Wednesday, March 09, 2005
WELL DUH
ABC Radio National The Religion Report
David Rutledge: Welcome to the program.
This week we’re talking with two distinguished international guests, one of whom is the American author and Kabbalah scholar, Rabbi David Cooper, and we’ll be hearing from him a little later in the program.
The other guest is a pioneer in the study of women and religion. Her name is Dr Carol Christ; she’s originally from the US, having taught at Harvard Divinity School and Columbia University. But these days she lives in Greece, where she’s Director of the Ariadne Institute for Myth and Ritual. Carol Christ’s first book Womanspirit Rising , was a key text in the emerging field of feminist theology in the late 1970s, and since then she’s been a leading writer and teacher on ancient traditions of goddess religion.
And if you thought that feminist theology in the 21st century had lost its power to confront, then you’d be sadly mistaken. Carol Christ was scheduled to give a lecture this Saturday evening in Sydney, at Santa Sabina College in Strathfield, that’s run by the Dominican Sisters. But it turns out that she was too hot to handle. Early this week, the College was contacted by the Catholic Auxiliary Bishop of Sydney, Julian Porteous. He’d been asked by Cardinal George Pell to inquire into the nature of the lecture being given at Santa Sabina. A statement released by the Bishop said that ‘following an enquiry from myself on behalf of the Archdiocese, the Dominican Sisters decided it would be inappropriate for a talking promoting Goddess worship and Pagan spiritualities … to be held in a Catholic venue.’ The Dominican Sisters were unavailable for comment, and Cardinal Pell is currently in Rome.
You'd think making this decision wouldn't require the involvement of the Bishop, but obviously the Dominicans just don't get the strange god picture. I suspect the average 7-year-old from an Orthodox Catholic home could explain it to them.
Sad.
