It's As Plain As The Nose On Your Face
Nero still fiddles while Rome burns
WARNING!! Harsh language alert!
Oh, and in keeping with a promise I made to lighten up a bit on the USCCB, I formally renounce ever referring to The Catholic News Service as the USCCB's propaganda rag. In fact, I'm gonna get downright Novus Ordo about it. Seeing that there's a "Minister" for everything under the sun, here's some of the article from the Minister of Propaganda; (Comments and emphasis mine)
Beyond the veil: Debate continues on why number of nuns is declining
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Statistics leave no doubt that the number of women religious has dropped sharply over the last 50 years, but there is an ongoing debate over the reasons for the decline. (As my dear old departed dad use to say,"you gotta be shittin' me." 'Sharply' isn't the word for it. Has anyone in Rome read a newspaper or visited your run-of-the-mill Novus Ordo parish in Western Europe or North America recently?)
The question surfaced recently when L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, asked one priest to review another priest's book about the phenomenon.
Italian Claretian Father Angelo Pardilla, author of "Religious Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow," said the principal cause for the decline was that many religious misunderstood the teaching of the Second Vatican Council and lost a sense of their identity. (One doesn't have to be an Alexander Dumbass to figger that one out. It doesn't take a lot of smarts to differentiate between "you will do this" and "you might want to consider this".)
He cited as proof the fact that the number of vowed religious -- both men and women -- has dropped sharply since Vatican II, except in the contemplative orders that still wear habits and live with a regimented community life. (Amazing. Moral absolutes and a defined reason for existing! What WILL they think of next!!??)
But Father Giancarlo Rocca, a scholar of the history of religious orders, questioned Father Pardilla's thesis in the review he wrote for the Vatican newspaper.
Father Rocca agreed with Father Pardilla that factors contributing to the decline include materialism, secularism, the anti-authority movement of the late 1960s and declining family size. (And don't forget that lil' thang called Vatican II.)
But he said a misreading of the Second Vatican Council could not be the prime culprit, because in many places the numbers began to drop in the 1930s, long before the council opened in 1962. For Father Rocca, the key is the emancipation of women. (Did you catch that? "in many places". Even if there were declines in numbers pre-Vat2, how does one explain the drop that I've cited below? But of course, Modernism and the Smoke of Satan have nothing to do with Religious Sisters damn near becoming an endangered species.) And leave it to the Propaganda Ministry, the remainder of the article was essentially pro-"Spirit" of Vatican II bullshit. But they conveniently left out what I've posted on a number of times;
Sisters. In 1965 there were 180,000 Catholic nuns in the U.S. By 2002, that number had fallen to 75,000 and the average age was 68. In 1965 there were 104,000 teaching nuns. Today there are 8,200, a decline of 94% since the end of the Second Vatican Council. Any wonder Orders like this are thriving...
Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia greet each other after a Mass at the Cathedral of the Incarnation in Nashville, Tenn., in this 2007 file photo. Though the Nashville order is growing, the debate continues on why there has been a 50-year decline in the number of women religious worldwide. (CNS/Theresa Laurence, Tennessee Register)
But the Ministry of Clowns are dying?
Sister Bernard Overkamp, left, and Sister Dorothy Fabritze, clown around. The sisters are part of a small group of Catholic nuns who have taken circus jobs as a means to offer spiritual assistance to those under the Big Top.
Nero still fiddles while Rome burns
WARNING!! Harsh language alert!
Oh, and in keeping with a promise I made to lighten up a bit on the USCCB, I formally renounce ever referring to The Catholic News Service as the USCCB's propaganda rag. In fact, I'm gonna get downright Novus Ordo about it. Seeing that there's a "Minister" for everything under the sun, here's some of the article from the Minister of Propaganda; (Comments and emphasis mine)
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Statistics leave no doubt that the number of women religious has dropped sharply over the last 50 years, but there is an ongoing debate over the reasons for the decline. (As my dear old departed dad use to say,"you gotta be shittin' me." 'Sharply' isn't the word for it. Has anyone in Rome read a newspaper or visited your run-of-the-mill Novus Ordo parish in Western Europe or North America recently?)
The question surfaced recently when L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, asked one priest to review another priest's book about the phenomenon.
Italian Claretian Father Angelo Pardilla, author of "Religious Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow," said the principal cause for the decline was that many religious misunderstood the teaching of the Second Vatican Council and lost a sense of their identity. (One doesn't have to be an Alexander Dumbass to figger that one out. It doesn't take a lot of smarts to differentiate between "you will do this" and "you might want to consider this".)
He cited as proof the fact that the number of vowed religious -- both men and women -- has dropped sharply since Vatican II, except in the contemplative orders that still wear habits and live with a regimented community life. (Amazing. Moral absolutes and a defined reason for existing! What WILL they think of next!!??)
But Father Giancarlo Rocca, a scholar of the history of religious orders, questioned Father Pardilla's thesis in the review he wrote for the Vatican newspaper.
Father Rocca agreed with Father Pardilla that factors contributing to the decline include materialism, secularism, the anti-authority movement of the late 1960s and declining family size. (And don't forget that lil' thang called Vatican II.)
But he said a misreading of the Second Vatican Council could not be the prime culprit, because in many places the numbers began to drop in the 1930s, long before the council opened in 1962. For Father Rocca, the key is the emancipation of women. (Did you catch that? "in many places". Even if there were declines in numbers pre-Vat2, how does one explain the drop that I've cited below? But of course, Modernism and the Smoke of Satan have nothing to do with Religious Sisters damn near becoming an endangered species.)
But the Ministry of Clowns are dying?
posted by Kevin Whiteman at
12:05 AM
6 Comments:
"Any wonder Orders like this are thriving. . . But the Ministry of Clowns are dying?"
Not for me. The only reason the debate continues here in the USA & elsewhere is that those who are a part of the dying are in a state of denial (& I don't mean the river in Egypt!) about the facts.
One easy answer is why become a nun if you are going to work in the world, dress like everyone else, and have no vows that are taken seriously such as obedience. If you were starting a company and had this type of employees, you would go broke in a heartbeat. Give me a few true believers that can follow directions and you have a great start.
But it is not just the religious, it is also the layity who do not believe in the teaching, but stay around in dissent that puzzle me. Go find something you can believe in. There are tens of thousands of churchs that are out there that match each of their strange beliefs and yet they stay and constantly complain about things that will never be such as women priests.
Dear Cavey,
Allow me to weigh in with my answer, after years and years of intense study regarding this problem:
1. Vatican II
2. The Novus Ordo
See? It's that simple.
S/F
And 3. The Lame 1970 ICEL translation in English
and 4 the abandonment of true charisms of service like teaching, nursing, and contemplation of the blessed sacrement; for "ministries" of "social justice," administration, and "spirituality."
The orders that retain or have taken up the habit are truly a joy to interact with. In contrast the habit-less nuns I deal with are a black hole of unhappiness.
There probably was a decline in the 1930s, in Europe at least, although it is disingenuous of the hierarchy to quote it to hide the appalling post V2 slide.
WW1 decimated the pool of marriageable men in England, Ireland, Belgium, France and Germany - all countries with sizeable Catholic populations. The so-called "surplus women" provided ample vocations - especially since convent schools were already up and running effectively to nurse vocations between 1900 and 1930. By 1930, the male marriage pool had recovered, since those born from about 1904 had been too young to die in the war, and were now coming to marriageable age in larger numbers. Therefore you would expect a slight decline in vocations, but they did hold fairly steady after this until the 60s when they dropped like a stone, especially in the teaching orders.
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