ABOUT THE CHURCH AND THE VATICAN

For days now, there has been a drumbeat of opposition to the Vatican in liberal Catholic circles - exemplified by the National Catholic Reporter - purveying the view of dissident American nuns who resent and oppose the Vatican 'visitation' of sisters' congregations in the United States.

I have not bothered to post these items - except for one from the NCR last May which was the first such post on this Forum - because the response is a reflex opposition to practically anything the Vatican says or decrees, which confirms, to put it bluntly, the reason this visitation is needed.

The enemies of the Vatican seem to forget that religious congregations are valid if they have Vatican recognition, and that means that they are under the supervision of the Vatican Congregation for the Institutes for Religious Life and Societies of Apostolic Life. The Church has every right to exercise this supervision as it sees fit.

Nuns and/or orders who would oppose this visitation are saying in effect that they do not recognize the authority of the Church over them and their orders.

This attitude represents everything I personally find most hateful and objectionable about the post-Vatican II nuns who have conflated the intentions of Vatican II with the causes of liberal militant feminism.

It is an attitude similar to Barack Obama who resents any attempt to debate his health care proposals as an attack against virtue in general. As though their views - dissident nuns and power-crazed Democrats in these examples - were a commandment of God that cannot be examined by anyone, much less opposed.

This article, at least, gives the other side of the issue in the second half.



Catholic sisters queried
about doctrine and fidelity
By ERIC GORSKI



TUCSON, Arizona, Aug. 5 (AP) - A Vatican-ordered investigation into Roman Catholic sisters in the U.S., shrouded in mystery [??? It was not! - almost immediately, a website dedicated to the visitation
www.apostolicvisitation.org/en/index.html
was opened to accommodate announcements and questions] when it was announced seven months ago, is shaping up to be a tough examination of whether women's religious communities have strayed too far from Church teaching.

[DUH! That was always the obvious underlying reason for the 'visitation'!]

The review "is intended as a constructive assessment and an expression of genuine concern for the quality of the life" of roughly 59,000 U.S. Catholic sisters, according to a Vatican working paper delivered in the past few days to leaders of 341 religious congregations that describes the scope in new detail.

But the nature of some questions in the document seems to validate concerns expressed privately by some sisters that they're about to be dressed down or accused of being unfaithful to the church.C

[So? Don't they deserve to be if they are guilty of such 'infidelity'? The most outspoken of them have made it a point of pride to dissent from the Church and its established doctrine and practice.]

The report, for example, asks communities of sisters to lay out "the process for responding to sisters who dissent publicly or privately from the authoritative teaching of the Church."

It also confirms suspicions that the Vatican is concerned over a drift to the left on doctrine, seeking answers about "the soundness of doctrine held and taught" by the women. ['Confirms suspicions'? Oh, this reporter is just too disingenuous for words.]

Still other questions explore whether sisters take part in Mass daily, or whether they follow the Church's rules when they take part in liturgies. Church officials expect consistency in how rites and services are celebrated, with approved translations and Masses presided over by a priest.

The study, called an apostolic visitation, casts a net beyond fidelity to Church teaching, with questions also covering efforts to promote vocations and management of finances.

The investigation is focused on members of women's religious communities, or sisters. These are women who do social work, teach, work in hospitals and do other humanitarian work of the church. The investigation is not looking at cloistered communities, or nuns.

"The sisters being investigated have for many years made almost nothing, took very little and gave everything," said the Rev. James Martin, an editor at America, a Jesuit magazine. [How Jesuitic! That does not at all answer the question of whether they have been faithful to the religion they claim to profess! One can be such an admirable altruistic person without being a sister, or even a Christian. The question is to determine their fidelity to orthodox Catholic doctrine and practice.]

Francine Cardman, associate professor of historical theology and church history at Boston College's School of Theology and Ministry, said it isn't clear why these questions are being asked now in the U.S.

But she said the focus on doctrine puts it in the context of establishing a "correct" and exclusive interpretation of the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s and of women's religious communities.

She said the inquiry should be seen "as part of a much older tradition of misogyny in the Church [Dear Lord, spare us the feminist jargon!] and especially distrust of women who are not directly and submissively under male, ecclesiastical control."

Catholic sisters, Cardman said, have repeatedly over history been "returned to the confines of the cloister" or restricted in the kinds of ministries they could perform in public view.

Conservative Catholics, however, have long complained that the majority of sisters in the U.S. have grown too liberal and flout Church teaching. Some have taken provocative stands, advocating for female priests or challenging church teaching against abortion rights or gay marriage.

Helen Hull Hitchcock, director of St. Louis-based Women for Faith and Family, a Catholic women's group that includes sisters and lay people, said an examination of women's religious communities' claims to "the right to complete self-determination" with no regard to church hierarchy is 30 or 40 years overdue.

