, I hope some people will reflect before they post. Let's inspire each other to see the beauty of our faith.
One of the best ways to grow in our faith is to be challenged that what the world teaches us, like feminism, is not the best thing for the spiritual and psychological health of the world. One priest said correctly that almost every Catholic he has met is infected with modernism which has infested our minds for the past 150 years. I reflect on everything I write before I send it, because my greatest concern is for the salvation of souls and for people to see the damage that is caused when Catholics think that they should live like everyone else and do what everyone else is doing. The truth is always challenging and upsetting. That is why Jesus, Saint John the Baptist, and St. Paul upset so many people which led to their deaths. I am a nobody and I wish people, especially priests, who are holier and smarter than me would bring up the issues damaging our families and children, but they don't, so a dumbo like me feels compelled to do that instead.
I subscribe for the professional journalism. Comments are...well, just comments.
Do you leave your parish if you overhear some parishioners make a comment in the vestibule that you disagree with? No, you are there for the sacraments. And we are here for the Catholic news to aid our understanding and reception of the sacraments.
If you do cancel then please make sure to send a donation to JD and Ed's families, because you'll be hurting them and their staff, not the commenters.
To be fair, Butker said, "...I would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world..." That's a guess about empirical fact, not a moral statement. He didn't come close there to saying, "the most important thing for a woman is solely to raise children."
I was raised by a stay at home father in a beautiful homeschooled Catholic family and I have to disagree about the slight you make towards families who choose this. My dad would often get nasty comments from others (especially Catholics!) about our family and would take them in stride with humility, grace, and joy. He was a tireless catechist, educator, caretaker for my grandparents, and manager of the household. If faith, virtue, and caring for your loved ones are the examples that come from the psychological harm of having a stay at home father, then, yes, I am a victim of this.
It is not the norm. It is not the way God had specifically established how a family should function since Adam and Eve. The man is the head of the household as the Bible repeatedly states and should be the breadwinner, unless some illness or disability prevents it.
It is like studies of new priests. It is obvious that there are more priests that come from larger families or families where the priest was raised by both parents. Yet every year there is a small percentage of priests who are only-children or who were raised by a divorced parent. Yet that does not mean that those priests came from family situations that should be upheld as models of how children should be raised.
One Harvard study showed a 32% increased divorce rate in families with a stay home dad. Some psychologists have noted severe changes in behavior by the wife when she takes on masculine roles and the husband takes on feminine roles.
There are societal roles that God has established that never change and we as humans have no right to change them ourselves.
The sisters are fantastic people and are doing God's work, however, the last time I checked, inclusivity and other terms like tolerance are not Catholic virtues.
The same Apostle who wrote commanding the excommunication of an incestuous fornicator also wrote "Receive one another as Christ received you." The way St. Thomas Aquinas describes the good kind of tolerance treats it as a kind of prudence. There are things we should not include and ideas we should not tolerate, but there are also many we should include or tolerate.
Fair enough. However, I'm not sure those who use tolerance on the side of error (which is usually the case) are that nuanced or agree to the nuance to begin with.
Tolerance presumes error, there's no point in tolerating what is right and good. But I get what you mean, and you're right. The words are typically used to promote problematic people to high offices, spread error, and celebrate wrong-doing, not as a recommendation to be patient with them for the sake of the conversion and good of those people.
Tolerance has rather lost its original meaning, though it can still be found in medicine ... "did your mother tolerate her medication?" "Yes, she felt nauseous but managed to hold it down" ... or in the negative: "I can't tolerate jazz music". Nowadays tolerating something means not to allow it as a necessary evil but to accept it or even celebrate it. Something you tolerate will be at worst neutral to you, but never negative
I don't agree with some of the stuff Butker said, but big deal. He's a football player, not a wise sage or an authority figure, and it's commencement. I've commenced several times and remember almost nothing any speaker said.
I believe people are making far too much of the Butker situation, which is not addressed in the sisters’ statement about stopping their sponsorship of the College, and they stress their ongoing support for the College’s mission and future.
The Mount still has a large number of sisters, but those who remain have a high average age, and I don’t believe they have many sisters at all below the standard retirement age of 67.
The Abbey has a much smaller group of male religious, but they live on the campus and their average age is closer to 50, with several monks in their twenties and thirties.
It appears to be simply a case that the Benedictine charism of the College will necessarily be carried on by the monks and not by the sisters within the next 10-15 years, and the sisters are choosing now to gracefully step aside before age or infirmity with dwindling numbers forced their hand. Which appears to be a decision based in good stewardship, not division.
This is a net positive for BC. These sisters are a dying order with no new vocations and still stuck in the 70s in some of their theology. President should invite in the Sisters of Life, the Dominican Sisters of Mary, or another vibrant community that the females on campus can relate to more closely.
P.S. If they actually wrote "We want to be known as an inclusive, welcoming community, embracing Benedictine values that have endured for more than 1500 years" then they are ignorant of their spiritual father, as Benedict said and did more than a few things to challenge lukewarm Catholics in his day that would not be considered "inclusive and welcoming" by today's standards...
