Fired nuns speak out (sexism in the Catholic church)

When Kathy Riordan took her final vows in 1965 to become a Sister of St. Dominic in Amityville, she imagined a life in education. Over four decades, she taught every subject, although math and religion were her passions. She worked with every age group -- from kindergarten to college. But what she couldn't envision is that after 40 years of service, she would be fired by the diocese.

"I never expected to be at odds with the bishop," she said of Bishop William Murphy. "It never would have occurred to me."

Riordan, 63, had been a campus minister at Hofstra University in Hempstead for a decade, when she and two nuns at other campuses learned in March they were fired by the Diocese of Rockville Centre. The diocese said it wanted younger "peer" ministers who would be more evangelical and attract more students to Mass.

But all three sisters were -- and remain -- popular and their firings prompted hundreds of letters, petitions and a demonstration. Speaking for the first time nine months later, the sisters said negotiations with the diocese are at a standstill and they are still angered by what they see as the diocese's discrimination against women, especially older women.


http://www.newsday.com/news/local/longisland/ny-linun1204,0,1149906.story?coll=ny-top-headlines

They were unfairly treated and should protest their status.

is to their convent superior, and I would hope she is behind them in this.

He ran the best of the best pecker shops in Northern Nevada. Sally could help tremendously also.

He was the DA then of Washoe county that set-up Joe in The Riverside Hotel in Reno. Joe wasn't to smart for a clever ladder climbing DA in those days. BTW Bill is now a Nevada State Senator.

my union represents several thousand nuns in NY.

I bet they are not the only ones. This is not only sexism, it is ageism as well. Once the Catholic Church lets go of its failed policy on male supremacy, it will revive and perhaps be a viable institution. Amazing how they keep shooting themselves in the foot.

Nuns were the mainstay of my education. Because of some very wise nuns, some of them quite old, I learned to think and view the world as a curious place. I am indebted to them for their gift of knowledge and thank them for that.

Former catholic,
rosesaylavee

Going after the "youth market???"

Well, I used to be part of that market, and I can tell them a few things. For instance, people in their late teens and early twenties are going to trust a granny a helluva lot faster than they will some slick as snot on a doorknob huckster in his 30s. There's just so far razzle dazzle will go, and solid skills will work much better.

This is pure age discrimination, just more women tossed aside because they're no longer sexpots. That bishop should be deeply ashamed.

I like older ladies, because they don't tell, they don't yell, they don't smell, and they're gratful as hell.

to put it simply. Most of the nuns in this age group are of the non-"orthodox" variety, in that they are free thinkers OF THIS WORLD. They are often not cloistered, habited nuns who are hidden away and make good followers. This is a issue of control at the higher levels to bring this "orthodox" top-down ultra-Papal supremacy movement that is still in asendacy to fruititation.

These nuns are just post-Vatican II thinkers who the church really needs and are not beholden to endless ceremony and are getting pushed out.

The Catholic church just cannot seem to get on track.

watching professional wrestling or a real good class B movie.

Gimme that old time stuff any day, 'eh? Where did the real belief in reverence for a supernatural power regarded as creator and governor of the universe go? LOL!

Sock it to 'em sister~

like second class citizens?

A small example, but one that really drove it home for me:

25 years ago I taught 8th grade at a Catholic school. The principal was a nun and there were two other nuns living in the convent on site - one quite elderly. Every spring the bishop would show up for the annual Confirmation ceremony involving the 8th grade class. The pastor would invite priests from miles around to a big party held under a white tent in the parking lot afterward. The local liquor store would bring over a bunch of booze. It was a catered affair without a caterer. Guess who did the setting up, cooking, serving, and dishes for perhaps 50 priests? You guessed it. Those three nuns.

I thought it was a travesty and said so to the principal. She looked at me like I was nuts. It would never have even dawned on her that she and the other sisters should have been invited to the party.

I'm glad those campus ministers are fighting back. That bishop ought to be ashamed of himself.

In my opinion women on the average are more intelligent than man. Of course there are more men in prison than women.

A women is willing to marry a man on death row and I've yet to see or hear of a man romancing a woman behind bars.

Some men have to keep women beneath them for them to feel like men. Looks like not even the Catholic clergy are immune from the sinful tendency to have to control women.

It amazes me that the bishop needs a chauffeur for his late model luxury car while 70 and 80 year old nuns drive themselves around the diocese in little sedans just fine. Guess who does the bulk of the work? I love my Church, but I'm up to here with the higher clergy.

they have been doing virtually ALL of the work of the Church--in educational institutions, hospitals and parishes--for decades, with little or no compensation, while lazy, pampered, arrogant priests strut around on the altar in their lace-trimmed, gold-embroidered finery, play golf, hold parties for themselves where women are not welcome, and promote their distorted "Christian" doctrines of male superiority. Like the robber barons and global corporate predators of the US junta, they are ripe for a fall. Their hypocrisy has become as naked as that of the Bushites with their "Jesus" as warmonger, torturer of prisoners, and mass murderer.

Jesus as prick. That's what the male authoritarians of the Catholic Church have done. Jesus as MALE ruler of their exclusive boys' club.

The earliest Christians--those closest to Jesus in time--were egalitarian and inclusive, lived in communes sharing their wealth, and conducted Mass by drawing lots. Women and even children could preside at the breaking of the bread and ceremonial remembrance of Jesus--who also had lived communally, was egalitarian and inclusive, was very, very anti-war, and today would be criminalized by the rightwing as a socialist and a leftist, and crucified all over again.

I am appalled at the lengths to which the Catholic "hierarchy" has gone to undermine Jesus' simple message of love--for the last 18 centuries, and most recently by their association of themselves with fascists and their oppression of women. They could be a force for good--and for REAL Christianity--but they've chosen not to be.

I am very familiar with the work and the opinions of Catholic nuns. If the message of the New Testament--LOVE THINE ENEMY!--is to have a future in our world, they and the laywomen of the Church--are one of its vanguards. They are often the first to oppose war, the first to champion oppressed peoples, the first to organize aid to the poor, and the first to educate citizens on their human and civil rights. They are often left penniless after years of service. They deserve our support.