They don’t care about my 350,000 readers and skyrocketing voice. They don’t care about our 2 Ps in a Pod blog resonating loudly with readers — which was happening according to Bro Dennis. He was so upset I don’t know exactly what was said about me, but it was so awful that he couldn’t share the words, only that we must end our relationship. Beyond that I haven’t heard from him or any of the other folks at Easeamine, including the man who asked me to get involved. —- Anne

Image by Christian WeissResponding to Righteous Minded Disrepect by Lisa Catherine Brown

The posts between you and Bro. Dennis were very raw and personal. I had originally planned to join the conversation but as it unfolded I felt I was an intruder into a terrain of mindscapes that I could not traverse.

To Anne and Brother Dennis: I appreciate the 2PeasInaPod attempts to bridge a huge gap. It is dialogue sorely missing and needed in today’s world. The facts show us that religious institutions are losing their sheep in America and without conversation the bleed will continue. Pew Forum research tells us that we now have 22-million ex-Catholics, however according to The National Catholic Reporter retention remains “at roughly a quarter of the national population, thanks largely to Hispanic immigration and higher-than-average birth rates among Hispanic Catholics.” And, thanks to missionary programs, Catholicism is growing in other areas around the globe.

I am sorry, Anne. The Catholic hierarchy does seem to be leading the charge against women. I cannot believe any woman of sound mind and strong heart would support and condone the attacks. It seems America is now ground zero for the Vatican strategy to bring the world’s Catholic-born populous back into their fold.

Redemption is Necessary

The realities of the unimaginable widespread pedophilia among priests, alienation and condemnation of homosexuality, financial corruption and greed are globally condemned by the church and yet relatively unaddressed in consequence and conscience by the Hierarchy. The great diversion for these transgressions can be sourced from another angle – one that removes responsibility and attention from the Vatican man-boy club. We, the wanton hussy whores need to fall in line to allow the patriarchal rule to right itself.

I am not Catholic so am in a difficult place to understand and opine on the innards of this beast. I try very hard to respect religious belief systems as long as people are better off within them. It is not what I see happening in current events.

This Pontifically-led charge is feeding into the fears of the fundamentally religious righteous across the nation, no matter what they call their faith. Subjugating patriarchal rule over women’s bodies is a rampant desire for many powerful men – a move to quell dissonance among the masses. Pun not intended.

I am, like you Anne, completely baffled by women who march by these orders and not on the steps of our capitols in protest of Catholicism’s determination to control every aspect of American women’s reproductive health, regardless of her denomination.

Is this the worst time of all times?

In my opinion, the Catholic hierarchy has been corrupt since it’s beginning, continuing it’s spiral downward in purposes of greed, power, and protection of that very corruption. To declare infallibility in creating doctrine is a slippery slope. The same slope American conservative constitution nationalists find themselves on.

Today you posted news of American presidential candidate Rick Santorum’s tight embrace of the Legionairies of Christ and his role as a leader of laymen’s Regnum Christi. You wrote:

The Legionaries was formed in 1941 and became one of the most influential and fastest-growing orders in the Roman Catholic Church. Pope John Paul II championed the group, which became known for its orthodox theology, military-style discipline, fundraising prowess and success recruiting priests at a time when seminary enrollment was generally dismal. via AP

Anne, not only do the Legionaries sound absolutely fascist, but they were bound not to reveal any information about the rampant sexually abusive, double life of its founder Rev Marciel Macial, a man Rick Santorum worshipped. This is Santorum’s vision for America?

I recently read a story about a lesbian who was refused communion at her mother’s funeral. It seems no time or place is sacred enough to degrade, deny or denounce those deemed ungodly by Vatican terms. Apologies from the Archdiocese of Washington followed but how many apologies and excuses do good men and women have to make on behalf of the deluded?

For every self-righteous priest and Rush Limbaugh that we protest and reprimand, another is waiting to put women in their place. The evil coming from the religious righteous is stunning, outrageous and completely unrecognizable as Christian to me. Frankly, these men are scaring me to death.

We ‘met’ first on Facebook this time last year when South Dakota introduced a law that made it justifiable homicide for a man to kill his wife if she was assisting her daughter to obtain an abortion. You were writing fast and furious to keep up with the legislations that were around every state capitol corner! You graciously invited me to write candidly along with you. I did and we met and protested in Washington DC together. That first piece I wrote for AOC is still one of my favorites but I would have hoped we wouldn’t be back at it a year later!

