Fr. Richard McBrien upset over Vatican Appointee

The Vatican yesterday tapped Mary Ann Glendon, a Harvard Law School professor who has been the leading legal expert for gay-marriage opponents on Beacon Hill, as the highest-ranking female adviser in the Catholic Church.

Pope John Paul II chose Glendon to lead the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, which produces research to help the church establish its social policy. Glendon, a devout Catholic and longtime adviser to the pope, has made a name for herself as an articulate antiabortion scholar, and she was the first woman to lead a delegation of the Holy See, at the United Nations Women's Conference in Beijing in 1995.

But the Rev. Richard McBrien, a Notre Dame theologian, compared Glendon's selection to that of Clarence Thomas to the US Supreme Court. His conservative views have been sharply criticized by fellow blacks, and Glendon's views, he said, are also extreme and out of step with the constituency she is supposed to represent.

"Catholic women who know her would not see her as one of their own and would not see her as evidence of the Vatican's commitment to place women in high positions of visibility," McBrien said.

The full article can be found here.

And this coming from a man who claiming to be a priest and a theologian. Prayers and penances are needed for the conversion of his heart. Prayers are also needed for Mary Ann Glendon as she, no doubt, is subjected to more persecution from people such as Fr. McBrien.