Vatican Visits

At the risk of sounding like a news report: Lots of interest and talk in our community--and indeed in the over 300 Catholic religious communities of women in the USA--is going on these days as we are in the midst of an apostolic visitation by the Vatican. If you Google "apostolic visitation" and then pare down your search by hitting News at the top, you'll find a long list of articles and opinion columns on the topic from members of religious communities, religion writers from the media, and "ordinary lay folk."

One that caught my eye, more because of his extensive background as the longtime religion writer for Newsweek magazine and as the author of the book, Double Crossed: uncovering the Catholic Church's betrayal of American Nuns, is an article on all this by Kenneth Briggs.

Just keeping up with the official announcements let alone the opinion columns and the dialogue on the internet: back and forth, pro and con, this way and that, would make a full time job--and probably will be a doctoral thesis or two somewhere.


I took this on an early evening walk around our place, which explains the darkness in the background. They really are quite striking.