Image by Christian WeissPersonally speaking

My grandfather was a Moravian minister. Not many are aware that the Moravians left the Roman Catholic fold many years before Martin Luther and that the Bohemian Brethren is the first true Protestant Church. The first reformer, John Huss, was burned at the stake as a heretic.

I was raised attending First Presbyterian Church as we did not live in an area with a Moravian Church. My grandparents were missionaries in then Czechoslovakia and the Caribbean island of St. Thomas. My verbally and physically abusive mother is still to this day devoutly exempt from her own transgressions while her children were bruised and traumatized.

I was nine when I had the idea that I was a pagan. I asked too many questions and one Sunday school teacher even labeled me a doubting Thomas. It took me many years to leave Christianity for all its hypocrisies. It has taken me longer to break from most of my family of origin for the same reasons.

You cannot remain faithful to a dogmatic religious belief system without giving up complete autonomy of your own inner compass. You cannot give up your inner moral compass to embrace that which is in direct conflict to your value system.

You cannot claim to serve a compassionate God and act without humanitarian qualities and behavior.

Tabula Rasa by Christian WiessWho needs a burqua when habits are what we should strive for?

Anne, I cannot speak to why reasonable, loving response is not forthcoming from the board and church that has labeled your character as wanton, rejected your desire for dialogue and understanding and then remanded a kindred spirit for their own blatantly biased perceptions. I personally know how deeply you agonized over the assaults against your character and alleged lack of a moral compass.

I can only say that these are the same ilk of people who are leading the charge against women’s reproductive health rights. The same kind who donate and support lobby campaigns to our lawmakers to write bills that will deny contraceptive health coverage, insert vaginal probes to women seeking abortions, and defund Planned Parenthood. The same orthodox crowd protests the superiority of their religion while denying validity to other denominations. The same hypocrites cry foul of the treatment of women in other countries and of different faiths, while denying condoms to women with AIDS-infected husbands in Africa.

Anne, these people seek to create a theocracy in America. Candidate Rick Santorum has made this clear to all American women. Catholic bishops have also made their intentions clear regarding the abrogation of vast rights won by American women since the 1970s.

The Attic by Christian WeissI, too, live my life with self awareness and accept complete and full responsibility for my own actions, thoughts, and beliefs. I come by who I am very honestly. I, too, refuse the hypocrisy of ignoring suffering and the denial of equality and justice while clinging to a righteous, fearful but loving and forgiving God. I didn’t hang Jesus on the cross and neither did my sisters. I refuse to be the punching bag for men who behave badly. I am whore. I am slut. I am godless.

Well, guess what? I am brave. I am strong. I am warrior. I am also sad to my core that the beauty of mystical spirit is damned by men to be an eternal hell on earth. We’ve got each others’ backs on this.

Anne, dear, knowing you as I do, I’m sorry that you suffered so deeply at the hands of the folks at Easeamine. Yes, I will be the good woman who apologizes for the boys club investors deplorable treatment of you. To put you through emotional and psychological pain and not have the courtesy to see how you were handling the situation after having Brother Dennis give you a final phone call - himself not being able to tell you all of the unspeakable words these men were saying about you - is just damn hard to believe.

Your readers know that you don’t deserve this condemnation, Anne. You have asked us not to feel vengeful toward the folks at Easeamine for their treatment of you - but if this is how they feel and treat women the hell will freeze over before I ever buy a jar of their skin cream!

Anne of Carversville called out Rush Limbaugh loud and clear insisting that ProFlowers drop their sponsorship of his show. We’ve heard enough of his insanity calling modern women with brains “sluts” and “whores”. You won that battle this afternoon, Anne. We all won against Rush.

So forgive me for going against your wishes, but I am appalled that Easeamine embraces this same vision of women and calling it out. I am furious that you weren’t even worth a phone call from men who recruited you after you repeatedly expressed your concerns about how you would be received as they pursued an association with you. I have a long memory, Anne.

“We’ve got your back, Anne. Love you like a sister,” they said. Right. When I say it, I mean it. Men are so expedient with words when necessary. It’s just another boys club seduction, my dear friend. This is how they’ve worked the world to get what they want out of women — for centuries. Lisa

Image by Christian Weiss

Anne of Carversville

Anne of Carversville

Women In-Depth

Anne of Carversville

Anne of Carversville