Good morning.
I watched an amazing woman named Liz Murphy on CBS Thursday morning. She was being interviewed because the pope is traveling to her country this weekend and is dealing with another terrible report about abusive priests. Ireland has had a
particularly wretched time with what the woman called a "virus" in the church. The woman is a nun.
Sitting next to her was Blase Cupich, archbishop of Chicago, who said something about "trouble in the family" but things were better and they had provisions in his diocese to deal with crummy priests. The nun wasn't moved in the slightest and declared, in a brogue I could listen to all day, that the church's problems were "institutional because the church is a male, masculine, top-down, dictatorial body." I might as well have been at a fabulous performance of La Boheme ; I leapt from my chair, shouted something at the television, and spilled my coffee.
I love this woman. I want to have a big plate of corned beef and those good Irish potatoes with her. I want her to be the first female pope. She was magnificent, and one can only hope there are thousands of nuns out there just like her. She's probably spent her entire adult life worrying about soup kitchens and homeless shelters and clinics for the indigent while the duly ordained play golf and talk about what to say on Sunday to keep the troops in line for another week, another month, another year.
Women are clearly done being subservient and quiet, but some in our ranks are still dumb as boards when it comes to men in positions of power. I haven't participated in the recent women's marches because of my lousy knees, but I do not understand how any female with an ounce of self-respect can continue to support men who treat them or other human beings badly. How on earth any woman has a thing to do with the current president is beyond my comprehension and not because he's a male but because he's a very bad male. Hello. Women in the year 2018 are supposed to have become empowered enough over the last few decades to reject a very bad male when they see one.
Kindly recall what he said about Megyn Kelly when she had the unmitigated gall to ask him about his thuggish name-calling, and don't forget what he said about assaulting women when he got off the bus in Hollywood. Now we find out, over months of hearing at least a dozen versions of the story, that he did, in fact, pay off two of the less inspired among my gender to hush up about their dalliances with him because his wife might get upset and it might even wreck his chances to get elected. Methinks that if the women who voted for him weren't offended by his behavior up to that point, another tawdry tale or two wouldn't have mattered. Meanwhile, his wife should dump this boor immediately, take her son, get a nice place in upstate New York and at least half the money, and write a book. That's after she travels to Ireland and has a cup of tea with the nun. The First Lady needs a large dose of spiritual guidance, and Sister Liz Murphy is just the person to fix her up. Actually Liz could probably fix up the church if the old boys would give her a chance. Maybe three or four centuries from now.
Best regards,
Elisabeth
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