Dominus Vobiscum to the Dominicans(Ann Arbor & Nashville) and Sisters of Life. I knew a priest who said when we evaluate orders for engagement in the diocese, we ask the question: Do they want to be sisters or social workers? From visiting their location and looking at their website, I think this group of Benedictine sisters want to be social workers.
When I look at orders of nuns, those that are traditional are thriving. You see lots of young, smiling faces. Many of the others, saddened to say including the ones that taught me in grade school, are filled with old women, with short hair, and no habit. They are on their last legs. I don't think that all religious clergy realize they are role models for the rest of us. That garners our respect and support. They are the Marines of the Church. Everything about them has to say devotion, discipline, and love.
There's active orders that don't suffer from the 70s vibe. The Missionaries of Charity for example, Mother Teresa's order, are always showing up in groups around here in their very visible habits. The Sisters of Life and the Franciscan Sisters of the Eucharist are active orders and are doing well. There are many others. What all these have in common are first of all, the Sisters wear habits and second, they emphasize Catholic doctrine and the Eucharist, not the fuzzy progressive stuff.
I would note that I have also visited contemplative women's monasteries in the USA that had an uncomfortably progressive vibe. When you go to a contemplative convent (like for a retreat or something) and find it populated by a handful of older nuns in lay clothes who appear at chapel wearing alb type garments, and the place is full of weird modern art, let's just say it's not quite what one expects.
There are a fair number of people who have left the Church because of the abuse they experienced at the hands of sisters in habits. I have had people online say they would cross the street to avoid one. I had never heard of Charlie Kirk when he was murdered and someone sent me a link to an interview he did last year with Bill Maher. During the conversation Bill commented on his treatment at the sister's hands and how evil they were. I dropped out of the Church until I had dealt with the abuse I had experienced at their hands. And yes they emphasized the Eucharist and Catholic doctrine in the midst of their abuse, which strengthened the anti-Catholic attitudes of their victims.
Without being too personal, is there something about the abuse you can describe? I have heard these stories and it doesn't coincide with my own. I went to a Catholic school post Vatican II and while not all of the sisters wore habits, they were generally some of the kindest people one would meet. Priests were mixed in that department. The meanest people I dealt with were 'devout', unmarried lay people dealing with personal issues such as likely closet homosexuality.
That's because these were pre Vatican II nuns. I would prefer not to go into detail because detraction, telling someone who does not need to know something evil and true about someone else, is the sin I am working on overcoming at the moment.
The orders I cited have active charisms. Teaching in Catholic schools is a large one for the Dominicans. I am referring to how they approach their calling. I think when you go down the social justice rabbit hole, one can lose sight of love of God as the primary focus and the source of our good. That is what these orders suffer. That is why you will even see orders of sisters trying to excuse abortion.
For those familiar with Benedictine College, this is not an alarming story. Benedictine College / St. Benedict's is doing well right now. They have considerable support of the more traditional Catholics. They are building a medical school and sponsored the National Eucharistic Congress. The sisters across town, however, are a dying order.
This is a microcosm of what is happening in the American Church. The more traditional orders and institutions are thriving. Those locked in the progressive 1960's are dying off. That is why you have leftist bishops and cardinals trying to suppress anything traditional. This is their last gasp. Eventually, they will be gone and hopefully their reflexive dislike of tradition will go with them. Some of my friends worry about schism if ever the hierarchy do something off kilter. However, I assure them the parts of the Church that work ultimately subsume those that fail.
So true. We have a daughter who graduated from BC a few years ago and I rarely remember seeing any of the Sisters around and she never mentioned them. However, the Monks were very present and she mentioned them often.
This would be like me withdrawing my support from the KC Chiefs. I watch the games but have only gone to two games in the 20+ years I've lived in KC. They would be able to survive my absence.
Please God be with us as the divisions in the Church seem to continue to grow.
Canonically, does the school remain a Catholic institution? Benedictine? Curious, because I could see this being a growing trend as orders age up and cannot sustain the same operations as in the past.
Yes—as mentioned in the article, the monks of St. Benedict's Abbey remain active at the college through teaching, ministry, and membership in the board of directors. (Full disclosure: as an alum and current employee of the college, I am admittedly biased in its favor—to a point—but I should also be clear that I have no control over official policy or insider knowledge of the split by the sisters. It was a surprise to everyone.)
It is more Catholic than the nuns abandoning them.
Praying the college remains a faithful college--I have several friends sending their kids there. I'm not sure that this will actually change anything for those attending school there.
Benedictine is a faith-filled place and will remain so.
If it's just transitioning over to Benedictine monks then it should be fine. It might even be better.
I’m trying to read between the lines on the article, and this sentiment matches my suspicion…
Not so much transitioning as remaining, I think. The college was originally 2 colleges which merged. One was run by the sisters and one by the monks and they both had 3 governors on the board of the merged college. Now it only has the 3 monks on the board. That's what I understood from the article
“We want to be known as an inclusive, welcoming community..."
