A Tale of Two “Sisters”

As much as I dislike placing a blasphemous image of a “Sister of Perpetual Indulgence” (top left) next to a real saintly nun (Sister Mary Wilhelmina Lancaster OSB above to the right) it has to be more than coincidence that the two biggest stories in the US Catholic world this week both have to do with women religious.  The top left is a group of men mocking female-religious in Los Angeles.  The top right is a real Benedictine foundress of a female congregation found incorrupt in Missouri just this week, May 2023.

The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence (SPI henceforth, also top left pic) are a group of men who dress up in the drag of traditional Catholic female religious attire.  Once dressed up as half-nun and half-demon, they mock Our Lord, Our Lady and even sacrilege the Mass in public acts.  Catholic Vote reports that “to join the group, there is a yearlong, four-step process with ranks named ‘Volunteer,’ ‘Postulant,’ ‘Novice Sister,’ and finally ‘Fully Professed (Black Veil).'” This is an obvious mockery of the levels of religious life.  Catholic Vote also reports here that the SPI “donates money to an LA hospital that subjects youth to puberty blockers and ‘transgender’ surgeries.”  

The outrage over this caused the Dodgers removed them from their LGBT lineup.

However, on the 22nd of May 2023, the LA Times later reported, “Less than a week after removing the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence from their lineup, the Dodgers on Monday re-invited the organization to Pride Night amid backlash from LGBTQ+ and civil rights groups as well as local politicians and even Dodgers employees.” The Times then directly quotes the Dodgers’ apology to the hate-group: “The Dodgers would like to offer our sincerest apologies to the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, members of the LGBTQ+ community and their friends and families…We have asked the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence to take their place on the field at our 10th annual LGBTQ+ Pride Night.”

This should have been an “easy-win” for the bishops of the United States to knock out of the park such low-hanging moral fruit by an enormous joint condemnation of public blasphemy, all in defense of the rights of Christ Our Lord.  I would have been the first to get behind the US bishops.  But they tanked their own courage again on this one.

The Archdiocese of Los Angeles’ delayed statement reads: “The decision to honor a group that clearly mocks the Catholic faith and makes light of the sincere and holy vocations of our women religious who are an integral part of our Church is what has caused disappointment, concern, anger, and dismay from our Catholic community. The ministries and vocations of our religious women should be honored and celebrated through genuine acts of appreciation, reverence, and respect for their sacred vows, and for all the good works of our nuns and sisters in service of the mission of the Catholic Church.”

You probably think I’m just looking for reasons to stand against the bishops on this, but it’s just not true.  This time, I was realy hoping to stand behind them (not in front of them) in denouncing the LA Dodgers’ espousing of blasphemy against Jesus and Mary in a public forum at a baseball game.  But the above statement is a total failure.  There’s many reasons to name how weak it is, but the first is theological:  It doesn’t mention God’s rights.  It mentions women’s rights and religious rights and even has a mild reference to “the Catholic Faith.”  

Later it even has the word “Christ” in the statement.  But it does not use the word “blasphemy” or “Jesus” or “Mary” in clear indication for what the SPI does to execute sacrilege against holy things in a public mocking of God-Himself.   Nor does the above statement name what the potential eternal consequences would be for, say, the CEO or CFO of the Dodgers in supporting that God-mocking and hate-group of SPI.  Such a warning about hell would have been standard issue for all of Church history from even a shy and meek Archbishop.  And yes, that is charity, and yes, that is mercy.

And yes, I am aware how many modern heretics now say sassy things like, “God can take care of his own rights.”  But you never would have heard an old-school saint say something like that.  Why?  Because they actually loved God more than themselves back then.

Notice that this isn’t me calling out the Archdiocese of Los Angeles for semantics or not having some type of antiquated way of writing in Old English or enough Thomistic quotes.  Rather, consider this:  For 19 of our 20 centuries of Catholic history, it was first the rights of Christ the King that were defended by any bishop (who was even mildly worth his salt) if Christ was publicly mocked.  Think about that:  For 19 of 20 centuries of the Church, a public act of blasphemy mocking either the Mass or female religious from anti-Catholics would have first been called out by even a lukewarm bishop as an act of blasphemy against Jesus Christ Himself.  Not against women, not against religious.  Not even against the Catholic faith.  Against God Himself.  But there is no mention of the rights of God being violated in the statement from the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.  Just some hand-wringing and self-centered whining that we Catholics could also use a little “appreciation, reverence, and respect.”   Oh, and then we read how much social justice the real nuns of Los Angeles do—the very thing that the Dodgers say the SPI is so good at!

No wonder the leftists walk all over us.  We don’t have a fraction of the courage in spreading our message of God that that Satanists do in spreading the message of the SPI.  But such is the heresy of modernism that has influenced the clergy:  The total inversion of the rights of man with the rights of God, making this last century of Catholics focusing on the rights of man completely different from Catholics in the previous 19 centuries focusing on the rights of God.  This isn’t a stylistic difference I have with the statement of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.  It’s fundamentally a question on if we will stand with the Sovereign rights of Christ the King over every square inch of this country, or if we are going to simply say that maybe our Catholic nuns too deserve a bit of  “appreciation, reverence, and respect.”  It’s absolutely preposterous that bishops gently request “reverence” from a bigoted anti-Catholic hate-group like SPI.

All the while, traditional Catholics are told they are “racist” and “exclusionary.”  Yet, this week, God vindicates us by sending an African-American nun who is incorrupt and who worshipped at the TLM.  (Incorrupt means someone’s body was miraculously found to not corrupt years after death.  TLM means “Traditional Latin Mass.”)  What’s more for this vindication is that this incorrupt African-American Benedictine by the name of Sr. Sister Wilhelmina Lancaster once refused to take off the traditional habit (religious garb indicating her as consecrated to God) when her original progressive community “reformed” into “updated habits.”  

Founding a new community in Missouri, she not only worshipped at the TLM, but loved the TLM as the center of the foundation of her new community.   This week, countless pilgrims flocked to her recently-exhumed body.

It is hardly racist to have the incorrupt body of an African-American saint on display for all to see.  It is hardly exclusionary for a cloistered Latin-Mass Benedictine monastery to have open-doors to the Catholic and non-Catholic public to honor.  Also, God’s narrative here seems to fly in the face of the entire lie that the LA Dodgers were “inclusive” to include men in drag mocking the Catholic Faith.  

I don’t know how to explain how God’s permissive has allowed the blasphemous SBI to exist.  I also don’t know how to explain God’s unfathomably beautiful positive will that inspired the finding of the incorrupt body of traditional Sister Mary Wilhelmina in 2023.  But that both of these happened to women religious in the same week in the United States seems like God’s Providence and even a vindication of tradition to me.

The two immediately-above pictures are courtesy of @ravenousreader aka Mother of Wildings on Twitter.