Posted on 04/27/2012 2:42:55 PM PDT by NYer
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, led by U.S. Cardinal William Levada, has asked for a deep reform of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), the organisation which represents the majority of religious women’s orders in the United States. The request for the reform came after the conclusions of an inquiry showed that ““the current doctrinal and pastoral situation of the LCWR is grave and a matter of serious concern.” The Congregation concluded that an intervention from the Vatican was necessary to reform the group. The Archbishop of Seattle, Peter Sartain, was chosen as the Vatican delegate to supervise the reform process. The leader of the LCWR will have to assist in reviewing the group’s statutes, plan programmes, review liturgical texts and reconsider the group’s affiliations to other organisations.
The Congregation’s declaration based on the results of an apostolic visit by the Bishop of Toledo, Ohio, Leonard Blaire, revealed "serious doctrinal problems which affect many in consecrated life." According to the Congregation of the Doctrine for the Faith, many American nuns have drifted away from “the fundamental Christological centre and focus of religious consecration.” One of the more serious accusations was that nuns had challenged the teachings of the Catholic Church on subjects such as homosexuality and the priesthood and that they had promoted “radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith.” The organisation was also criticised for making public statements that “disagree with or challenge positions taken by the bishops, who are the church's authentic teachers of faith and morals.” American bishops are critical of some aspects of Obama’s health care reform and yet dozens of nuns signed a document in support of it, detaching themselves from the stance taken by the Holy See on the issue. On its website, the LCWR says it has 1500 members and represents 80% of women religious in the U.S.
But this crisis goes back a long way.” “After having studied this for many years, I think it was 40 years in the making,” Ann Carey, author of Sisters in crisis: the tragic Uraveling of Women religious communities said. Relations between the LCWR and the Vatican have been stormy since 1971, when the LCWR rewrote its statutes. “The Vatican was patient, trying to give the sisters some guidelines to modify the direction they were taking, and they resisted that.” The changes made were so drastic that some nuns actually left the LCWR and formed a separate group, known as the Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious (CMSWR). But - and this is probably one of the many reasons that have driven the Holy See and particularly the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, while the Congregation for religious life has taken a much softer line – it is this minority that has the largest number of vocations. Indeed, numbers of women religious in the U.S. have dropped from 179.954 in 1965 to 55.000 today.
After their initial reaction to the inquiry’s conclusions, the leaders of the LCWR are now saying they are cautiously open to dialogue with the commission of American Bishops set up by Rome and led by the Archbishop of Seattle, J. Peter Sartain. “We will engage in dialogue where possible and be open to the movement of the Holy Spirit: We ask your prayers for us and for the Church at this critical time," the Archbishop said in a statement. Mgr. Sartain said he was committed to “help[ing] the sisters and the LCWR recognize that we are all in this together.” He went on to speak about his “personal appreciation for the role of religious women in the United States” and all the “all the extraordinary things they have done.” Sartain is aiming for a soft approach. Others, however, are less diplomatic. For example, Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke, head of the Vatican Supreme Tribunal, who some time ago denounced the "public and obstinate betrayal of religious life by certain religious."
Of course, the secular press immediately sided with the nuns against the Vatican. But there are others who are asking themselves whether certain kinds of behaviour and attitudes should be tolerated in the Church. George Weigel, a Church historian, writes that in most cases, as far as the LCWR is concerned, “their spiritual life is more likely to be influenced by the Enneagram and Deepak Chopra than by Teresa of Avila and Edith Stein; their notions of orthodoxy are, to put it gently, innovative; and their relationship to Church authority is best described as one of barely concealed contempt.”
In some communities of nuns belonging to the LCWR, many do not attend the Eucharist regularly because - Weigel says - they cannot abide the “patriarchy” of a male priest presiding at mass. Some churches allegedly celebrate fake Eucharistic services. In others, liturgical rules are said to bend the liturgical norms to the breaking point in order to radically minimize the role of the male priest. And as Weigel mercilessly adds, “The other fact to be noted about the LCWR congregations — largely unremarked in the Gadarene rush to pit plucky nuns against Neanderthal prelates — is that they're dying.” Faced with the theological, spiritual and behavioural meltdown of many congregations, “young Catholic women have quite sensibly decided that, if they wish to do good works or be political activists while dressing like middle-class professionals and living in apartments, there is little reason to bind themselves, even in an attenuated way, to the classic vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.” According to Weigel, without a radical overhaul, it is a matter of a decade or so before these orders, which are becoming “greyer and greyer”, disappear.
Catholic ping!
US nuns are a bunch of left wing nutz. They have adopted every liberal cause there is and its high time the Vatican show them them some discipline.
Freud would call it Chalice Envy
Yea!!!!
I knew our Holy Father Benedict could do it if anyone ever would.
Benedict for President!
B16 is so much more conservative than JP2.
He may be old and physically exhausted, but he ain’t no pushover.
“Freud would call it Chalice Envy”
Chalices are concave and therefore symbolically feminine. That should be crooked staff envy, or something.
I know I will catch hell for this post but what it appears like to me is that while the Church is trying to get rid of the pedophiles and homosxual priests, the Bull Dyke nuns are gaining in power.
It’s time they either dropped out of the convent and sought real jobs or regain the faith they have lost.
“B16 is so much more conservative than JP2.”
I remember when JP2 died, and people asked me what name his successor would take. I thought it might be Pius XIII, and assured them it would not be JP3 - we couldn’t have another 25 years like that.
Quite correct. This showdown has been 40 years in the making. This is, as Ronald Reagan would say, a Time for Choosing which side we are on.
Yes, exactly. I am not Catholic but I greatly admire this Pope. It seems to me that lesbians are dominating the orders and want to be given free housing etc. while propagating their Gaia faith.
I have no doubt...she was a communist.
Paul Vi was the most liberal pope we have ever had. And if you think that John Paul II was loved by liberals, you surely don’t remember the 1979 confrontation between him and the leader of the LCWR, nor his efforts to get the Jebbies under control, no rejection of liberation theology Without him, there would be no Ratzinger, no catechism. Politically, all the recent popes have been more liberal than an old fashioned Democrat like Sam Rayburn or Lyndon Johnson, except with respect to Marxism. Theologically, all incuding Pope Paul, have been conservative.
It seems to me that good Pope Benedict has been known as the “Enforcer.” I expect he will live up to that with the renegade nuns. Many good people and *good nuns* are praying for this situation.
Not all of them are nutz.
There is an order in Alabama and one in Maryland that is bursting with young ladies who want to serve God through serving others. On one of the link threads is a picture of them vs. the old dying off, nutzy, numn.
The Vatican's Corrective to Liberal Catholics
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
It is my opinion that the LCWR is a Communist effort to infiltrate the Roman Catholic Church and destroy it. Bravo to the Vatican to take this fight to the enemy.
Spring cleaning on the way!
Thank you for your important links. They will tell the story of the effort to destroy the Catholic Church’s opposition to the moral drift the Left is taking our nation.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.