Isn't it weird how often people say that in the context of rejecting/denouncing/penalizing/disinviting a specific person or group?
Has Benedictine always had a reputation as a vibrant Catholic college?
It’s been up and down over the decades.
I think it had issues in the 70's and 80's, but recently it is doing well. They are even starting a medical school.
What is wrong with homemaking? There is nothing more important than a mother, and nothing better for a kid than to be raised by a stay at home mother who dedicates her life to raising her kids by staying at home. The kids are always much happier and spiritually and psychologically healthier that way. Meanwhile, the father's role is to do his best not to make a career either, but to be able to provide for the family, which also means sacrificing any selfish ambitions and career goals he may have as well. By the way, data shows that stay at home dads are one of the worse things that can happen psychologically for children when growing up (unless of course the father actually works out of the home, like a farmer or a skilled craftsman--in which case his kids see him work in his profession which is great).
Frankly, working in the medical profession, I see many nurses and physicians who have chosen a career over a family, showing off their "babies," meaning dogs and cats they own or spending only an hour or two at night with their kids even if some had husbands who were making 6 digit salaries on their own. They may work hard at building a career, but they frankly copped out and picked a much easier life. Being a mother and wife at home is a much more difficult life which requires much more talent and dedication than any professional career. Give me a CEO or an excellent mother and the mother deserves much more respect and honors. Though many women are forced because of financial constraints to have to work instead of being a stay at home mother, the Catholic Church should promote a situation where, like in the past, a family can have a decent living just based on the wages of the father. That is the ideal that is best for the children and actually most fulfilling for the woman, as being a stay at home mom is the most dignified and honorable profession or rather vocation. These dedicated mothers are like the Navy SEALS of women, the elite who bring up the best kids and allow their nation and the world to prosper. I thank God I had such a mother and I have such a wife and mother for my children (even though both had an excellent career when they resigned because they rightly realized the good of the family always trumps a career for mothers AND fathers).
I agree that stay at home moms are fantastic. My husband and I both had the joy of having them, but I your comment on stay at home dads was a bit unnecessary. I do think the stay at home dad arrangement can end up in a situation where the working mom works full time and does the majority of the house work and childrearing. I agree that is a disaster. When my husband and I met we had a very honest conversation. We wanted a parent to stay at home. I am a surgeon and staying at home didn't make a lot of financial sense. Plus my mothering skills consist of cooking, reading all the time, and assuming my kids will figure life out somehow. My husband does a great job and is raising 3 fantastic girls with a 4th baby on the way. It isn't easy, but he is a strong man who does the lions share of the housework, the yard work, and all the heavy lifting. Considering he ran me down at mass and asked me on a date 15 years ago leads me to believe our marriage is truly heaven blessed.
I guess there are exceptions to every rule, but I have also seen, and data proves it, that stay at home dads can result in bad outcomes for kids. This especially concerns raising boys, in which case the father staying home is a bad example to them.
Can you share the source of the data you're referencing here please?
Tamera, thank you for your witness. God blessed you with the intelligence and talent to become a surgeon and you are probably touching lives and quietly evangelizing in the workplace as a faithful Catholic doctor. Staying at home would be like putting your lamp under a bushel basket or burying your coins in the ground. I guess those who disagree with you would probably also disagree with Catholic allstars like Justice Amy Coney Barrett, Helen Alvare, or Ambassador Mary Ann Glendon.
I decided to re-subscribe just to respond to this comment. Frankly, I don't feel like this website is a positive influence on my spiritual health - seeing and engaging in the comment section often leads me towards having a more negative and bleak outlook on our Church. But someone needs to call this out exactly for what it is: junk.
No one is saying there is anything wrong with homemaking, at least as far as I can tell. I can completely understand why our sisters in Christ were offended by Harrison Butker's comments. To tell a cohort of graduating women:
"I think it is you, the women, who have had the most diabolical lies told to you. How many of you are sitting here now about to cross this stage and are thinking about all the promotions and titles you are going to get in your career? Some of you may go on to lead successful careers in the world, but I would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world..."
Yeah, that rubs me the wrong way too. And for these women, many old enough to be Butker's grandmother, who have dedicated their lives to serving God, their communities, and EDUCATING WOMEN, that the most important thing for a woman is solely to raise children? Do you not see how this denigrates all women? And how it might be a smack in the face to these women in particular?
This whole trad-wife revisionist history makes me sick. Your post includes one of the lies -- "the Catholic Church should promote a situation where, like in the past, a family can have a decent living just based on the wages of the father" -- without acknowledging that is a very, very small blip (let's just call it an anomaly) in human history. Women have always worked to produce in some form or fashion. And yes, being a stay-at-home mom is a ton of work, but this illusion of an idyllic post-War stay-at-home mom utopia is just that - an illusion. My grandmothers worked, all my aunts had careers (they are in their 70s now to give you an idea of my age & I am fortunate to have a dozen of them), and so did my mother.
