This is sick. Sister Joan Chittister, who often makes ridiculous statements, eulogized radical feminist theologian Mary Daly and in doing so writes one of the most disgusting things I’ve read in a while. Sr. Joan compares Daly, who renounced the Catholic faith, to the Virgin Mary.

Chittister wrote in the National Catholic Reporter:

From where I stand, a person’s influence is measured, not so much by virtue of their effect on the institutions that bred them, but by their influence on those who never knew them at all. It is the women who never knew Daly but now know the things she knew that are the real evidence of her legacy, her impact, her meaning not only to this generation but to generations to come. As in “all generations shall call her blessed.”

Yup. She went there.

Daly once compared the Virgin Mary to a “rape victim.” Daly was fired from Boston College for refusing to teach men. Daly was pro-birth control and called abortion a “complex” issue. Daly advocated lesbianism.

And Chittister compares her to the Virgin Mary?

This is disgusting. Has Sr. Joan Chittister no sense of the sacred?

As Carl Olson writes at Ignatius Insight:

…at least Daly had enough integrity to leave the Church. At least she didn’t attack, mock, and undermine Catholic doctrine while living off of the Church. However disgusting her writings are, I don’t think Daly was a hypocrite. And I think its fair to guess she would have hated—truly hated—being eulogized with words meant for the Blessed Virgin. Meanwhile, what does it say about Sister Joan Chittister that she has more respect and admiration for Mary Daly than for Mary, the Mother of our Lord?