Sunday, October 7, 2012

Old Boys Club lets Hildegard in

Hooray!

The Roman Catholic Church has finally decided to honor Hildegard of Bingen (born 1098, died 1179 CE) as a Doctor of the Church.

It only took nine centuries for the old boys club to let her join. 

As of today, October 7, 2012, she is officially a learned one and teacher (doctor in that sense--not a medical doctor, though she made contributions to medicine as well as to theology, art, music, and politics).

Thank you to Letha Dawson Scanzoni for calling this to my attention via the EEWC-CFT website, www.eewc.com.

Letha recommends this blog discussion on the National Catholic Reporter website:

http://www.ncregister.com/blog/jimmy-akin/newest-doctor-of-the-church-her-visions-her-writings-and-her-secret-languag/

Hildegard was the abbess of a double monastery--one for women and another for priests and men to assist the nuns.  For example, they needed men to celebrate Mass--women were not allowed to be priests.

What I like best about Hildegard are two things:

1) She defended her deciison to bury a perhaps-wayward monk in the churchground of her monastery, though the local bishop wanted him moved out.

2)  She corresponded with popes, trying to get them to live up to the message and example of Jesus.  There was a lot of papal corruption in the 12th century. 

This is one giant step forward for womankind.  Perhaps the RCC will let women join their most exclusive club--the priesthood--one of these years.

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