You fail to recognize very important things like women were unable to have their own credit cards until the 1970s. Marital rape did not _start_ becoming illegal until the 1970s as well. Many women were, and unfortunately still today are, in incredibly vulnerable positions without careers if their husband/family was abusive (or dead). That is why women have been encouraged to have an education and career in this day and age. Your judgmental comments about your colleagues/coworkers also fails to recognize that even today there is a gender-wage gap.
As men we need to do better. Yes, being a stay-at-home mom deserves respect. An equal amount of respect as being a CEO. There is nothing wrong with homemaking and it is a ton of hard work. But that is a two way street - - women who do not have children, or who have chosen to prioritize their careers, ALSO deserve our respect and appreciation.
I did not say religious women are not important. I would consider my daughters having a vocation to the religious life as the greatest gift of God, even greater than motherhood, the other great vocation. I want my daughters to have as equally a strong education as my sons, even a doctorate if possible. But if they get married they should stay home in order to use their intellectual skills to perform the most important career in the world, educating the next generation of Catholics who are both strong intellectually and spiritually. My model is Saint Thomas More, who gave his daughters an education equal or better to any educated man in his era. Yet we have to stop equating the vocation of men and women. Women should not try to be men in their ambitions by competing with men for positions that take them away from raising their children. Men should also never strive for a career that prevents them from having time for their wife and children. So frankly no one, absolutely no one, priests, religious, married or single laity should never ever prioritize their careers, but dedicate their lives to God either by raising good, holy kids or in some other endeavor that glorifies God and brings souls to Christ.
Agree. I am a woman who had a desire to go to medical school and would have been a great physician, but even in college and not in the greatest of spiritual health, I could sense that it would impossible to be simultaneously the kind of mother I imagined being and the kind of physician I imagined being. I’ve met one woman ever who did both exceptionally well.
I left the top of my non-medical career to stay home with my children, not because I’m more virtuous or anything but because I got lucky enough to sense the value in it long before understanding it. And doubly fortunate to have lucked into a marriage where my husband values what I do and takes his responsibility to provide seriously.
Working friends have asked me how my daughter will have the example of a career, but that is really a poorly thought out question. After all, the world will always provide an example of that. What it won’t provide, if I don’t provide it myself, is an example of how to be a full time homemaker; how to educate your own children; how to put your time and talent into hidden things the world deems secondary.
All women deserve respect, there is no doubt of that. And all moms who love their children are heroes. I’ve worked full time and put a child in daycare; I’ve stayed home and worked part time from home with kids in part time school; I’ve stayed home with no outside work and homeschooled full time. Eventually life will change again and I’ll work in some capacity. All of these choices deserve recognition for requiring sacrifice in varying forms.
And all of that can be true while it is still true that women ARE sold a bill of goods because the entire K-university pipeline operates from the baseline assumption that the purpose of education is to obtain a career. And thus, women are molded to believe that they have to “balance” work and family. Go find any woman advancing in her career and motherhood at the same time and ask her how much balance she feels. Ask her if she really, truly, deep down feels that as a general baseline she is fully and totally satisfying both career and home. I doubt it. Someone is always sick or has a school program or a game at the same time that something blows up at work or a meeting runs late or a boss has a new expectation.
So, women deserve to be told the truth that life is full of hard choices and that “having it all” is a lie. Mr. Butker told them the truth. Maybe inelegantly. Maybe harshly. But he didn’t lie.
I agree you definitely can't have it all. The only reason I do feel pretty balanced is because my husband stays at home. He's there when the kids are sick, and when I work late nights or rarely don't make it home at all because I'm in the OR. I've watched so many women try to do it all and I don't think you can do that and be satisfied. At least I can't. I know my limits. I recognize I will never be PTO president, and I have to call my husband when I go shopping because I don't know my kids shoe sizes. However my daughter brought a rosary to her public school for show and tale on R day and told her teacher if she could have dinner with anyone it would be St. Therese. So feel like we are doing ok. My middle daughter wants to be a mom more than anything when she grows up and I have told her that is wonderful. I think we all need to realize we are all in this together and although one size fits most it certainly doesn't fit all.
Not sure what to make of the stay at home dad and son discussion. I know my husband really wants a boy this time around :-D. I want one too. I want him to raise a son who respects his wife and cares for his family like my husband does.
Your family sounds beautiful. What a blessing to have two parents who support one another for the good of the children! For what it’s worth, when I was working full time and we had a chronically ill infant, my husband was always SO much better at working from home while caring for the baby than I ever had any hope of being.
Bravo! What you wrote should be read by every woman (and man) on their college graduation day.
Thank you so much for saying this. I couldn’t agree more. I’m an attorney, working full time now- no kids yet. My mother was an attorney and left her big law job once she had kids even though she loved it - it was clearly incompatible with raising kids.
