Saturday, May 05, 2012

Sisters of Marxianity

Laura Wood has posted some items which are rightly critical of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), the largest organisation of American nuns.

I went to the LCWR website and found it to be inspired more by radical leftist ideology than by Christianity. A good example is a statement on racism which runs like this:
Racism in its institutional form continues because some people assume, consciously or unconsciously, that white people are superior. Therefore, the dominant race of whites develop and maintain institutions that privilege people like themselves and give less credibility to the contributions of other peoples and cultures. White privilege often goes unnoticed because it has been internalized and integrated as part of one’s outlook on the world by custom, habit and tradition.

Peggy McIntosh, author of White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack, wrote about her experiences of white privilege. Her education gave her no training in seeing herself as an oppressor and advantaged person. Any work to benefit others was to allow "them" to be more like whites. She described white privilege as similar to an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, assurances, tools, maps, guides, codebooks, passports, visas, clothes, compass, emergency gear, and blank checks.

Social rules about what work is, who works for whom, how work is compensated, and the social process by which the result of work is appropriated operate to establish relations of power and inequality. These relations are reinforced by a systematic process in which the energies of the have-nots are continuously expended to maintain and augment the power, status, and wealth of the haves. This structural relationship between social groups is exploitation. (Iris Marion Young, Justice and the Politics of Difference)

That's a left liberal analysis of race, not a Christian one. The left liberal analysis goes like this:
i) The aim of politics is to disband unchosen social ties so that we are left as self-determining individuals subject to the same autonomous conditions of life

ii) Our race, just like our sex, is predetermined rather than self-determined and therefore must be made not to matter

iii) But race does still seem to matter. Some races do worse than others in education, in employment, in crime statistics etc.

iv) This is to be explained by a dominant group setting themselves up as a false racial category (whites) in order to enjoy an unearned privilege at the expense of an oppressed group (blacks)

v) Whiteness is therefore an artificial and oppressive social construct which only those whites seeking supremacy would want to uphold.

vi) White privilege is also to be regarded as systemic, as the institutions and culture of society were created to serve it

vi) Whites should therefore seek to deconstruct themselves and their society as whiteness is a uniquely immoral category associated with race supremacy and privilege

When the nuns endorse Peggy McIntosh's complaint that she was not educated to see herself as a white oppressor they are following not Christianity but left-liberalism.

Christianity cannot follow along the same lines as left-liberalism as Christianity accepts that we have a creator which means that we do not autonomously self-create who we are. To put this another way, if you believe that you are autonomously self-created, then you do not have the Christian view of man's relationship to God.

So Christians will focus on different things to liberals. Less on achieving equally autonomous life conditions and less on making predetermined qualities not matter.

If race does matter in certain respects that does not invalidate the core purposes of Christianity. It does not require Christians to resort to a class/oppressor analysis or to seek to deconstruct white people and white society.

The minds of the nuns of the LCWR have been colonised by a secular ideology. They may as well be just any other kind of leftist academic or political activist. They have made themselves redundant as nuns and therefore it is no surprise that their numbers are falling so rapidly.

11 comments:

  1. "They have made themselves redundant as nuns and therefore it is no surprise that their numbers are falling so rapidly."

    That's what so many "modernising" Christians just don't get - you'll never get people back to the churches by abandoning Christianity and adopting leftist secular ideologies. People who want leftist secular ideologies are not going to join a church, they're going to join a leftist secular political organisation.

    The only chance the churches have of recapturing the people they've lost is by presenting a viable alternative to those leftist secular ideologies which have left people feeling guilt-ridden, miserable, angry and depressed.

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  2. Most of the women religious of that age frame are very *VERY* feminist, as bad as the ones in the academy in many respects. There are younger orders of very faithful nuns who are in habit and live in convents and so on -- this tends to be a more young demographic and it doesn't participate in groups like this one.

