The Church and the Sisters: What Is Really Happening?

Catholic World Report ^ | 4/26/12 | Ann Carey

[marshmallow]

The standard media account about the CDF and LCWR lacks essential information and historical background

From the moment the United States Bishops announced on April 18 that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) had issued a document ordering a supervised renewal of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), confusion and misinformation about the initiative have run rampant.

Sensational headlines have appeared, such as: “Nuns Gone Wild! Vatican Chastises American Sisters” (Daily Beast, April 20), “Vatican waging a war on nuns” (Chicago Sun Times, April 20) and “Guess Who the Vatican Is Picking on Now …” (Philly Post, April 23).

The common theme in most media reports about the CDF initiative, as these headlines suggest, is that out-of-touch men in the Vatican are unfairly criticizing the most faithful and hard-working members of the Church—the sisters. So, is this really the case? Hardly.

On page one of the eight-page CDF document, the accomplishments of women religious are cited and praised: “The Holy See acknowledges with gratitude the great contribution of women Religious to the Church in the United States … .”

However, the document goes on to point out that vowed religious are much more than social workers: they are consecrated persons who have a special place in the Church that must be marked by a strong faith and allegiance to Church authority. The LCWR, it continued, has shown a “diminution of the fundamental Christological center and focus of religious consecration which leads, in turn, to a loss of a ‘constant and lively sense of the Church’ among some religious.”

Additionally, the CDF document emphasizes that the initiative is addressed only to the LCWR, a 1,500-member organization to which many leaders of women’s religious orders belong. The initiative is not directed to the other 54,000 sisters in the United.....

[OneWingedShark]

the document goes on to point out that vowed religious are much more than social workers:

This is good, very good.
The problem with concentrating on social aspects [alone] is that it is that is nothing less than concentrating on the symptoms rather than the cause. Much of America's [and indeed the world's] societal ills is nothing other than than a deficiency in love, this is why again and again the New Testament says to love.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Good comment.

[A.A. Cunningham]

There’s a deficiency in appropriate love. Too much love of self not enough love of others.

[OneWingedShark]

There’s a deficiency in appropriate love. Too much love of self not enough love of others.

True; but there's still a deficiency of love: see the underlined portion.
And, it may be that the love of self is not in itself bad; after all, the second great commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself.

And if we humans are made in God's own image then we should consider this: the Father loves the Son, and the Son loves the Father, therefore God loves God.
And if that be the case, then there is some reason for us to love ourselves, no? (Indeed, that other men are created in God's image ought to be enough to love them; how then can we be told that we, also in God's image, ought to have no love for ourselves?)

[RobbyS]

The notion that the true mission of the Church is social work become prevalent among liberal Catholics in the ‘60s. Many of the religious and secular priests left the Church and married, thinking of social work as a more virtuous line of work than “dispensing” the Sacraments. Many who remained decided to reshape the Church to fit their new consciousness.

[Salvation]

The Church and the Sisters: What Is Really Happening?
Media and Nuns Colluding in Deception, Says Expert: Vatican’s Reform no David and Goliath Battle
The Real Shock...
A Catholic ‘war on women’ {Barf alert/liberal tripe}
The Vatican and the Sisters
The Vatican and the Sisters
NPR Offers Air to Catholic Sister to Diss Pope, Bishops: 'Women Get It First Then Explain to Guys'

Important Background Information About the CDF-LCWR Situation
Nuns Gone Wild: A Trip Down Memory Lane
Exhibit A for Explaining the LCWR Report
Vatican Crackdown on U.S. Nuns a Long Time Brewing
LCWR: getting to the truth of the matter (the blogosphere response to CDF document)
Radical feminist nuns’ group ‘stunned’ by Vatican criticisms, reform plan
Vatican announces reform of US women's religious conference (more details)
Citing doctrinal problems, Vatican announces reforms of US nuns' group
In hard-hitting document Vatican launches clean-up of feminist nuns in United States
LCWR Having a Bad Day. Vatican Names Archbishop Delegate to Continue Watching LCWR and Network