Every situation is different, and of course there will be times when a mom is forced to be the sole income for her family or the family needs two incomes to make it work. This is different from what I see most often in my career, which is both parents continuing to work (and find daycare out of the moms salaries) because they want two high paying salaries rather than one. It’s pretty clear to me this was the situation being addressed in the speech.
You could believe that your daughters should dress so that the only flesh they were showing in public was on their face and their hands. You and your wife could have the opinion that that is most pleasing to God, the most morally just approach to clothing, and the most prudent decision for a woman's safety. And I would completely respect that. But I would argue strongly against you believing that _all women_ should dress in that fashion, and in fact, I want the opposite kind of world: women to have the freedom to walk in public wearing next to nothing, without the fear of being leered at, sexually harassed, or assaulted because of it.
I may not believe that is most morally appropriate clothing, the wisest decision, or even plainly the most comfortable choice, but any issues with temptation or sin that would cause on my end are for me myself to deal with. I appreciate you mentioning St. Thomas More. I've been reading the autobiography of St. Ignatius of Loyola lately and it paints a pretty clear picture of an era where women were unable to travel outside unaccompanied without the fear of being attacked and raped (or judged negatively). I have absolutely no desire to regress to that kind of world, and my mentioning of women's civil rights -- which are very recent, hard-won, and like all civil rights, a tenuous thing (despite any of our beliefs on how difficult modern life may be) -- is because I feel it is too easy for us modern Americans to diminish and devalue the impact of these things.
I'm not interested in getting into culture war nonsense or a political battle. I believe you and I are on the same team. I want young women and men in our country to have the freedom to have as many children as they want and for us to have a conducive environment towards protecting human life and dignity. I believe our Church is in agreement and provides us with some tools to help do this, but I also feel like we need things like universal healthcare, affordable housing, free daycare, and other social safety nets to lift up our poor and most vulnerable. Unfortunately, in my lifetime, we seem to be trending in the opposite direction, and so seeing young people peddled what I would describe as reactionary views is difficult for me to stomach, especially when it seems to be on the side of fueling growing inequality.
All to say that I think it is very problematic for a young man, not yet in his 30s, who has won a golden ticket in life by being rich and famous due to athletic gifts & a talent for kicking a ball on the right teams (not realistic for 99.99% of us), to trot out on stage and say those words to a group of young people who have spent countless hours working on their degrees; tens of thousands of dollars of either their own money/debt, or their parents' who are also likely in attendance; and just starting their adult life. I also feel it is incredibly disrespectful to the women on the school's faculty who have put an immense amount of time, effort, and money into their own education and careers, maybe forgoing having a family and children, or maybe faced with the difficult task of trying to balance raising a family and maintain an academic career in this day and age.
I think this messaging, also reinforced by a number of Christian and Catholic influencers who push a message for people to have "as many children, as young as possible" can be very dangerous. For our young women, it can lead to them feeling that the most important thing for them is to be attractive and likeable by men (which you will probably agree our faith teaches is temporary and unimportant), adding on to the horrors of modern day social media, unrealistic beauty standards, and the widespread abuse of cosmetic surgery. For our young men, it can push the idea that they should be able to provide for a large family entirely by themselves (most can't), leading to a worship of money and wealth. You are very clear that you yourself do not believe that is the most important, but I think it is a logical conclusion for impressionable young men. They may also feel that if they happen to have the means, that it is their RIGHT to have a wife and as many children as they want, leading to a view of women as possession & property. God/life will ultimately sort that out in the end, but I don't feel it should be allowed at a commencement speech.
For the school's president to essentially say, "calm down you woke snowflakes" when these women spoke out in public, is also very problematic in my eyes. But I think there is a lot at play with this whole situation - including the idea that attending college is solely to start a career and create efficient little workers. I believe strongly in the importance and value of a liberal arts education, and the place of Catholic universities in particular in that, but that may also be because I myself have never attended a four year university, and I have no college degree. I'm just a working class stiff. So this may all be wishful thinking but I want to have faith, hope, and love for a better world and I want to push back against rising anti-intellectualism and defend the beauty and value that our tradition in particular brings to education. It sounds like you feel the same. I just also feel like comments like Butker's degrade the entire thing.
Thanks for taking the time to read any of these ramblings. I hope at least some of my perspective (which may be completely different from these sisters'...) comes through in an understandable way. Peace and blessings to you and your family, Thomas.
Why do you think that working women should be offended by the idea that being a mom is a more important job than working? Regardless of whether they are choosing to work or not. I’m a full time working woman with no kids and I would never be offended by this because it’s true. That’s not anti intellectual or degrading of work.
I don't believe working women should be offended by that idea. I don't think there is anything wrong with a woman sacrificing their career in order to be a full-time mother. I'm sorry I was not clear about that. I also certainly do not think that women fear for their safety when alone because of "trads online" like Nic V. implied.
