In praise of ... American nuns

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/06/american-nuns

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The Holy See is currently ignoring one of the great truths of Christian history: don't mess with the nuns. This week's Vatican censure of Sr Margaret Farley's 2006 book, Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics, for its liberal take on homosexuality and masturbation, is part of a wider attempt to rein in the influence of American nuns for concentrating too much on social justice and not on opposing that apparently damnable trinity of euthanasia, abortion and same-sex marriage. The Leadership Conference of Women Religious, representing 80% of the US's Catholic sisters, has come out fighting against the Vatican's peculiar accusation of "radical feminism". For centuries women have gathered together in religious orders partly as a means of escaping and opposing systems of patriarchy. Taking religious vows offered an alternative to marriage or poverty. American nuns have a feisty track record. And Father doesn't know best.