A Nun’s Story

 (St. Francis, from K. Beaton's Hark! A Vagrant)

When little Natalie was but a glasses-wearing, frizzy-haired 14-year-old, I had a thing for Franco Zeffirelli. Zeffirelli directed 1968’s Romeo and Juliet, which would play on Turner Classic Movies, and wee me would watch with wide-eyed excitement. Nerdy child that I was, it gave me a mix of intellectual envy, and a strange sense of excitement when the Romeo actor, Leonard Whiting, climbed from Juilet’s bed, bare naked, giving the camera a full shot of his ass in the sunlight. Sheltered me fell a little bit in love, and grabbed the next video on the shelf of Movie Mania that featured Franco Zeffirelli as director.

The only other film was 1972’s Brother Sun, Sister Moon.
 

Do you know it? Zeffirelli’s telling of the life of St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals and the first to receive the stigmata.
 

I was raised Baptist. I had never heard of St. Francis. The only saint I knew was jolly old Saint Nicholas. And he had a strange penchant for cookies and coal, which never made its way into the Bible.

But St. Francis? St. Francis was Dr. Doolittle, Native American Shaman, Luke Skywalker, John Lennon and Gandhi combined. No elves, no sled, no stockings. St. Francis was rebel and peacemaker and revolutionary. He turned his back on riches, talked to animals, and created the first nativity scene. He convinced wolves not to eat people, so possibly he was part Werewolf tamer. He was, quite frankly, awesome. I was smitten.
 

Francesco woke up one day in the 13^th century equivalent of the Trump tower penthouse of Assisi and realized that Jesus – you know, the Jesus, the Jesus that the population of 13^th Century Italy spent a lot of time talking about – wouldn’t be too cool with the whole Richie-Rich and booze lifestyle old Frank was living. Francis remembered that Jesus lived a peasant lifestyle, preached about giving to the poor, caring for the sick, loving his neighbors and healing those who suffered. (Take note – this part comes up again later.) So Francis? Opened up his closet and gave all his clothes away. Shaved his head. Started a new church in which the followers took in lepers and preached to peasants and birds.

Francis asked, “What would Jesus Do?” And actually did it.
 

Naturally, since I was an awkward and pissed-off teenager (is there any other kind?), who felt righteous anger over the myriad suffering in the world which none of the adults seemed to take seriously and to which I had only recently been made aware of myself thanks to my budding adolescence and teenage idealism (“Oh my God, you guys, did you know the rainforest is dying? How come no one ever told me this before?!”), I was absolutely certain that St. Francis was the greatest thing since Bring-A-Friend-For-Free night at the Roller Rink.
 

I grabbed any book on Saints I could get my hands on. Young whippersnappers reading this may not remember, but there was a time before the Internet. I had no where to look but books and friends who were Catholic, and therefore one step closer than I was to all the knowledge about my dear St. Francis. I read. I asked questions. I watched Brother Sun, Sister Moon on repeat.

I was a teenager. My parents expected rebellion. Dreams of overthrowing organized religion and eventual sainthood? Not so much.

St. Francis was my hero. And in many, many ways, he still is. Environmental, vegetarian and volunteering Natalie owes a great deal to the teachings of St. Francis. World-traveling Natalie was ecstatic over living in Italy, in part, because of Zeffirelli’s sweeping scenes involving St. Francis running through the Tuscan countryside. I outright wept, when I was able to travel Assisi and visit his tomb. But my weeping? Wasn’t for the fact I stood at his grave, after admiring St. Francis during my young formative years. No, it was where he was laid to rest that sparked my tears.

See, St. Francis never did quite break away from the Catholic Church. Brother Sun, Sister Moon has a moving end scene of Francis going to meet the Pope to explain to him that his band of brothers and followers were not heretics, but simple followers of Jesus. Francis is barefoot and dirty and the Pope is swathed in silk in a gold palace. And it breaks dear Francis’ heart to see him. Zeffirelli does it well; the close-up on Francis’ eyes, the gilded, rusty, ancient cage of the papacy, sympathetic to the men in it who perhaps entered into holy lives with pure hearts and genuine love, but were forever overshadowed and corrupted by the greed and hated and lust of power in men. Francis couldn’t save them. Nothing could save a beast that eats itself from within.

At the end of his life, Francis was peaceful. Dust to dust. Legend or fancy, it was said he wanted to be embraced by the earth. This was a man who declared the Sun his brother, the animals his fellow spirits. His life was one of poverty, his monastery was simple, his love of nature and peace would be his final prayer.

