Freida Kahlo and Sor Juana Source |
Sor
Juana Ines de la Cruz was one of the great minds of seventeenth century
Americas. She lived in Mexico. She was an illegitimate child. She grew up to
become a famous author, thinker, and wit. For this, the Church condemned her.
She gave away her vast library, signed self-incriminating letters as "I,
the worst of all women," and devoted herself to more womanly work, nursing
the sick. She promptly contracting the plague from them and within two years of
renouncing her intellectual life, she died.
Sor
Juana died in 1695. She was not the first or the last woman to die at least
partly because she was smart, and her intelligence violated the Church's sense
of what is decent behavior for women.
Mother
Theodore Guerin, now a saint, founded an order of nuns in Indiana in 1840. Kathleen
Sprows Cummings writes, "Guerin had her own problems with Bishop Hailandière,
who insisted that he was entitled to complete control over the Sisters of
Providence. The bishop’s repeated challenges to Guerin’s authority over
community matters culminated in 1847, when he locked Guerin in his house until
she acceded to his demands. A day later, he removed her as superior, released
her from religious vows, and threatened her and any sisters who followed her
with excommunication."
Father
James Martin writes, "Mother Mary McKillop, the foundress of the
Australian-based Sisters of St. Joseph of the Sacred Heart, was, in 1871,
officially excommunicated by her local bishop, on the grounds that she 'she had
incited the sisters to disobedience and defiance.' That same church leader, Bishop Sheil, had
earlier invited her to work in Adelaide, where she and her sisters would
eventually set up schools, a women's shelter and an orphanage, among their many
works. But McKillop's independent spirit
was a threat to Bishop Sheil, who had her booted out of the church."
Me?
Some years back, after completing my PhD and publishing a prize-winning book
that addresses, inter alia, the association of Nazism with Catholicism, I sent
my resume to a series of local priests. I offered to speak, to lead
discussions, to contribute to the life of the parish, on a purely voluntarily
basis.
I received
memorably snarky rejections from two priests, and disinterest from others.
Today's
randomly drawn tarot card is the Queen of Swords. She is an intellectual,
independent, witty woman.
And
the Catholic Church has a hard time with her. Still.
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