LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY ex_nyxluna594)

Religions have some repenting to do
By Joan Chittister,OSB

It seems that every day the Bangkok Post is full of grisly stories about the indiscriminate massacre of women: women raped at random by roving gangs of men; women trafficked from one country to another under the guise of "educational opportunities"; women picked up and thrown into crocodile-infested rivers by one man to humiliate another. In fact, the major papers of the United States are full of the same things. Too many to report, in fact. Too many to name. Clearly, a veritable war against women rages in this world.

But no presidents I know, few priests anywhere, no major institutions seem to understand this kind of terrorism. Nor to be the least bit concerned about it.

They don't bomb anybody to stop it. They don't warn against its "imminent danger" to the quality of civilization. They don't post the number of women killed daily worldwide by the men who pledge to protect them. They don't even worry about the lack of integrity such behavior reflects on their vaunted religious traditions.

But all women do. And some few men whose moral and spiritual sensitivities have begun to transcend the level of the cultures -- and religions -- around them. In them may lie the hope of the world. "Of all acts of man, repentance is most divine," Thomas Carlyle says, "The greatest of all faults is to be conscious of none."
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