Content
Skip to Main ContentAccessibility Help
The Current

What women can teach the Church

With the Cardinals cloistered in the Sistine Chapel, the debate far from Vatican City among the faithful but skeptical is not Who should be Pope but what change a new Pope might bring. Today, we hear from an activist nun who argues the Cardinals should take their cues from the Nuns....
CBC Radio ·
With the Cardinals cloistered in the Sistine Chapel, the debate far from Vatican City among the faithful but skeptical is not Who should be Pope but what change a new Pope might bring. Today, we hear from an activist nun who argues the Cardinals should take their cues from the Nuns.


Panel: Sister Joan Chittister / Reverend Paul Sullins

Yesterday, Vatican staff were sworn to secrecy ... promising to remain silent through the course of the selection of a new Pope. With the Papal Conclave today, 115 Cardinals close themselves off from the world until they have a new Pope.

There has been much discussion about the direction the Church needs to go, and Sister Joan Chittister has been very clear in her views. She believes the Catholic church needs to modernize and to connect with the world around it. And she thinks Catholic nuns like herself have a great deal to teach the Church about how to do that.

Sister Joan Chittister is the founder of The Global Peace Initiative of Women. She was in Dublin, Ireland.

And Reverend Paul Sullins is a professor of sociology at the Catholic University of America. He was at his home just outside of Washington, DC.

This segment was produced by The Current's Lara O'Brien, Idella Sturino and Naheed Mustafa.

Mail: Shift Work & Child Care

Yesterday, we looked at Fiona Johnstone's bid to get her employer to make allowances for her child-care obligations. She's a customs agent with the Canadian Borders Services Agency and she asked for a consistent shift rather than a rotating schedule. Her case has now gone all the way to the federal court of appeal. And it has sparked a heated debate about what employers owe to their employees.

Olga Favreau of Montreal writes:

Those who argue against accommodation - claiming that to have children is a lifestyle choice - seem not to have considered what would ultimately become of society if everybody chose not to have children. They should be grateful to those of us who do choose to have children.

And here are a few tweets on the subject. This one from Heidi Groot:

Feeling pity for the wife of the guest who said: "raising children is a lifestyle choice." Shame on him.

Crystal Folkins tweets this:

As a mum with a one year old, it's my responsibility to find childcare when I work, not the other way around. Kids aren't the employer's responsibility.

And Amanda Seabrooke offers this comment:

Mr Gurney's opinions seem to be coming from the many layers of privilege he is lucky to have as a white male with a stable job.

Thanks as always for your thoughts. To add your view, tweet us @thecurrentcbc. Or on Facebook. Or email us from our website. And if you missed the conversation on yesterday's edition of The Current, you can hear it on our podcast.


Other segments from today's show:

Could an accidental war between N. Korea & S. Korea/U.S break out?

The ethics of uterus transplants and doctor-assisted pregnancy

More from this episode