LCWR: getting to the truth of the matter (the blogosphere response to CDF document)

hancaquam ^ | April 20,

[NYer]

Reactions to the CDF's assessment of the LCWR are flooding the Catholic blogosphere.  

So far, 99% of these reactions have been predictably supportive of either the Left's narrative of Hierarchical Males Oppress the Alternative Spiritualities of Women or the Right's narrative of Holy Mother Church Finally Punishes Naughty Daughters.

There have been a few reactions that hit closer to the truth of the matter.

Tom McDonald makes a point that needs to be repeated like the "Hail Mary":

The LCWR is a toxic organization that has slowly poisoned the church since the 1970s. . .They do not represent the 60,000+ women’s religious of America, but rather a small, elite cadre of left-leaning leaders who openly break with the church. Many orders belong to the LCWR merely out of habit (so to speak), but feel as though they have no voice in the organization. They largely ignore them as a noisy embarrassment.

My own experiences with sisters/nuns in the last 12 yrs. bear this out.  Frequently, I've been told by religious women that the LCWR-types run roughshod over their member congregations and cause  problems with the clergy and donors.  Many lament the decline of their congregations and point directly to the radical feminist agenda of the national leadership as the primary cause.  My sense of things is that most sisters just ignore the nonsense and get on with their ministries. 

The Always Worthy Anchoress runs her horse outside the track:

People wondering what “side” I am on should know that I distrust any story that runs on the cheap and inefficient fuel of emotionalism; they generally become all about sound, fury and heat and once that happens, the realities become victims to the distortions of agenda. My thoughts are not in tune with either “side". . .I know many “sisters in pantsuits with bad haircuts” who have lived out their lives of faith and service, and their vows, like a poured out libation; their gentleness and generosity of spirit would shame some of their most vociferous critics, should they actually meet up. Often they are besmirched, dismissed and ridiculed as “hippie nuns” (and worse) by people for whom the only good nun is a habited nun

Again, this lines up perfectly with my own experiences as a religious.  Most of the sisters I know are not in habit and most are fiercely dedicated to the Church.  We have a saying in the Order, "The habit does not make the friar."  There's nothing magical about the habit.  Yes, it is a good thing to wear the habit.  I wear mine most of the time.  On the flip side, the uncritical rejection of the habit by some sisters and their nearly demonic revulsion of those who wear one is scandalous. We cannot assume that the presence/absence of a religious habit tells us much of anything about the person.  How many lay people wear crosses and never give a thought to what it represents?  

Just to be clear about all this:  the LCWR needed to be investigated and it needs to be radically reformed if not outright disbanded.  The poison of the LCWR is pervasive and potentially deadly for some in the Church.  They have led many astray and need to face the Church's judgment.  However, none of us can or should assume that all sisters whose congregations belong to the LCWR have been tainted with their New Agey nonsense.  The self-anointed prophetesses of the LCWR are outliers, powerful outliers but nonetheless unrepresentative of the average American religious sister.

Pray for the sisters who labor under the LCWR-types and do NOT add to their burden by loading them up with scorn. 

[NYer]

Ping!

[JudgemAll]

YEp, it is typical for those who have terminal hate and condemnation in their heart to be paranoiac about punishment for immoral behavior.

[AnAmericanMother]

This makes a good point.

One of the problems with leadership in almost any group -- whether it's a homeowners' association, a dancing club, or an umbrella organization for women religious -- is that the really good people, the ones who are actually doing the bulk of the work, are far too busy to take on a leadership role.

So leadership falls to the obnoxious, the discontented, and the disobedient. They want the job for all the wrong reasons -- to feel important, to throw their weight around, to "change" things to their personal whims.

With that said, though, there comes a point when the hardworking sisters in these orders have to wake up and realize that their "leadership" has strayed far, far away from Catholicism. Sometimes, even if you're busy, you have to get organized and take out the trash. Because otherwise, at some point, you will be held responsible for failing to keep an eye on the leadership.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

I get the gist but I didn’t learn from the excerpt what either LCWR or CDF stand for.

[AnAmericanMother]

The first is the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (that's the bad guys).

The second is the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (that's the good guys).

[Mrs. Don-o]

LCWR = Leadership Conference of Women Religious. It is an elected canonical organization of U.S. sisters and nuns. As an "elected" council it does represent voting-sister-members; as a "canonical" organization it can be disbanded at any time if it doesn't further the mission of the Church.

CDF = Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. It is the top Vatican doctrine unit, appointed by the Pope and answerable to him.

I hope people are praying for Abp Sartain. He's going to have to figure out how to get rid of the "we're beyond the Church, we're beyond Jesus" faction which,unfortunately, has had an awful lot of political power within the LCWR for decades.

I think it's the all-too-common situation where the power-hungriest individuals who have the greatest drive for position, prestige, etc. are the very ones who shouldn't have it. You see it in worldly politics all the time; and too many of the feminists at the top of LCWR are almost a caricature of worldly politics.

They're already going to their media allies to portray this in the most distorted and divisive partisan terms. I'd bet money they'd also try to get civil courts involved somehow, though I don't know if there even remotely exists a civil peg to hang a case on.