American bishops are investigating GIRL SCOUTS?!? WTF?

[eridani]

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/295-164/11781-catholic-bishops-go-after-girl-scouts
he United States Conference of Catholic Bishops is having a Saturday Night Live moment. Emboldened by the Vatican's hostile takeover of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, the gentlemen have shown their prowess by choosing to investigate the Girl Scouts of the USA. Which would be comical - first the nuns, now the Girl Scouts - if the goal were not so pernicious and the outcome so damaging, especially to the bishops.

The tactics against the girls and the women are taken from one playbook, the goal of intimidation is the same, and the pushback in both cases is distracting from more pressing problems at hand. Still, you wonder who does their public relations, as the bishops are now about as popular as a recession.

The apparent goal of this exercise of "investigating" gender female persons is to set up and enforce a male-defined model of girlhood/womanhood. A Vatican-, or in this case, USCCB-launched investigation is what Sister Sandra Schneiders, IHM, calls the equivalent of a grand jury investigation. There is the presumption that something is wrong, not something right, that there is guilt to be uncovered, not virtue to be unleashed. What is wrong seems to be women and girls thinking for themselves and acting for the common good.

What boggles the mind is why the Roman Catholic Church would be so presumptuous as to investigate what does not belong to it. Granted, some Scout troops meet at Catholic churches, but that does not make them Catholic entities any more than the Alcoholics Anonymous group that meets in the same basement. In the case of the Scouts, the supposed connections with groups that support reproductive justice are, for the most part, links to websites where girls can find further information on issues, hardly a ringing endorsement of the groups' missions. Sex education is not an integral part of scouting; that is something left to families. What is really at issue here is that women and girls involved in the Girl Scouts do not ask permission of ecclesial men to live as responsible citizens of a global world.

[2on2u]

1. Maybe they could lighten it up a bit and call it "The Inquisition Redux". n/t

[WolverineDG]

4. The Vatican did actually send an Inquisition Squad to investigate the nuns nt

[drm604]

2. Maybe the Girl Scouts should investigate the Catholic Church.

It would make about as much sense.

[trotsky]

3. I know which one of those organizations I'd trust more. n/t

[daaron]

11. I'd rather eat Girl Scout cookies and milk than wafers and wine, any day.

There's the real threat.

[laconicsax]

15. I don't know...Girl Scouts have their dark side.

[ejpoeta]

5. are the girl scouts hiding pedophile priests?

[Shadowflash]

6. If the church manages any influence at all

and turns the Girl Scouts into anything even coming close to the homophobic and religiously closed minded Boy Scouts, my 9 year old daughter is getting yanked out immediately. She's been a Girl scout since she was able and it would be a shame but I'm not going to let her get brainwashed with hateful religious dogma.

[notadmblnd]

7. I wonder if the bishops will use the rack or burn them at the steak?

[YankeyMCC]

8. Looking for the short bread cookie with the image of Jesus on it?

[smirkymonkey]

10. Sounds Pope-a-licious!

[cbayer]

9. They are looking in increasingly desperate. One might think they were

actually afraid of women taking some of their power.

Go girls!!

[Ron Obvious]

12. Girls!

Girls! Feck! Arse!

[dimbear]

13. Know your lore, my friends. Brownies are a kind of imp. Pagan to the bone.

"We're the ever helpful imps"

(part of a Brownie chant. )

Stamp out paganism today.

[darkstar3]

14. There is quite a lot of implication behind their usage of the word "investigate."

That word is often used in legal circles and groups performing internal inquiries because it conveys a certain level of officiality. The story here is not that the Catholic Church is after women, as they always have been, but that their hubris apparently knows no bounds whatsoever.