Nuns seek talents’ use, not ordination| Cathnews India

Published Date: March 12, 2010

Tags: nun ordination, ordination of women

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Catholic nuns at a street protest (file photo)

Leading nuns in the Philippines want to utilize their talents fully for the Church and see no need to fight for the ordination of women.

Sacred Heart Sister Amelia Vasquez said she does not share some other nuns’ wish for ordination because she does not believe ordaining women will give Philippine nuns the means they seek to put their skills and talents to full use.

Sister Vasquez was the first woman to be appointed dean of a Catholic seminary. She led the Congregation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary’s Maryhill School of Theology in Quezon City from 1996-2000.

The theologian now teaches at the Jesuits’ East Asian Pastoral Institute and the Claretian Fathers’ Institute for Consecrated Life in Asia.

“Ordination and gender” are “blinders” in the Church making it difficult for women Religious to reach high positions, she says.

Bishops are not the problem because they generally have shown “much” appreciation for the work sisters do, she said.

“We are not in competition with bishops and, by and large, even our activist Religious are not pushing for ordination,” Sister Vasquez maintained.

Most bishops are secure in their position but the problem is diocesan priests see us as their competitors, she said. Priests who do not get as much education as nuns become jealous, she added.

At Maryhill, she said she kept a “low profile” and gave “myself fully without making it a power trip”. While recognizing her work was “important, I realized to flaunt what I was doing might not help,” she said.

Saint Paul de Chartres Sister Rosanne Mallillin, also told UCA News the priesthood is not a position religious women want. “It [ordination] is the last thing I would strive for as a religious,” Sister Mallillin said. “There are too many other important things I need to do, and being a priest would only slow me down,” added the nun who serves as vice president for academics at St Paul’s College in Manila.

Augustinian Recollect Sister Dolores Daquilanea, former Executive Notary of the National Appellate Matrimonial Tribunal, wonders why more qualified nuns are not appointed to positions like the one she held. Sister Daquilanea told UCA News only one other nun was appointed to a diocesan marriage tribunal during the decade she served.

“There are three religious sisters I know who have degrees in Canon Law but only Sister Lourdes Lapid has been appointed as Defender of the Bond in San Pablo Diocese, despite half of these tribunals’ clients being women,” Sister Daquilanea said.

Source: Nuns want full use of talents, not ordination (UCAN)

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