Vatican Crackdown on U.S. Nuns a Long Time Brewing

Reuters ^ | 4/20/12 | Stephanie Simon

[marshmallow]

(Reuters) - When Pope John Paul II arrived in the United States in 1979, the president of the nation's most powerful organization of nuns met him with a challenge. In a bold welcoming address, Sister Theresa Kane called on the pope to include women "in all ministries of our church," including the priesthood. The pope sat silent, his expression stony.

That moment did not change Vatican policy.

But it unveiled growing tensions between the Vatican and American nuns. The conflict would continue to mount for the next three decades, until this week the Vatican finally moved to reassert control over the aging but still ferociously independent conference of Catholic sisters.

In a stinging "doctrinal assessment," the Vatican accused the Leadership Conference of Women Religious - an umbrella group representing most American nuns - of numerous grave breaches of doctrine and decorum.

The report, four years in the making, found that the nuns promoted political views at odds with those expressed by U.S. Roman Catholic bishops, "who are the church's authentic teachers of faith and morals." The Vatican chastised the nuns for airing discussions about the ordination of women, the church patriarchy and ministry to gay people.

The Vatican also rebuked the nuns for spending too much time "promoting issues of social justice" while failing to speak out often enough about "issues of crucial importance to the life of the church and society," such as abortion and gay marriage.

Determined to cleanse the sisterhood of "radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith," the Vatican appointed Archbishop J. Peter Sartain of Seattle to effectively take control of the Leadership Conference, rewriting its statutes, supervising its meetings, and investigating its relationships with politically active groups.

Officials of the nuns' leadership conference said they were "stunned" by the crackdown. But Catholics who have........

[Mrs. Don-o]

I think you mean Emma Goldman?

[Mrs. Don-o]

bttt

[RobbyS]

Yes.