I think that the history of religion (and of atheistic politics too!) shows clearly that they can be used as a tool for oppression, particularly towards women. Look at the recent history of some of our Muslim brothers and sisters: the stark contrast of Iranian culture in the '60s & '70s to the current deplorable situation; the experience of children and women in Afghanistan during the last 20 years. I believe examples abound and it is incredibly arrogant to believe that something similar couldn't happen to us.
I believe that as religious Americans, it is important for us to be vigilant about some of what I view to be as perversions of our faith: fundamentalism, Christian Nationalism etc, that seem to argue for a weakening of the separation of church & state that our country was built on. Or the diminishment of the rights of women in our society, including towards education and the ability to work. And I'm not saying that elevating and upholding the value of motherhood does that, but I do think that it can be a slippery slope and I dislike and distrust some of the rhetoric I see, often from men who likely do not have a direct connection with women who fought hard in order to win these rights.
I think Thomas' comment seemingly to use the Sisters' statement as an attack on motherhood, and of his use of the cruel & judgmental meme-trope of childless women as 'pathetic, lonely crones with their fur-babies' feeds into some of these narratives and it's why I decided to post. I also feel like many, if not most, families in America today can not survive off of solely one parent working, and is just as much of a pipe-dream as my hopes that women can exist in our society alone without the fear of abuse & assault.
Thanks for your thoughtful response. I totally see where you are coming from, but I also think Thomas has some good points (I don’t agree with all he says). To me, what it comes down to is that it IS more possible to have one parent (normally the mom) stay home than people say it is. The problem is you do have to give up some things, and those happen to be things that a lot of American families have come to view as necessities even though they’re not. This is not me making a judgment about anyone in particular, as this is a decisions for each family/couple. But as someone who is young and work in a high profile career I know a lot of people with young kids who have chosen to have a parent stay home even though it’s hard and requires financial sacrifice from both parents. Imo this shpild be encouraged. Our society is too materialistic and we are all steeped in this our whole lives.
Dads need to sacrifice too of course. But work in law and there are a lot of divorced dads out there who billed 80 hours a week throughout their kids childhoods. Obviously it would have been better to take the pay cut for a Less demanding role that allows seeing your wife and kids in the evenings! But why are a lot of people specifically call women? Because women are the ones most hit by the messaging their entire lives in modern day America thst you “have” to work or you ”should” work. I still get these messages constantly from non Catholic co woeks and other well meaning peers/ older adults. The extent of this may escape your notice if you’re not yourself a woman. It does get exhausting.
I noted that many women are forced to have to work, so I am not blaming women and men who have no choice in the matter. The Sisters did not resign over the societal injustice of the fact that many women are enslaved by the modern financial system that does not allow men to make a decent living by themselves like they could 50 or 60 years ago and therefore not have to have their wives work and have their kids raised in day care centers.
It reminds me of the conversation between two nurse assistants I overheard, in which one stated that she was needing to apply for a job at Walmart to make a better living, but the shifts would take her away from being with her family and even possibly from going to church, because Sunday shifts would be required. She did not sound like she wanted to work for Walmart, but had to. If the Sisters and other feminists worked for the right of women to be able to raise their kids as stay at home moms, maybe this cruel system of children not being raised by their mothers like the mothers would usually like them to be could be ended.
Joseph, with all respect it sounds you want Eden (who wouldn't!), but we aren't in Eden. Men and women are called to care for each other and not cause scandal to each other. In fact, one can argue that our societal loss of any dress standard has furthered the world that you don't want us to return to. If you have talked to the average young woman, they are typically wracked with anxiety about their safety when alone (and I don't think it's because of trads online).
I think much of the debates people have on the topic of gender are trying to justify particular situations which doesn't do much to further the discussion (exceptions prove the rule). I agree Butker's statements were fairly ham-fisted, but I think there is a kernel of truth in them that anyone who has a strong reaction against them should sit with.
Peace to you!
P.S. I completely agree with you on the role of a liberal arts education and the detriment of it becoming "job-training."
When the sisters condemned the Butker statement—which I think was a poor choice—they did write this gem of a sentence that really ought to have been their whole comment on the situation:
“Our community has taught young women and men not just how to be ‘homemakers’ in a limited sense, but rather how to make a Gospel-centered, compassionate home within themselves where they can welcome others as Christ, empowering them to be the best versions of themselves.“
Well, I’d propose to them that you can’t make a home in what they’re calling a limited sense (and I’d argue there’s nothing limited about homemaking in what might be better described as the ordinary sense) without first living out their advice to make one in one’s own self, but yes, that would have been the better statement to issue.
"Frankly, I don't feel like this website is a positive influence on my spiritual health - seeing and engaging in the comment section often leads me towards having a more negative and bleak outlook on our Church."
Amen. I'm canceling my subscription soon.
Or don't read the comments section.
I subscribed because I wanted to learn from other people's perspectives and participate in Catholic conversations, but too often comments reveal the dark hearts of those who are asleep to the call for compassion and charity for those who are marginalized. I had hoped to be inspired not just by the articles, but also by a gathered, faithful community sharing thoughts about how we can lift up everyone.
