Nuns on the loose

You heard about this right: The Vatican appointing the archbishop of Seattle to get all those unruly American nuns under control?

It's awesome.

First and foremost in awesomeness: Catholic leadership seems desperate to reinforce their He-man-women-haters stereotype. Yeah, so I guess when I said "awesome" earlier that may have been misleading.  You know what?  Let me start this over.
The decidedly not awesome aspect of recent events is that the Vatican seems to have decided that the Catholic Church wasn't alienating people fast enough, so they had to step that up a notch.
The cardinals and Pope were sitting around saying to each other, "Yes, we're all elderly gentleman who live in a castle and wear capes, but could we do more?"
"Well, you know, people are always saying that the Catholic Church hates women, but recently we've really been letting that image slide.  So, let's chastise the largest group of American nuns for being too uppity."

Awesome.
But you know what is actually awesome?  American nuns are bad asses.  That's so cool.  And I mean, of course they are.  You think that a bunch of educated American women who have sacrificed everything so they can serve the Church are gonna sit inside and pray the rosary?  Ummm...no I don't see that happening.
The nuns are all in there getting their hands dirty working with homosexuals and unwed mothers, and the Vatican is all "Eww!  You're touching them! Tell them they're gross!" and the nuns are like "Dude, you're not helping..."
Truthfully, while I find the Vatican statement offensive and annoying, I am not really worried about the nuns. I am sure that they are going to do what all people do when dealing with a micromanaging superiors: smile and nod, and then just go ahead and do what needs to be done in order to finish the job.

Contrary to popular belief, I am, in fact, not a 15 th century Spanish interrogator

     So I am a Catholic, right?  and I love being a Catholic, but like any Catholic, or any member of any large group really, there are things about my group that I like and things about my group that I don't like so much.  I like the emphasis on family, and the history of the Church, the emphasis on communion, and the sacramental viewpoint: love, love, love.  Gives me a sense of community, strength, connection to God, blah blah blah.    We all have our reasons, and while those things are amazing, and the reason I am a Catholic in the first place, they are not the primary reason I am writing this blog.

     Then there are the things about the Catholic Church- and Christianity in general- that, on occasion, make me want to punch priests in the face.  Well, honestly not usually priests. Mostly it is conservative Christians on Fox, but the priests are raising their tally on the "To Punch" list with some consistency lately.  Yeah, the attitude towards gays, and abortion, and women, and the recent control grab that the leadership is making: not my favorite.

None of these people are me, and my dungeon is far more comfortable

     And then there are people who say, "Wait, if you don't agree with those things, you're not a Catholic." which forces me to rage-quit the conversation by standing up and screaming, "You're going on the list!" which admittedly probably seems like a non-sequiter to those people, but you guys know what I'm saying.
     I mean, come on, there are as many different versions of Christianity as there Christians, and nobody makes us check our independent thought at the door to the church.  Catholics are not all Pope worshiping, baby machines; a lot of us do have major issues with large portions of the Church, and that's okay.  It's called dissent and we are totally allowed to do it.
     What kills me is that if I wasn't specifically part of the very large group of Catholics who are liberal, I would probably not know there were any.  We all live in secret, thanks to frankly, what is a massive PR fail on the part of the Catholic Church.  Yeah, thanks popular media, now there's this Christian stereotype that's all super judgmental and Bible thumpy, that apparently commutes to real life from out of the from the period of the Spanish Inquisition.  Because of the stereotype, I have to keep my Catholicism under wraps, lest someone worry that I will run them through with my rapier.
     It makes it really hard to find other liberal Catholics to hang out with.  The best you can really hope for is that one of the people you already know is outed to you during Ash Wednesday, and then the two of you can nod sheepishly at each other, but don't push it because you don't want to seem like THAT kind of Christian. I know there are lots of you are out there.  I know because I watch Stephen Colbert and he can't just be talking to ME (although that would be pretty AWESOME).
      So liberal Catholics: How about those mass changes, huh?  "With your Spirit" : gets me every time.