The Chicago Sun-Times is running a story on modern nuns from a book by Cheryl Reed called “Unveiled: The Hidden Lives of Nuns.” It should say “Anti-Catholic Ex-Nuns.”
Nuns Gone Bad
The first installments are mostly about Margaret Traxler, who died two years ago but was a notorious liberal who signed a pro-abortion ad in the New York Times claiming that abortion is a Catholic option. A third of the signers were nuns. The story says Traxler did a lot of good in her lifetime, like taking care of alcoholic women and drug addicts, but never did retract her pro-abortion support.
She was a friend of Joseph Cardinal Bernardin, the only priest she could stand. In fact, Reed’s article says she adored Bernardin. Other dissident nuns in the story so far are Mary Schneider, who scrapped going to Mass, and Maureen Boyd who collects Buddhist dolls draped in rosaries and says she feels very removed from the Church:
I mean the pope means nothing to me. Rome means nothing to me, especially if your mind is inclusive of Hinduism, Buddhism, Wicca, whatever. Let those guys go over there and stay in Rome and not have abortions. I don’t care. I’ve got my internal wisdom. You know a woman should have the right to choose.
Sr. Donna Quinn is in the story where Reed talks about a private meeting Quinn and Traxler had with Bernardin in Rome in 1994 at Traxler’s “private church.” Reed says Bernardin told Traxler he was for the ordination of women but said it wouldn’t happen in this administration, meaning under Pope John Paul II.
My closest encounter with Traxler was picketing her talks from time to time and having her picket my office with a bevy of dissident nuns one January 22 with about forty other pro-abortion fanatics. I was in Washington at the time but we did get some good pictures of the nuns in nun-like garb, no doubt hauled out for the occasion, and carrying pro-abortion signs.
Traxler once was pro-life, and is probably now back to that position she argued for in a letter she wrote to the Illinois Right to Life Committee’s Charles Scholl where she called her anti-abortion views “among some of the strongest convictions I hold.” That was in September, 1975. What happened? More on the Nuns’ story as it unfolds in the Sun-Times.
Cokie’s Gripes over Bush Bioethics Panel
Cokie Roberts and hubby Steve gang up on President George W. Bush in a Friday Sun-Times commentary bellyaching that Bush replaced two members of his bioethics team who supported the use of live human embryo cells for experimentation. Cokie and Steve can’t stand it that Bush is trying to keep his pledge that no more live human embryos will be produced for human experiments.
How dare he disagree with Cokie and Steve who seem believe that all maladies known to the human race can be cured by using live human embryonic stem cells. The evidence is quite to the contrary, showing that almost all medical advances have been made with cells not taken from live human embryos but from cells of the patient’s own body.
Cokie and Steve insist that Bush is doing this only because he wants the votes of conservatives who are against live embryonic stem cell research. Has it occurred to Cokie and Steve that maybe President Bush has a conscience that won’t allow him to kill innocent human beings for their parts?
Gays Try To Square the Circle
It should be Picture of the Week: a Gay Woman in front of Chicago’s City Hall with her mouth as wide open as humanly possible, screaming her head off and pointing, while standing under a sign that reads: “Hate is not a family value.” She’s demanding gay marriage rights.
She can scream all she wants. It isn’t going to happen. Gay marriage is no marriage. Might as well demand a square circle.
