Tom Shepstone
Natural Gas NOW
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Some nuns from Lancaster County are engaging in a pipeline stunt to register opposition to the Atlantic Sunrise. This sister act is anything but funny.
A group of nuns who own and run a continuing care community in Lancaster County are engaged in a bit of a sister act but it’s anything but funny. Known as the Adorers of the Blood of Christ, the nuns are engaged in a number of good works, including the operation of St. Anne’s Retirement Community near Columbia, Pennsylvania, along the route of the Atlantic Sunrise pipeline. Like several other religious orders connected with my Catholic faith, though, this one has also signed onto every politically trendy cause imaginable. It has also, sadly, allowed itself to be used as a fractivist tool by the radical Lancaster Against Pipelines group for purposes of a pipeline stunt.
The “chapel” – an arbor, a table and some picnic table benches. Photo from empathetic Lancaster Online article.
Pennsylvania Real-Rime News reports the following:
A dedication for a new outdoor prayer chapel on the land belonging to a group of Lancaster County nuns is set for Sunday…
Lancaster Against Pipelines built the outdoor chapel right in the middle of the path of a proposed pipeline – and at the center of a court battle, too.
Part of the Atlantic Sunrise pipeline is planned to go through the property of The Adorers of the Blood of Christ, an international order of Catholic women.
In a press release issued today, the sisters and Lancaster Against Pipelines indicated they will hold a dedication ceremony for the prayer chapel at 2 p.m. Sunday at 3939 Laurel Run, Columbia…
The sisters say the pipeline is a violation of their commitment to the environment, in which they are called to “respect our interconnectedness and oneness with creation” and to “revere Earth as a sanctuary where all life is protected,” according to the press release.
Lancaster Against Pipelines plans to hold a prayer vigil there when construction begins.
Did Mark Clatterbuck, the New Jersey religion professor who is the spark plug of Lancaster Against Pipelines, have a role in this? Whether he did or didn’t doesn’t matter all that much, the sisters having given every indication they’re only too happy to be used as to pull off a pipeline stunt. Indeed, tax records show they have nearly 80 acres of land, Choosing to locate their “chapel” on the pipeline route is obviously intended to create a scene and get empathetic reporters to write up one story after another about the cruelty of disturbing a prayer site that could have gone in any number of other places on the sisters’ property. It suggest politics, not prayer, is the purpose of this pipeline stunt.
Unfortunately for them, the good sisters didn’t really think this one through that carefully. If they had, someone among the group of nuns might have turned their mind to a very simple fact that makes a mockery of this pipeline stunt; St. Anne’s Retirement Community is a natural gas user and promoter. A visit to their Cottage Homes page reveals this (arrow added):
Yes, the nuns protesting the Atlantic Sunrise pipeline that will bring natural gas to heat others’ homes brag about the natural gas that heats their own. Perhaps, as they consider “our interconnectedness” they ought to start with that fact. Perhaps, they should just stick to what they apparently do well in providing compassionate life care for human beings. Our lives matter, too, after all. A real sister act would reflect that.
One might think that a call or email to religious folks saying something like “the activists you are associating with or learning from are lying or misinforming people or involved in promoting a conspiracy theory or behaving extremely unethically” might have some effect but in my experience you would be wrong.
I cannot just off the top of my head recall just how many organizations or people including religious groups or ones with ethical in their name I have contacted over the years now essentially saying this and it has had no impact as far as I can tell.
http://mashable.com/2017/07/07/lamar-smith-wants-investigation-russia-fracking.amp
Does it get more entertaining than the nuns on the one hand and then Lamar Smith thinking the antifracking pipeline resistance movement is a Russian plot on the other hand? One wonders if it was a Russian arrested in a natural gas pipeline ditch or Al gores daughter karenna last year? One wonders if Robert Kennedy jr who calls the ferc a rogue agency and natural gas a catastrophe is american or Russian? The best part or that mashable article was the Sierra club woman acting as if the Sierra clubs longevity as an organization actually implied that they are credible on fracking. They aren’t. See Roger downs, Carl Arnold and others in NY State or Jeff tittell in NJ for example. Or Michal brune for that matter.
Clowns to the left and clowns to the right as far as the eye can see.
Hey was Greenpeace involved in a protest stunt today? What’s their energy policy? Getting arrested? Publishing propaganda?
for people of faith to have a political view is one thing,to wield tangible tax exempt property to further that agenda is getting dicey.
One of the sisters wrote a blog post in March titled, “Check Your Sources: The Scripture.” Apparently, they don’t take their own advice…“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness.” (Matthew 23:27)
If you believe in the End Times, Jesus said there would be many deceivers. Much of the church would be false. Sadly, this is another proof of this.
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Note The Nun’s are not the only hypocrites. The Holleran’s Sugarhouse, is the focal point for both the “Sugar Shack Alliance” and the “Pancakes not Pipelines” protest groups. If you look carefully at the photographs of the Holleran Sugarhouse, you will see that the Holleran’s uses propane to fire the evaporation pans in their sugarhouse.
PS: That looks alot better with one less “Their” in it.