Rancid Souposiums

A monthly email from the Archdiocese of Washington's Department of Charity and Justice is promoting something called "Sunday Souposiums" put on by the Franciscan Monastery.  Some further research indicates that the "soup" might contain just a smidgen of rat poison.

The Franciscan Mission Service gives some insight about past "souposiums".  One held in January featured as its main speaker Sister Margaret Mary Kimmins.  She is the board president of  Franciscan Action Network.  Now read that home page for an eyeful of dissent.


First there's a link to a video extolling the "virtues" of the "nuns on a bus" schlepp.  Not only does the video do its utmost to make Paul Ryan look like a heartless slob, but they do quite a hatchet job on the Holy Father himself.  Listen between the 1:50 and 2:27 marks, stating that despite the Vatican's disapproval of not mentioning the evils contraceptives and the HHS mandates, the nuns decided to "stay the course" - making dissidence sound rather noble, when it's anything but.  Continue to listen and at the 5:00 mark an interview with Sister Marie Lucey, the associate director of the FAN.  The first part of the interview is a discussion of the Ryan budget proposal.  It seems that Jazeera is in FAN's corner.  However, listen at the 12:55 mark and beyond, where Jazeera opines that "the Church hierarchy doesn't seem to want to push this particular argument forward; they seem to be much keener on this issue of President Obama's health care reform, and some of the language we're hearing about the health care reform has some of that passion that we're hearing from Sister Marie and some of the nuns about trickle-down economics and trying to cut the deficit first before anything else.."  In other words, Jazeera is contrasting the priorities of the nuns versus the priorities of the bishops.  Sister doesn't protest that!

With that, the discussion shifts to the HHS mandate and the Church's opposition to it.  Sister is much more silent in this segment than the former.  However, at the 22:17 mark, when Jazeera asks of Gehring, "what of this issue of the Vatican saying to the nuns 'look, less of the social issues, please, what are we supposed to make of that?"  Sister jumps in and states "from the beginning we were founded to serve the poor in schools, hospitals, ... Now we are looking at the root causes and what keeps people poor.  So we have been engaged in systemic change rather than works of charity."  What we are hearing is that "now" they are being guided by Alinskyan thought rather than Church teaching that guided them in their earlier years.  She (or whoever taught her) memorized quite well Rules for Radicals.  Jazeera, again being more correct than he himself may realize, correctly correlates Sister's statement with liberation theology!  He also states that the Pope denounces it.  Also notice that mention of the feminist agenda is tossed around with remarks of the LCWR.  At the 24:47 mark, listen to Gehring snivvel at the Vatician "cracking down on nuns who live out the Gospel every day".  Sister then states (rather indignantly) that "the Leadership Conference of Women Religious have never opposed Catholic Church teaching."  Sister, that has been successfully debated.

By the way - I'm glad that the video is on Jazeera's youtube page.  At least there it will be safe from any, uh, editing that might occur in the wake of this blog post.  Soon that video may no longer be embedded on FAN's webpage.

Let's move further down the page.  We see that there is clear resentment against the Pope taking his role seriously in offering guidance and correction to the LCWR.  Dear Sisters, it is NOT "excessive oversight".  You took vows of obedience, did you not??

We see drivvel about the Catholic Climate Covenant.  I need not rehash what I've written in the past about that and related schlock.  Here's the link.

Anyway, from such sprang the leader of the January "Souposium".  You can go further down that page and see a co-president of Pax Christi led the May meeting.  We also see the almost obligatory nod to "Earth Day" and something called "Dating God".  (????)

Skip this bland if not poisonous soup.