Are you intimidated?

Are we intimidating?  Maybe we are!  By myself I don’t think I’m very intimidating, I’m just one person, one silly pirate of person at that!  But together as Mercy, and as Sisters of all orders, I guess we do make people sit up and take notice. The Colbert Report certainly did, and I guess the Vatican has too.

I’ve been trying to keep up with all the news about the Vatican’s investigations into the U.S. Nuns, and the LCWR but my head is swimming!  A letter from  priest in Cleavland, OH has been passed around and I think Fr. Doug outlines the story succinctly:

[In describing the treatment of Sisters] “It was the local pastor, the bishop or the Vatican that was portrayed as an abusive spouse. The investigation, the refusal to dialogue, the confidential reports unable to be seen or challenged, the surprise announcement, these are just a couple of things that scream dysfunction and abuse. It is a miracle so many have stayed. It reminded me of a woman who stays in a bad, abusive marriage for the sake of the children. The nuns have stayed for us. They have stayed for the illegal immigrant, the orphan, the prisoner, the young boy abused by the priest, the third grader that forgot her lunch bag, the adult that could not read, the lad that scraped his knee, the refugee that needed help with documents, the young woman who needed a midwife, the littlest among us and the rich and powerful.”

This really shocked me at first.  I don’t love to read the news, and I have had no idea of what has been brewing all these year (apparently even Pope John Paul II was moving in this direction).  And, in the midst of all of this- this investigation, the new (to me) realizations about the Vatican, and all the little nuances of this saga- is the firm belief that I wouldn’t trade my path, my place as a candidate, for some other life or some other time.  So who knows maybe I’ll learn to be intimidating, I guess that’s just part of being a pirate.