I have engaged with some wonderful hearts here, but too often some have used this space to prove their perspective is right without any humility or charity for the least among us. Advising me to not read the comments is asking me to not grow. I want to be a better Catholic.
This world is troubled, so isn't it sad that some regular commenters here only add to an already heavy plate of struggle, suffering, and grief. I'm not weak. I'm trying to grow, and my prayer is that going forward, I hope some people will reflect before they post. Let's inspire each other to see the beauty of our faith.
One of the best ways to grow in our faith is to be challenged that what the world teaches us, like feminism, is not the best thing for the spiritual and psychological health of the world. One priest said correctly that almost every Catholic he has met is infected with modernism which has infested our minds for the past 150 years. I reflect on everything I write before I send it, because my greatest concern is for the salvation of souls and for people to see the damage that is caused when Catholics think that they should live like everyone else and do what everyone else is doing. The truth is always challenging and upsetting. That is why Jesus, Saint John the Baptist, and St. Paul upset so many people which led to their deaths. I am a nobody and I wish people, especially priests, who are holier and smarter than me would bring up the issues damaging our families and children, but they don't, so a dumbo like me feels compelled to do that instead.
Thomas, I think you mean well, but whole cloth railing against feminism is the exact kind of rhetoric that isn't helpful.
I subscribe for the professional journalism. Comments are...well, just comments.
Do you leave your parish if you overhear some parishioners make a comment in the vestibule that you disagree with? No, you are there for the sacraments. And we are here for the Catholic news to aid our understanding and reception of the sacraments.
If you do cancel then please make sure to send a donation to JD and Ed's families, because you'll be hurting them and their staff, not the commenters.
I'm sorry, but that's a ridiculous request. My charitable donations right now are going to Catholic schools in the Twin Cities.
To be fair, Butker said, "...I would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world..." That's a guess about empirical fact, not a moral statement. He didn't come close there to saying, "the most important thing for a woman is solely to raise children."
I was raised by a stay at home father in a beautiful homeschooled Catholic family and I have to disagree about the slight you make towards families who choose this. My dad would often get nasty comments from others (especially Catholics!) about our family and would take them in stride with humility, grace, and joy. He was a tireless catechist, educator, caretaker for my grandparents, and manager of the household. If faith, virtue, and caring for your loved ones are the examples that come from the psychological harm of having a stay at home father, then, yes, I am a victim of this.
It is not the norm. It is not the way God had specifically established how a family should function since Adam and Eve. The man is the head of the household as the Bible repeatedly states and should be the breadwinner, unless some illness or disability prevents it.
It is like studies of new priests. It is obvious that there are more priests that come from larger families or families where the priest was raised by both parents. Yet every year there is a small percentage of priests who are only-children or who were raised by a divorced parent. Yet that does not mean that those priests came from family situations that should be upheld as models of how children should be raised.
One Harvard study showed a 32% increased divorce rate in families with a stay home dad. Some psychologists have noted severe changes in behavior by the wife when she takes on masculine roles and the husband takes on feminine roles.
There are societal roles that God has established that never change and we as humans have no right to change them ourselves.
The sisters are fantastic people and are doing God's work, however, the last time I checked, inclusivity and other terms like tolerance are not Catholic virtues.
The same Apostle who wrote commanding the excommunication of an incestuous fornicator also wrote "Receive one another as Christ received you." The way St. Thomas Aquinas describes the good kind of tolerance treats it as a kind of prudence. There are things we should not include and ideas we should not tolerate, but there are also many we should include or tolerate.
Fair enough. However, I'm not sure those who use tolerance on the side of error (which is usually the case) are that nuanced or agree to the nuance to begin with.
Tolerance presumes error, there's no point in tolerating what is right and good. But I get what you mean, and you're right. The words are typically used to promote problematic people to high offices, spread error, and celebrate wrong-doing, not as a recommendation to be patient with them for the sake of the conversion and good of those people.
Tolerance has rather lost its original meaning, though it can still be found in medicine ... "did your mother tolerate her medication?" "Yes, she felt nauseous but managed to hold it down" ... or in the negative: "I can't tolerate jazz music". Nowadays tolerating something means not to allow it as a necessary evil but to accept it or even celebrate it. Something you tolerate will be at worst neutral to you, but never negative
I don't agree with some of the stuff Butker said, but big deal. He's a football player, not a wise sage or an authority figure, and it's commencement. I've commenced several times and remember almost nothing any speaker said.
Yes, hardly worth breaking up over.
I believe people are making far too much of the Butker situation, which is not addressed in the sisters’ statement about stopping their sponsorship of the College, and they stress their ongoing support for the College’s mission and future.
The Mount still has a large number of sisters, but those who remain have a high average age, and I don’t believe they have many sisters at all below the standard retirement age of 67.
The Abbey has a much smaller group of male religious, but they live on the campus and their average age is closer to 50, with several monks in their twenties and thirties.
