Friday, February 2, 2018

"Excluding Women from the Gospel — in Jesus' Name": Twitter Hosts a Necessary Conversation Many Churches Don't Intend to Have



A set of tweets today (with a link to an article by Sarah MacDonald) that, in my view, all belong together. . . .They point to a necessary conversation that many Christian churches simply do not intend to have — no matter how many younger members walk away, no matter how many people are harmed by the exclusionary, clubby injustice, no matter how much the public witness of the churches is undermined by the lack of authentic catholicity at a moment in history at which this witness is desperately needed:


Rachel Held Evans' tweet is in response to Kate Wallace Nunneley's tweet at the head of the posting: 



An Irish Cardinal has forced a major international conference on women's rights to move from the Vatican as he objected to former president Mary McAleese, who is the keynote speaker at the event. 
Dublin-born Cardinal Kevin Farrell, who is overseeing the Vatican's preparations for the World Meeting of Families in Ireland in August, attempted to block Dr McAleese from addressing the '2018 Voices of Faith' conference, which will take place on International Women's Day on March 8. 
Correspondence seen by the Irish Independent reveals a stand-off occurred between the conference organisers and Cardinal Farrell over his withholding of approval not just for Dr McAleese but two other speakers as well. 
The Irish Independent understands that Dr McAleese's views on gay rights is the reason the prelate objected. She has previously spoken about how son Justin, as a devout young Catholic, was bullied because he was gay.


 


I recommend the thread following Kate Wallace Nunneley's tweet at the head of the posting: some wry and spry commentary in this thread. Some of my favorites:

"We'll try to find one of the organizers to mansplain it to us" (Teresa Colleen).

"Wow. It is almost like Pentecost never happened. What a neat little club they have" (Kristopher Walhof).

"Men, men, men, men....which is why I don't go to most of the Christian conferences out there" (Erin Thomas).

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