Women's eNews (https://womensenews.org/author/claire-bushey/)
The cougar craze–of media interest in women with younger men–boasts a gallery of celebrities, books, TV shows, movies and mixed feelings. But in plenty of couples the dynamic is simple: He just happens to be younger.
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Female Catholic priests, deemed excommunicate by Rome, buried two of their own this month, neither one in a Catholic cemetery. “They threw us away,” says a surviving member of Roman Catholic Womenpriests, which marked its first deaths.
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The Vatican’s investigation of U.S. nuns is expected to be completed in 2011. Many think the probe amounts to an examination of the initiatives of the 1960s that revolutionized the life of nuns, allowing many to leave convents and pursue careers.
Catholic reformers hope to restore passages praising Mary and other biblical women to the lectionary used in Sunday Mass. A Vatican synod in October called for a review, providing them hope that women may gain a bigger role in church teachings.
A group of economists in mid-October gave McCain a D, Obama a B, on 10 economic issues of critical importance to women. Meanwhile, the gender gap in the presidential race expanded while the economy contracted.
Efforts to collect back child support from parents were ramped up over the last decade, hauling in $25 billion last year, but budget cutbacks are now hampering enforcement. Restored funding is part of Obama’s campaign platform for healthy families.
Dec. 2 marks the first Sunday of Advent, the start of the Catholic liturgical calendar and a season of waiting. But some are tired of waiting for a democratic church and they are preparing for Christmas in house gatherings and breakaway parishes.
Two Roman Catholic women were just ordained in Minneapolis, joining a roster that is condemned by Rome. On another front, advocates who prefer to engage the Vatican on female ordination pursue a “Ministry of Irritation.”
A Delaware clerk of the peace is happy that his days of performing wedding ceremonies for underage, pregnant brides will soon be over. But a number of other states still have marriage provisions that conflict with their own laws on statutory rape.