    When the changes were made in the 1970s, I got an up-close and personal view of it. My mother was very close friends at the time with one of the local nuns (they lived in a convent around the corner from our house). The changes that were made to the order she was in were very hamfisted, top-down, fait-accompli in nature. The convent was to be disbanded, the habits were to be discarded, communal life reduced to apartments of 1-2 "roommates", secular work outside the church was to be embraced and so on (together with rather huge dollops of feminist ideas). About half of the nuns were in support (mostly the ones 40 or below at the time), with the older ones feeling betrayed, lost, and adrift, cast into a life they had not chosen, and spirited away from one they had rather quite against their will. My mother's friend left the order a year or two after because she no longer saw the point in belonging to it -- it was not like being a nun any longer. The ones who remained were, generally, the core of what became groups like this one.

    The Church in general at the time had a very "blue pill" view of its own women religious. This is quite understandable, really, given that women religious had been the backbone of the Church's activities for centuries, and a very reliable source of staunch support for the Vatican among other things. The level of betrayal and abandonment that was expressed by the nuns in the 1970s and beyond was genuinely quite a shock to Rome, and they generally expected that it would be a short rebellious phase before the nuns returned to being their former, bedrock, role. In this, they vastly underestimated the problem, but, as I say, they had good reasons for embracing their blue pill view.

    But, like men outside the hierarchy of the Church learned, when the strictures, restraints and conventions came off, women were not going to behave in a predictable way, and they were also not generally going to go back to the way they were behaving before, at least not voluntarily for the most part. This isn't because women are uniquely evile or rebellious, but rather because they are not uniquely moral or obedient, and therefore when the rules are relaxed you can expect them to behave with a degree of human licentiousness in various ways -- ways that may differ from the way men would do, but are still license (sexual or otherwise). It took a while for the Church to catch on to this, as it took men in general as well. I think the Church reached its moment of realization when it sent the warning about ten years or so ago ... and then they waited. The Vatican was quite patient, I think, but time's up. I think they realize now that groups like this have no intention whatsoever in being faithful or obedient, and are instead dedicated to revolution, both inside and outside the Church. So, the Church is finally doing things the other way, the top-down way, to reassert some discipline, and try to move the orders of nuns back to the role they used to play in the Church (and which, as I note, some of the younger orders are in fact already doing, because they never were a part of the feminist drift).

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  3. On the main topic of your post, I suppose that they would respond by saying that people are created in diverse ways, but it is human sin which assigns "race" to these diversities, and humans do this to exact power from others in a likewise sinful way. Of course, the idea that there are "peoples" and "nations" (and God doesn't seem to have a problem with this in the Bible) flies in the face of this sort of approach, an approach which essentially holds that since today people *can* transcend nation/people/race, they should do so, because moving within these categories (which may have been necessary historically) now constitutes sin. Now I don't buy their approach, because I think it goes against human nature and also flies in the face of quite a bit of sound moral teaching among other things, but I expect that would be the response.

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  4. I'm happy that the Vatican is finally doing some investigation about this organization of "nuns".

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  5. This shows forth very well the Judaeo-Masonic-Communist infiltration of the Church. Who but a Mason or other such infiltrator would order such changes? These so-called "nuns" & their patrons in the hierarchy ought to be excommunicated immediately. All of us who are Catholics must realise how far things have gone. Bella Dodd, a defector from communism testified over fifty years ago, that during the 30's more than 1,000 communist agents had entered the priesthood to attempt to destroy the Church from within. How much more is there that we don't know about? These "nuns" are no more than a minor manifestation of the evil fruits that are a result of their efforts. This is also why such a large percentage of those who dare to call themselves Catholic, nevertheless use contraceptives, thus crucifying Our Lord all over again every day by their mortal sin. They were never properly catechized, & so are little different from their pagan neighbours. As for those priests who are afraid to preach too strongly, lest their modernist congregation be "offended" & leave, all I can say is that if they are that malevolent, then good riddance to bad rubbish. Better to be rid of them now, than to wait until later & have them apostatise & denounce those who are faithful when the real persecution begins.