So what happens?

The Catholic Church dug up his body, built a massive Cathedral over his resting place and put his body in an above-ground tomb.

Nothing can save a beast that eats itself from within.

And thus I cried when I visited, because the message had been so lost along the way.

So maybe you know where this is going.
 

Around the Internet today has been a story about a nun who was excommunicated for approving an abortion.

The story comes to us from Arizona, which is somehow turning into the political hell’s mouth of America.

Via Feministing:

 Sister Margaret McBride has been demoted from her position at St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix, AZ after participating in the approval of an abortion for a critically ill patient in 2009. McBride was part of the hospital ethics committee that approved an abortion for a patient with pulmonary hypertension, which can be made fatal by pregnancy. Hospital officials say the procedure was necessary to save the patient's life.

Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted, the leader of the Phoenix archdiocese, said McBride was 'automatically excommunicated' for acting to save a woman's life. What role Olmsted played in McBride's demotion is unknown.

And from AZ Central.com:  

Neither the hospital nor the bishop's office would address whether the bishop had a direct role in her demotion. He does not have control of the hospital as a business but is the voice of moral authority over any Catholic institution operating in the diocese.

The actions involving the administrator, mostly taken within the past couple of weeks, followed a last-minute, life-or-death drama in late 2009. The patient had a rare and often fatal condition in which a pregnancy can cause the death of the mother.

Sister Margaret McBride, who had been vice president of mission integration at the hospital, was on call as a member of the hospital's ethics committee when the surgery took place, hospital officials said. She was part of a group of people, including the patient and doctors, who decided upon the course of action.

…
The patient was not identified, and details of her case cannot be revealed under federal privacy laws.
…
Olmsted added that if a Catholic "formally cooperates" in an abortion, he or she is automatically excommunicated.
Excommunication forbids the person from participating in church life. Remedies are available through an appeal to the Vatican or confession.

"The Catholic Church will continue to defend life and proclaim the evil of abortion without compromise, and must act to correct even her own members if they fail in this duty," the bishop said.

…

McBride declined to be interviewed. She was the highest-ranking member of the Sisters of Mercy at the hospital, which the order founded in 1895.

There’s a lot going on in this story, isn’t there?

It’s taking a really, really good idea – following Jesus, who was all about caring for the poor, and having compassion and loving thy neighbor – and turning it into something completely unrecognizable.

You have a woman in power, Sister McBride, trying to do her job, listening to the medical advice of educated doctors, and making an ethical, logical, and compassionate choice.

You have a man in power, Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted, relishing in excommunicating the sole woman in power, for making an ethical, logical and compassionate choice.

Excommunicating. That’s a heavy word, especially for a nun. That’s stripping her of her lifestyle, her years of work, her spiritual and religious calling. According to Wikipedia: “Excommunication is never a merely ‘vindictive penalty’ (designed solely to punish), but is always used as a ‘medicinal penalty’ intended to pressure the person into changing their behaviour or statements, repent and return to full communion.”

It doesn’t really make sense, does it? Had Sister McBride done what Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted believed to be right, she would be responsible for the death of a grown woman. Sister McBride, as the highest-ranking member of the Sisters of Mercy, a member of a hospital committee, (which included the patient herself – indicating that the woman indeed wanted her own life to be spared), did what was medically necessary to save a woman’s life.

An aspect of the story that is missing is the voice of the woman who had the abortion – federal records prohibit publishing her name. I’m relieved, quite frankly, to read this.

At least the person who Sister McBride was trying to save managed to be saved – in every way possible. Her life. Her privacy. Her autonomy. Her sovereignty over her own body.

Those like Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted would prefer it if this woman had died. Despite having medical knowledge and compassion to save her, Bishop Olmsted sees this woman’s life as a gambling chip to a black or white, yes or no debate that causes real human suffering. Bishop Olmsted and those like him, who blindly control women’s bodies, have no regard for the lives that they are ruining. If she had a husband, they would have him a widower. If she had children, they would have her children be without a mother. Bishop Olmsted cares so little about her life, her prospective husband and children’s lives that he would have her die a painful and unnecessary death in the name of protection.

This is not the answer to the question, “What Would Jesus Do?”

This is however, the answer to the question, “What would an organized religion marred in child abuse scandal and grasping power through ignorance and black and white morality without regard to those it will hurt do in order to play righteous and continue to oppress women, hurt families and kill those faithful to them?”