So some nuns have been arrested in Scotland for physically and sexually abusing children over the more than 100 years they ran an orphanage there. I want to say “Welcome to the priesthood” to them but even with these clearly needed credentials, they are still not allowed in.
I am beginning to believe more and more that the problem is that any organization that leaves out half of humanity – no matter which half – tends to attract people who want to get away with shit that they would otherwise be called out on. I can think of no all male or all female organization that isn’t rife with these kinds of problems.
Sports – well, a team here in Anchorage just got suspended for suspected sexual hazing. All boys football team.
Sports – Girls’ gymnastics.
Entertainment – if you don’t think the top echelons of this industry are all boys’ clubs, you need to take meds.
News – see entertainment
Legal – two females on the Supreme Court in almost 250 years
Finance – quick, name two female billionaires or just two female executives running a major corporation
So as I look at the list, it occurs to me that the nunnery was really the only all female institution that women could join without fear of their perverted pleasures being exposed. But that doesn’t negate the fact that creating an institution that deliberately leaves out half the human race is, in and of itself, a perversion of our society and its norms. Maybe there was a time in the past when institutions of this nature made sense. Women retreated to them after a husband died in Europe during the first 1700 years AD because it was the only place they could safely go. Women were deleted from Christianity’s origin stories so that men could take all the power that came with running a church that, for a large part of its existence, was also an empire ruled by popes who made their nephews cardinals and thought nothing of leading troops into battle. Because, you know, if you don’t believe my god is the most loving and merciful god, then I’m going to keep killing you until you do.
In fact, until about 1000 AD, priests married. But then the church saw its property and riches slipping away as priests left those items to their sons when they died. So the decision on celibacy was less about morality and more about greed.
I think that many orders of priests and nuns have done many wonderful things in our world. I also think they have done many horrible things. And I think, perhaps, their time has come to an end. We now need men and women fully integrated into our communities to do the things once done by these orders. It is the only way we will have any transparency over their actions.
And if you think that the pope promising to end this now has any validity at all if not followed by the statement that he is opening up the priesthood to women and marriage, then I have a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn.