Let the Women Be!

I was just finishing a book, “God’s Jury”, about the Inquisition when I saw on the morning news that the Vatican had decided to crackdown on the Leadership Conference of Women Religious because they were advocating things that were not strictly according to Catholic doctrine. The gist of the document is that these religious have been under scrutiny by Rome for several years, and because they advocate things such as birth control, woman’s ordination, gay rights, therefore they need direction from the Pope’s delegate to guide them in the right path, change their tune, and come back to the correct teachings.
These are not little children here. They are a group of grown women who have studied, prayed, come to conclusions, and who are trying to effect positive change in the world and church to which they belong. The Church doesn’t like this, so they crackdown on them. The Women (witches?) have been tried, now must be reformed, and short of that burned at the stake as in days of old.
Actually, I don’t think anyone would do that today (burning at the stake) but the rest of it, the demonization of these women religious is a terrible thing to happen in the 21st century. The Inquisition lives. It stamped out heresy in the past, waged war on all kinds of positive thinkers such as Galileo, started the Index of Forbidden books, demanded that publications be approved by Bishops, kicked out great theologians from universities, and  hundreds of other things to coerce people to orthodox beliefs. And apparently all of this is still happening. Why?
(It is odd -maybe normal- that the sights are aimed at women religious while the pedophilia issue rages. A deliberate redirect to avoid the real big problems.)
Probably because we let it happen by supporting the creeps who do this to faithful people. Truth is not monolithic as some would have us believe. There is no one place or book to go to get it. Revelations happen every day often contradicting what was true yesterday or years ago.It’s time we recognize that, and give it a place in our daily lives. We will all be better for it. Let the women be; let all of us be who we choose to be.