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  6. Everybody says there is a race problem, everybody says this race problem will be solved when the third world pours into every white country, and only white countries. The Netherlands and Belgium are more crowded than japan or Taiwan but no one says they will solve this race problem by bringing in millions of third worlders and "assimilating them", everyone says the final solution to this race problem is for every white country and only white countries to assimilate, to intermarry with all these non whites. If i said there was a race problem and this race problem would be solved only if hundreds of millions of non Africans where brought into every African country and only into African countries, how long would it take for anyone to realize I'm not talking about a race problem? I'm talking about the final solution to the African problem? how long would it take any sane black man to notice this? and what kind of psycho black man would not object? but if i tell the obvious program of genocide against my race, the white race, liberal and respectable conservatives alike agree that i am a naziwhowantstokill6millionjews!! they say they are anti racist what they are is anti white. anti-racism is just code for anti white.

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  7. Tremley, most commenters here are already aware.

    Mr. Richardson,
    Quick OT question. We've started singing an old hillsong song at my church, Always. The beginning line goes "Did you rise the sun for me."

    Is that proper Australian English? Here in the U.S., rise is an intransitive verb; raise is the transitive equivalent.

    It isn't a big deal. We all like the song. The grammar just sounded strange to my ear, and I wondered.

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  8. No, it's not grammatical here in Australia either.

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  9. Miraculously, the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne has issued a public statement denouncing local women for being too picky when it comes to their choice of a mate:

    http://au.lifestyle.yahoo.com/health/wellbeing/article/-/13618127/church-warns-women-of-missing-out-on-marriage/

    If such welcome pronouncements as this become habitual, I shall need to abandon my usual practice of putting "Catholic" in sneer-quotes when it comes to the Melbourne episcopate. Fr Anthony Kerin, who has spoken out on this topic, has recently said some sensible things against clerical perverts too.

    Of course, the real test will be whether the relevant church bureaucracy can bite the bullet to the extent of formally condemning the control of modern secular "higher education" (and its student body in particular) by femocrats, sodomites, and full-fee-paying but non-English-speaking Asians. Until such a condemnation occurs, Sydney Smith's remarks from the early 19th century will be as relevant as ever:

    "If men had made no more progress in the common arts of life than they have in education, we should at this moment be dividing our food with our fingers, and drinking out of the palms of our hands. ... the only consequences of a university education are the growth of vice and the waste of money."

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  10. Is there any reason why an association of American nuns who have exchanged life in the convent for an outpost in the culture wars, would reject the left liberal analysis of race?

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  11. The failure of nonwhites to fit into our society is blamed on the society itself. It is never their fault, its always because of "prejudice" or "white supremacy".


    Liberals and the array of useful idiots often deny that there is such a thing as a White identity, or even such a thing as a White race. These same Leftists would not deny that Indians have an identity, or Africans, Chinese etc When a White Leftist denies White identity, he is expressing self-hatred. When a non-White denies White identity, he is saying that the West for him is nothing but a wallet—the natives are either a resource or an obstacle: a resource when they give money or change the laws to accommodate immigrants, an obstacle when they complain or prefer their own company.

    And the fundamental interest of any nation or race is survival as a people. We have a right — an absolute right — to be us, and only we can be us. We have a right to be left alone in our homelands, to take part in the unfolding of our national identities free of the unwanted embrace of people unlike ourselves. Every other race and nationality understands this. We are the only dupes who pretend to believe that if our country fills up with the children of others rather than our own children, it will still be our country!

    These are idea's and things ONLY EUROPEANS believe.

    How often do you hear of a Chinese African? A Japanese Arab?

    No, only EUROPEAN identities are up for sale!

    No healthy people ever doubts its own legitimacy — or even its superiority. According to the French proverb, every nation thinks itself better than its neighbors, and every nation is right.All non-whites act this way. Neither the Japanese nor the Mexicans nor the Malays nor the Israelis tolerate alien incursion, displacement, or “multiculturalism.” They fight them instinctively, without having to explain to each other why they must fight them and why they should survive as a people. Only whites pretend that pluralism and displacement are good things and that the measures necessary to ensure group survival may be immoral.

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