The Vatican orthodoxy watchdog announced Wednesday a
full-scale overhaul of the largest umbrella group for nuns in the United States,
accusing the group of taking positions that undermine Roman Catholic teaching
on the priesthood and homosexuality while promoting "certain radical
feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith."
An American archbishop was appointed to oversee reform of the Leadership
Conference of Women Religious, which will include rewriting the group's
statutes, reviewing all its plans and programs -- including approving speakers
-- and ensuring the organization properly follows Catholic prayer and ritual.
The Leadership Conference, based in Silver
Spring, Md.,
represents about 57,000 religious sisters and offers programs ranging from
leadership training for women's religious orders to advocacy on social justice
issues. Representatives of the Leadership Conference did not respond to
requests for comment.
The report from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith said the organization
faced a "grave" doctrinal crisis, in which issues of "crucial
importance" to the church, such as abortion and euthanasia, have been
ignored. Vatican officials also castigated the
group for making some public statements that "disagree with or challenge
positions taken by the bishops," who are the church's authentic teachers
of faith and morals."
Church officials did not cite a specific example of those public statements,
but said the reform would include a review of ties between the Leadership
Conference and NETWORK, a Catholic social justice lobby. NETWORK played a key
role in supporting the Obama administration's health care overhaul despite
the bishops' objections that the bill would provide government funding for
abortion. The Leadership Conference disagreed with the bishops' analysis of the
law and also supported President Barack Obama's plan.
Sister Simone Campbell, executive director of
NETWORK, said in a phone interview that the timing of the report suggested a
link between their health care stand and the Vatican
crackdown. The review began in 2009 and ran through June 2010, a few months
after the health care law was approved. The report does not cite Obama or the
bill.
"I can only infer that there was strong feeling about the health care
position that we had taken," Campbell
said. "Our position on health care was application of the one faith to a
political document that we read differently than the bishops."
When the Vatican-ordered inquiry was initially announced, many religious
sisters and their supporters said the investigation reflected church officials'
misogyny and was an insult to religious sisters, who run hospitals, teach, and
play other vital service roles in the church. Conservative Catholics, however,
have long complained that the majority of sisters in the U.S. have grown
too liberal and flout church teaching.
Around the same time of the doctrinal review of the Leadership Conference, the
Vatican ordered an Apostolic Visitation, or investigation, of all American
congregations for religious sisters, looking at quality of life, the response
to dissent and "the soundness of doctrine held and taught" by the
women. The results of that inquiry have not been released.
The report released Wednesday paints a scathing portrait of the Leadership
Conference of Women's Religious as consistently violating Catholic teaching.
Investigators cited a speech by Sister
Laurie Brink at an annual assembly that argued that religious sisters were
"'moving beyond the church' or even beyond Jesus." Brink is a professor
at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago.
She did not respond to an email request for comment.
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith said the Leadership Conference
had submitted letters that suggest that sisters in leadership teams "collectively
take a position not in agreement with the church's teaching on human
sexuality."
In programs and presentations, investigators noted "a prevalence of
certain radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith."
"Some commentaries on 'patriarchy' distort the way in which Jesus has
structured sacramental life in the church," the authors of the report
wrote. The investigation also found that while the Leadership Conference has
emphasized Catholic social justice doctrine, the group has been "silent on
the right to life from conception to natural death, a question that is part of
the lively public debate about abortion and euthanasia in the United States.
The reform will be managed by Seattle
Archbishop Peter Sartain and could stretch over five years.
Nick Cafardi, a canon lawyer and former dean of Duqesne Law
School, said he has
worked over the years with many nuns and that the description in the report
does not reflect his experience with them. Cafardi is an Obama supporter.
"I don't know any more holy people," Cafardi said of American
religious sisters. "I see a lot more holiness in the convents than I see
in the chancery."
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