"Some good can come of it by identifying where the main problems are, or at least by dealing openly and honestly with a problem that has been going on for a long time," she said.

After Vatican II, many sisters embraced Catholic teaching against war and nuclear weapons and for workers rights, shed their habits and traditional roles as teachers or hospital workers and took up activism.

More recently, a group of more tradition-minded women's religious orders have emerged, with members who dress in habits, show fidelity to Rome and focus on education, health care and social work.

The Vatican is concerned about sisters' shrinking and aging ranks. The number in the U.S. declined from 173,865 in 1965 to 79,876 in 2000, according to Georgetown University's Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate. The average age of a member of a women's religious community was between 65 and 70 in 1999.

The inquiry is being directed by Mother Mary Clare Millea, superior general of the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, a more conservative order.

Millea has already held meetings with heads of religious communities. Next, the superiors will be given detailed questionnaires to be completed by later this fall, to be followed by visits to selected congregations starting next year and concluding with a confidential report from Millea to the Vatican.

A spokeswoman for the apostolic visitation's Connecticut-based office said Millea was not available for an interview Tuesday.

The Vatican also has opened a separate "doctrinal assessment" of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, the largest umbrella group for communities of Catholic sisters in the U.S.

In a statement Tuesday, the conference said the new information on the apostolic visit had just been sent to its members, and that discussing it would be on the agenda at its annual assembly in New Orleans next week.

Sister Prudence Allen, a member of the Religious Sisters of Mercy of Alma, Mich., part of the more traditional Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious, welcomed the scope of the inquiry.

"It's nothing to be afraid of," she said. "It's part a process that should ultimately help all of us."


Here's a report from CNA:


Vatican visitation of women religious
to look at fidelity to doctrine



Hamden, Conn., Aug 6, 2009 (CNA)- The Apostolic Visitator leading the visitation to institutes of women religious in the United States has sent the effort’s working document to the heads of U.S. orders.

The document details the aims of the visitation and encourages the orders to reflect on their fidelity to their original charisms and their conformity with the Second Vatican Council.



Mother M. Clare Millea, the sister in charge of conducting the Vatican visitation, sent the working document, known as an Instrumentum Laboris, to the hundreds of religious superiors around the U.S. on July 28, along with a letter of explanation.

With the issuance of the working document, the first phase of the visitation has come to a close.

The Instrumentum Laboris contains an introduction to the nature and purpose of the visitation, the four phases of the process, and references to the principal Vatican documents.

The document also presents “reflection topics” for all members of religious orders to consider in order to prepare for the visitation. Topics include the religious identity of the respondent’s order, its governance and financial administration, and its spiritual and common life.

Questions are also presented concerning vocation promotion, admission and formation policies.

The reflections ask respondents about their concerns for the future of their religious order and how sisters in their order understand and express the “vows and virtues” of poverty, chastity and obedience.

They inquire about whether daily Mass and frequent confession are a “priority” for sisters and how an order expresses the Eucharist as the source of their spiritual and communal life.

Liturgical norms are also one topic of inquiry, as is the practice of the Liturgy of the Hours, the manner of an order’s dress, and the order’s provisions for care of aging and ill sisters.

“Is your institute moving toward a new form of religious life? If so, how is this new form specifically related to the Church’s understanding of religious life?” one reflection asks.

Such questions recall concerns voiced earlier this year by Cardinal William Levada, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, concerning the “tenor and content” of addresses at the annual assemblies of the 1,500-member Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR).

In the keynote address of LCWR’s 2007 assembly, Sinsinawa Dominican Sister Laurie Brink spoke with apparent approval about religious congregations “moving beyond the Church, even beyond Jesus.” Saying some congregations have “grown beyond the bounds of institutional religion,” she described them as “post-Christian” in most respects.

The LCWR is undergoing a separate inquiry being led by Bishop Leonard Blair of Toledo, Ohio.

The Instrumentum Laboris reflections also inquire about the process for responding to sisters who dissent publicly or privately from “the authoritative teaching of the Church.”

They ask respondents whether their order’s formation program offers the foundations of Catholic faith and doctrine through the study of Vatican II documents, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and post-conciliar documents.

“Are there reasons to be concerned about vocations or formation in your institute?” another reflection asks.

Mother M. Clare Millea’s letter to religious superiors reported that the questionnaire for phase two of the visitation is being prepared and will be sent to major superiors of religious orders early this fall.

She concluded by thanking the leaders of religious orders for their cooperation in the visitation, describing it as an endeavor “to strengthen, enhance and support the growth of our religious institutes in service of the Church.”

The website for the visitation contains numerous positive responses about how the various religious superiors appreciated their initial visits with Mother Millea.