"Nedtystade" högtalare fortsätter att förmedla sitt budskap

Den som tystas ner av den kyrkliga hierarkin blir automatiskt till ett skriande exempel på orättvisa, och det i sin tur blir till ett budskap som sprids snabbare än ringar på vattnet.

Sr. Louise är bara ett exempel på detta. Jag har skrivit om henne tidigare, och lär skriva om henne igen, eller om någon av hennes orädda medsystrar eller bröder i tron: personer som rakryggat och med intellektuell heder i behåll står för den sanning de har upptäckt. I alla väder.

Det är dessa som för kyrkan framåt också när det blåser hård motvind.

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"Sr. Louise has been dismissed by Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk from all diocesan positions and/or conferences on Catholic soil in the archdiocese of Cincinnati due to her support for the ordination of women in the Roman Catholic church. She was willing, she says, to leave the advisory board of the Women's Ordination Conference and to have her picture removed from their Web site. She was not willing to be forced to retract her support for the continued study of the theological foundation upon which the exclusion of women from Catholic ordination is based -- a clearly intellectually honest position.

As a result, Sr. Louise, recently recognized by the city of Cincinnati as one of its outstanding civic leaders and, ironically, coordinator of Cincinnati's Intercommunity Justice and Peace Center, will be denied access to the idea development arena of the Catholic community where she is obviously needed most.

Comments that followed the news story detailing the dismissal lamented "the loss of a voice like this" to the church.

But they're wrong. The church faces precisely the opposite problem, whether it realizes it or not.

Voices like this, voices that cry for justice, voices that point out the lacunae in the thinking of the theological community and are punished for their continuing pursuit of truth are not "lost." On the contrary. Those voices ring loud and clear around the globe for all the world to hear. One after another after another. And little by little, one silenced voice recruits ten, a hundred, a thousand, a society worth of others. All of them talking. All of them refusing to be silent."

Läs hela artikeln (som bl.a. tydliggör det hela genom att återge Gandhis saltmarsch) här.