You Go Girls!

The recent chastisement (could there be a better word for it) of American nuns by the Vatican has brought out some very interesting commentary. From my read on it, almost anyone who has any first hand experience with nuns has, on the whole, a great deal of admiration for them and the work that they perform on behalf of the Church and the Gospel. I think that nuns, rather than priests and the Vatican, are held in much greater admiration today by most folks. The opinions have certainly been strongly put. Garry Wills, in addition to advising that nuns are interested in "the powerless" and priests in "power", also writes warmly of his experience as a student for some of his years in a Catholic grade school. Nicholas Kristof and Maureen Dowd both chime in on the topic in the NYT today, both very much on the side of the nuns (both are from Catholic backgrounds, although I don't know their status as practitioners; Wills is very much a practitioner of the faith). (One reservation that Iowa Guru pointed out viz. Dowd: she couldn't resist the stereotypical comment at the end about a wrap on the knuckles, going for cute when she could have done without.) Of course, the best source on the subject are the nuns themselves and the nun (Sister Simone Campbell) who spoke on NPR. No, don't mess with those nuns! (Thanks for Africa Girl for the initial point to the NPR interview and the whole fracus.)