Catholic Bishops Are Investigating The Girl Scouts

[stevedeshazer]

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/05/11/152506374/catholic-bishops-are-investigating-the-girl-scouts

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops sent an "official inquiry" to the Girl Scouts of the USA. NPR's Barbara Bradley Hagerty reports the bishops will investigate whether the iconic group has ties or views that conflict with Catholic teaching.

"The new inquiry will be conducted by the Bishop's committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth. It will look into whether the Girl Scouts have "possible problematic relationships with other organizations" and problematic program materials. Conservative groups accused the Girl Scouts of associating with Planned Parenthood, which they deny, and giving girls access to information about sex and sexuality. The group says it takes no position on sexuality, birth control and abortion.

"The Girl Scouts have been dogged by complaints — the Scouts call them distortions — for decades. This challenge from the Catholic Bishops is significant, because many of the troops are sponsored by Catholic parishes and about a quarter of all scouts are Catholic."



Can you believe the hypocrisy?? Wow.

[msanthrope]

1. They run out of altar boys??? nt

[mzteris]

2. Dang.

And here I was going to say at least the little girls were safe from the old perverts. . .

[rurallib]

5. actually I believe more girls than boys were molested by priests

that just doesn't make headlines or sell papers (or soap)

[mzteris]

26. Well the Protestants

Usually have more headlines with little girls.

[jberryhill]

3. Girl Scouts makes 'em "uppity"

Giving girls the opportunity to work together, learn leadership skills and so on, gives them inflated ideas about being worth something apart from the guidance, direction and control of men.

That's just not good. Why set them up like that?

[Chorophyll]

4. Ah, the Catholic Bishops...

...Experts on human sexuality, and ALWAYS concerned with the well-being of our youth.

[Scuba]

6. The Onion, right?

[stevedeshazer]

20. I thought the same thing when I first read it.

This would be an excellent article from The Onion. Unfortunately, it's true.

[rurallib]

7. Apparently the bishops are now fully in bed with the redical Repubs

and are doing some of their hit work and intimidation for them.

[cap]

12. George w bush met with the POpe in the final hours of his presidency

So this was all planned. Ratzinger was waiting until he got a chance to appoint most of the cardinals and archbishops within the us catholic church.

There is a call for the church to be more politically active.

[Mc Mike]

27. +1, thanks. There is no repug sinking ship the fat bishops won't jump on. NT.

[geckosfeet]

8. WTF!?! In a sane world, this situation would be reversed.

The vatican should be investigated and shunned for concealing the practice of child molestation amongst it's apostles.

[fruitsmoothie45]

23. You know,

that's honestly true. Just goes to show how backwards our world is today.

[sofa king]

9. ... in hopes of finding someone more perverted than they?

[Capt. Obvious]

10. The Girl Scouts is a Catholic group?

I had no idea.

When I eat their delicious cookies are they secretly giving me the body of christ?

[rurallib]

15. no but most catholic schools have troops

IIRC from my youth the catholic school troops worked a little religion into their meetings.

[cap]

11. This is stupid

Many of the scout leaders in those troops are parishioners! It's not like the girl scouts troops leadsrs are professionals. The troop leaders are volunteers!

The troops are going to be fractured. Non Catholics are going to be WTF! Catholics are going to be divided. Millennial catholic participation is down anyhow. So a lot who are catholic in surveys don't go to church. Millennial Catholics are known for liberal attitudes on social issues.

The catholic church has lost one generation of women : the 40 something's and they know they are losing a second generation of women, the gen x/millenials.

So really about 1/8 of the girl scouts might follow the bishops...but they will be saying that THEIR troop doesn't do anything against catholic doctrine. I am thinking that half of those surveyed are church going Catholics. And it is a stretch to say that they will look at the goings on in their own troop as something non catholic.

Also, tee heee. A lot of these same Catholics know the nuns personally who are being picked on... And they love the nuns.

In philadelphia, Cardinal Chaput would dearly love to create an alliance with the unions especially the teachers unions to limit the financial damage from the sex abuse scandals. So, he's going to put the squeeze on the catholic troop leaders who are also teachers???

Umm...and you want these same women to bail the church out financially from the sex abuse scandals. Or participate in the church's movement for "religious liberty"??? Who are going to be your foot soldiers? Women do all the grunt work in the church.

Women make up 51% of the catholic church. And a lot are really pissed off.

Before anyone says go join the episcopalian church, a lot of our faith is tied up with ethnic saints who aren't in the episcopal church or with the time honored rituals that are catholic. Leaving for another church may be an option for some, but not all of us. Also, a number of saints who aren't in the episcopalian church are female saints who stood up to the hierarchy, like St Theresa of Avila or St Hildegard !!!

My prediction is that over time, as the hierarchy sinks itself with a mixture of criminality and stupidity, lay women are going to rise and take power within the church and reform it into a much better space.
Occupy Catholic has started and I think picking on the nuns and Girl Scouts is accelerating this process.

[cap]

13. Also I don't think the catholic church will really like

The troops picking up and moving their meetings to another chrch's basement!

[ljm2002]

14. I heard this on the car radio yesterday...

...and it made me livid. But then again, what else is new with that bunch of old dolts? They're so out of touch it's laughable. Investigating the Girl Scouts ... These guys have recently been lashing out at their own nuns, on the issue of birth control, and now they've turned their attention to the Girl Scouts. I'm getting the feeling they might have issues with ... women in general. Ya think?

The Catholic Bishops are simply irrelevant to the lives of women. They sit on their perches issuing proclamations about how the rest of us should behave, even after their own organization has been exposed for systematically covering up child rape, to the point where you have to ask was it being actively condoned? They treat the women in their organization as second-class citizens who must bow to their superior-by-definition masculine authority. Then they act like they have the right to dictate everything about women's lives to the rest of us, all the while believing themselves to be above the law.

It's just raw misogyny on display here. These guys do not seem able to handle the complexities inherent in real life, it feels too out of control for them. But they keep trying to control it, trying to put human experience into little boxes, while denying the reality of women's lives. Now they've moved on to blaming women for the ills of the world. It's very medieval thinking -- personally, I find it laughable. These are a bunch of scared little boys who couldn't handle having real women in their own lives so they retreated into the protective orbit of the Catholic Church, where they could be protected from the (ooh, so scary!) w o m e n.

Pffft.

[cap]

17. It will get worse before it gets better

The new entrants into religious life are ultra orthodox. There is nothing like youth combining with orthodoxy to create a particularly foul and agreeive climate. However, there are not enough entering the church to staff the parishes.

There is a thought of using foreign priests from Poland, Africa or Asia. This is not going too well. So poorer parishes get these priests or none at all. I can't imagine foreign priests trying to preach the war on women to American catholic women.

[Dawson Leery]

22. The Roman Catholic Church is, by it's structure, a contra-democratic organization

with the goal to subvert free societies.

[Iggo]

16. The Girl Scouts should be investigating the Bishops instead.

[cap]

18. Could they get a merit badge for this?

[Zorra]

19. Now it's the Girl Scout Inquisition? That's just so wrong. nt

[Liberal_in_LA]

21. all female, pro-female organizations must be investigated

[Cass]

24. An inquiry, eh? Maybe they should read the bible passage about taking the log out of their own eye

before pointing at the splinter in someone else's eye.

[Horse with no Name]

25. Fuck the Catholic Church

Who they hell are they?

They are a group of like-minded religious zealots. Those that ascribe to their theories and belief system are welcome to attend their church and offer up their boys to the pedophiles who run the organization. Those that don't...stay away.

They have NO right to start another round of Crusades. They didn't end so well last time.