Religion Dispatches,
May 21, 2012
Bishops Search
for Condoms in Cookie Boxes
By MARY E.
HUNT
The
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops is having a Saturday
Night Live moment. Emboldened by the Vatican’s hostile takeover
of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, the gentlemen
have shown their prowess by choosing to investigate the Girl Scouts
of the USA. Which would be comical—first the nuns, now the
Girl Scouts—if the goal were not so pernicious and the outcome
so damaging, especially to the bishops.
The tactics
against the girls and the women are taken from one playbook, the
goal of intimidation is the same, and the pushback in both cases
is distracting from more pressing problems at hand. Still, you
wonder who does their public relations, as the bishops are now
about as popular as a recession.
The apparent
goal of this exercise of “investigating” gender female
persons is to set up and enforce a male-defined model of girlhood/womanhood.
A Vatican-, or in this case, USCCB-launched investigation is what
Sister Sandra Schneiders, IHM, calls the equivalent of a grand
jury investigation. There is the presumption that something is
wrong, not something right, that there is guilt to be uncovered,
not virtue to be unleashed. What is wrong seems to be women and
girls thinking for themselves and acting for the common good.
What boggles
the mind is why the Roman Catholic Church would be so presumptuous
as to investigate what does not belong to it. Granted, some Scout
troops meet at Catholic churches, but that does not make them
Catholic entities any more than the Alcoholics Anonymous group
that meets in the same basement. In the case of the Scouts, the
supposed connections with groups that support reproductive justice
are, for the most part, links to websites where girls can find
further information on issues, hardly a ringing endorsement of
the groups’ missions. Sex education is not an integral part
of scouting; that is something left to families. What is really
at issue here is that women and girls involved in the Girl Scouts
do not ask permission of ecclesial men to live as responsible
citizens of a global world.
Girl Scouts
USA belongs to the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts,
about ten million strong in 145 countries. In a July 2012 conference
in Chicago, WAGGGS will discuss the UN Millennium Development
Goals. Those include the elimination of poverty, universal primary
education, gender equality, reduction of child mortality, improvement
of maternal health, combating HIV/AIDS and malaria, environmental
sustainability, and the development of a global partnership for
development, a blueprint for just living in the 21st century.
The Episcopal Church USA adopted a resolution at its 74th General
Convention to support the goals. Perhaps they will be investigated
next.
The hierarchy
of the Roman Catholic Church is hardly leaving the Girl Scouts
quaking in their boots. Their reasoned and patient replies to
accusations that they shouldn’t have to answer demonstrate
their mission: “Girl Scouting builds girls of courage, confidence,
and character, who make the world a better place.” Would
that the bishops follow suit.
Several parallels
with the investigation of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious
lay bare the playbook here. The LCWR “doctrinal investigation”
was Rome-based, undertaken by the Congregation for the Doctrine
of the Faith. The Girl Scout “investigation” is U.S.-based
sleuthing led by the bishops’ Committee on Laity, Marriage,
Family Life and Youth chaired by Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades of Ft.
Wayne-South Bend, Indiana. Both cases are based on longterm reporting
by conservative Catholics, both lay and clerical, of the groups’
supposed sins. This is a cottage industry that includes the Eternal
Word Television Network and random ecclesial busy bodies who apparently
report to Rome and to the USCCB on a regular basis.
What mystifies
me is that with all of the economic, racial, and war-related issues
at hand the bishops still choose to take on these girls and women.
Gone are the days when governments, businesses, and armies worried
much about what the bishops had to say. Here are the days when
disgraced bishops are deposed and indicted for the sexual crimes
and cover-ups that have come to define contemporary Catholicism.
By contrast, nuns and Girl Scouts are powerful symbols and equally
powerful advocates for justice and peace. So in a sense the bishops
have really taken on those who are shaping the culture.
The bishops
fretted in both cases about sex and gender, especially reproductive
justice. The straw that broke the camel’s back for the nuns
was the support some of them showed for a more inclusive health
care policy. For the Scouts, it was the organization’s public
acceptance of a transgender child into a Colorado troop. Underneath
those decisions lurks the fact that nuns, not bishops, were seen
as normatively Catholic, and even though a quarter of all Girl
Scouts are Catholic, they didn’t consult the bishops before
doing the right thing. Who would, given the men’s handling
of abuse cases?
In each instance,
the Roman Catholic Church is backing a concrete alternative. For
the LCWR, the kowtowing Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious
is already canonically chartered and accepting members. For those
who find the Girl Scouts too rich for their blood, there are the
multi-religious American Heritage Girls and the Little Flowers
Girls’ Club already in place. These groups function much
like the Girl Scouts and Brownies they seek to replace but with
far more explicit conservative ideology.
Curiously,
for a church that tends to keep pubescent people in single-sex
groups, another alternative is Venturing, a youth development
program sponsored by the Boy Scouts of America for girls and boys
age 14-21. The Boy Scouts are an avowedly anti-gay group that
demands faith in God, not in just any higher power. The Girl Scouts
modified their pledge several years ago to accommodate growing
religious pluralism.
The investigations
are meant in large part to intimidate since they really don’t
have much of a direct impact. Intimidation happens in small ways—a
few nuns self-censor, the leaders of the Girl Scouts redact a
few publications. But just as most nuns are going about their
business undaunted, the Girl Scouts will gather 100,000+ strong
for “Girl Scouts Rock the Mall” in Washington DC on
the 9th of June. They hope to set a world record for the biggest
sing-along in history. Their new theme song says it all: “Girl
Scout ignite a dream, ignite your hope, ignite the world on fire.”
Now that ought to be enough to make the bishops tremble in unison.
The contrast between the girls and “the big boys” will
be vivid that day.
My favorite
local troop just got back from a horseback-riding overnight. They
have cleaned up a local park and planted trees near the Chesapeake
Bay. They took in a women’s basketball game and donned period
costumes to guide visitors at a C and O Canal park. For the international
Girl Scout Thinking Day, when troops learn about girls in other
countries, this group studied Liberia where Liberian President
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Liberian activist Leymah Gbowee shared
the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011 with Tawakul Karman of Yemen. They
are preparing to be good citizens and leaders of a globalized
world that the bishops can scarcely imagine.
The crowd
on the Mall in Washington will be festive on this the 100th anniversary
of the group’s founding by Juliette Gordon Low. They have
reason to celebrate. Just as women’s religious congregations
have empowered countless women, the Girl Scouts, founded by a
woman whose estranged husband left the bulk of his estate to his
mistress, have instilled “courage, confidence and character”
in millions of girls. God knows they need it in the current culture
where women’s well being is threatened on many sides.
I expect to
see some nuns, former nuns, and friends of nuns on the Mall that
day when I lift my voice as a former Girl Scout. History will
record that in 2012 the Girl Scouts and nuns were living values
the bishops could only mouth while they searched in vain for condoms
in the cookie boxes.
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