It appears to be simply a case that the Benedictine charism of the College will necessarily be carried on by the monks and not by the sisters within the next 10-15 years, and the sisters are choosing now to gracefully step aside before age or infirmity with dwindling numbers forced their hand. Which appears to be a decision based in good stewardship, not division.
Then why did you even bring up the “Butker situation”?
Because the Pillar’s article and the comments here have mentioned the Butker situation.
Sorry -I blew right past the Pillar mentioning it. That one sentence seemed like it had the effect of a powder keg.
This article devotes several paragraphs to the Butker kerfuffle.
This is a net positive for BC. These sisters are a dying order with no new vocations and still stuck in the 70s in some of their theology. President should invite in the Sisters of Life, the Dominican Sisters of Mary, or another vibrant community that the females on campus can relate to more closely.
P.S. If they actually wrote "We want to be known as an inclusive, welcoming community, embracing Benedictine values that have endured for more than 1500 years" then they are ignorant of their spiritual father, as Benedict said and did more than a few things to challenge lukewarm Catholics in his day that would not be considered "inclusive and welcoming" by today's standards...
Dominus Vobiscum to the Dominicans(Ann Arbor & Nashville) and Sisters of Life. I knew a priest who said when we evaluate orders for engagement in the diocese, we ask the question: Do they want to be sisters or social workers? From visiting their location and looking at their website, I think this group of Benedictine sisters want to be social workers.
When I look at orders of nuns, those that are traditional are thriving. You see lots of young, smiling faces. Many of the others, saddened to say including the ones that taught me in grade school, are filled with old women, with short hair, and no habit. They are on their last legs. I don't think that all religious clergy realize they are role models for the rest of us. That garners our respect and support. They are the Marines of the Church. Everything about them has to say devotion, discipline, and love.
Are you saying the Church no longer needs orders with an active charism, only contemplatives? I don’t think I can get on board with that…
There's active orders that don't suffer from the 70s vibe. The Missionaries of Charity for example, Mother Teresa's order, are always showing up in groups around here in their very visible habits. The Sisters of Life and the Franciscan Sisters of the Eucharist are active orders and are doing well. There are many others. What all these have in common are first of all, the Sisters wear habits and second, they emphasize Catholic doctrine and the Eucharist, not the fuzzy progressive stuff.
I would note that I have also visited contemplative women's monasteries in the USA that had an uncomfortably progressive vibe. When you go to a contemplative convent (like for a retreat or something) and find it populated by a handful of older nuns in lay clothes who appear at chapel wearing alb type garments, and the place is full of weird modern art, let's just say it's not quite what one expects.
There are a fair number of people who have left the Church because of the abuse they experienced at the hands of sisters in habits. I have had people online say they would cross the street to avoid one. I had never heard of Charlie Kirk when he was murdered and someone sent me a link to an interview he did last year with Bill Maher. During the conversation Bill commented on his treatment at the sister's hands and how evil they were. I dropped out of the Church until I had dealt with the abuse I had experienced at their hands. And yes they emphasized the Eucharist and Catholic doctrine in the midst of their abuse, which strengthened the anti-Catholic attitudes of their victims.
Without being too personal, is there something about the abuse you can describe? I have heard these stories and it doesn't coincide with my own. I went to a Catholic school post Vatican II and while not all of the sisters wore habits, they were generally some of the kindest people one would meet. Priests were mixed in that department. The meanest people I dealt with were 'devout', unmarried lay people dealing with personal issues such as likely closet homosexuality.
That's because these were pre Vatican II nuns. I would prefer not to go into detail because detraction, telling someone who does not need to know something evil and true about someone else, is the sin I am working on overcoming at the moment.
The orders I cited have active charisms. Teaching in Catholic schools is a large one for the Dominicans. I am referring to how they approach their calling. I think when you go down the social justice rabbit hole, one can lose sight of love of God as the primary focus and the source of our good. That is what these orders suffer. That is why you will even see orders of sisters trying to excuse abortion.
For those familiar with Benedictine College, this is not an alarming story. Benedictine College / St. Benedict's is doing well right now. They have considerable support of the more traditional Catholics. They are building a medical school and sponsored the National Eucharistic Congress. The sisters across town, however, are a dying order.
This is a microcosm of what is happening in the American Church. The more traditional orders and institutions are thriving. Those locked in the progressive 1960's are dying off. That is why you have leftist bishops and cardinals trying to suppress anything traditional. This is their last gasp. Eventually, they will be gone and hopefully their reflexive dislike of tradition will go with them. Some of my friends worry about schism if ever the hierarchy do something off kilter. However, I assure them the parts of the Church that work ultimately subsume those that fail.
So true. We have a daughter who graduated from BC a few years ago and I rarely remember seeing any of the Sisters around and she never mentioned them. However, the Monks were very present and she mentioned them often.
This would be like me withdrawing my support from the KC Chiefs. I watch the games but have only gone to two games in the 20+ years I've lived in KC. They would be able to survive my absence.