Reality Check and more....

Reality Check (America Magazine)

The announcement last April of the results of the doctrinal assessment of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has provoked strong reactions inside and outside the Catholic Church in the United States. In the process, some commentators have made assertions about the demographics of religious life in the United States that are not based in fact. Regrettably, such misinformed statements create dichotomies that not only mask the complexity of religious reality, but are patently false. In an article ... Read more....

Reponse:

Musings of a Discerning Woman: Religious Life ... A Numbers Game?: There's been a lot bandied about of late about religious life and the women who follow Jesus through the vowed life.  In the midst of it all... Read more...

Seed Bed of Evolving Church (NCR)

With the profound abilities and advances of technology and the numerous problems facing the world -- from nuclear accidents to global climate change -- the human race stands at a moment of "evolution or extinction," a keynote speaker told some 900 U.S. Catholic sisters gathered here in conference Wednesday morning.
And one of the best hopes for the continuation of humanity, said Barbara Marx Hubbard, are the women religious themselves. "You are the best seed bed I know for evolving the church and the world in the 21st century.... Read more...

Pathological Altruism (NCR)

This is the state of the psyche when one says, "I have to help someone. It's my identity." This extreme desire to help is often at a profound cost to the helper. Oftentimes, this dynamic looks like a codependent relationship where helpers have a bloated sense of the ego and lack the awareness of their own humanity. In a significant way, the helpers' inability to allow someone to suffer continues to hurt themselves.
Have we depended too much on the work of Catholic Charities and Catholic Relief Service to please our own guilty consciences around inequality, privilege and power? Read more...