Someone in the Vatican must have maliciously planned to time this announcement to fall on Benedict XVI's birthday like a slap in the face of the emeritus Pope. The infamously dissident nuns who have 'preached' a heterodox and oftentime near-heretical 'magisterium' of their own for four decades are back in the good graces of the Church thanks to this heterodoxy-tending Pontificate, and it is as if the severe and well-deserved CDF assessment after a five-year investigation during Benedict XVI's Pontificate has come to nothing...SIGN OF THE TIMES, indeed!... Father Z does a commentary/round-up....
Of the LCWR and the end of the CDF 'crackdown'
by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf
April 17, 2015
At the conclusion of the CDF investigation of the LCWR, it is interesting to watch the conga line dance threading its delirious way through the liberal catholic MSM led by Fishwrap‘s Tom Fox, AP‘s (not catholic, but liberal) Nicole Winfield and Rachel Zoll, Commonweal‘s Dominic Preziosi, RNS‘s (which takes money from strange sources) David Gibson, and James Martin, SJ, at Amerika who cooed with satisfaction.
Looking at the liberal reactions side-by-side is reminds me of walking into Pompeii’s “Villa of the Mysteries”. Their elation is nearly Bacchic.
Not all online reactions have been so ecstatic.
Phil Lawler at CatholicCulture.org wrote (my emphases):
“We learned that what we hold in common is much greater than any of our differences.”
That comment did not come from a Presbyterian cleric after a Saturday-afternoon ecumenical meeting. It was made by a leading representative of American Catholic women’s religious orders, at the conclusion of a long, tense exchange with the Vatican.
Shouldn’t we be able to take it for granted that what unites Catholics is greater than their differences? And especially in the case of religious orders, pledged to the service of the Church?
But it could not be taken for granted, in the case of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious. That’s why the Vatican stepped in.
Now that the intervention has run its course, Cardinal Gerhard Müller, the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, assures us of the Vatican’s confidence that the LCWR is “fostering a vision of religious life that is centered on the Person of Jesus Christ and is rooted in the Tradition of the Church.”
Again, shouldn’t you be able to take that much for granted? But in 2008, you couldn’t.
Those statements from the two main parties do not guarantee that the Vatican intervention will prove successful. They do, however, demonstrate that the process was necessary.
That’s something that the other side is going to deny: that the process was necessary.
On a somewhat sharper register, at Creative Minority Report we read:
So the Vatican has dropped the investigation into the LCWR. Cuz in the Church, the only thing hetero these days is the doxy.
What is one to make of what happened?
On the one hand, say that the CDF really did back down, on the orders of Pope Francis or not. One possible take is that they determined that it simply wasn’t worth the effort to attempt a reform of the LCWR, in regard to its guiding principles and goals for formation and spirituality.
After all, most of the groups whose leadership belong to the LCWR are dying out pretty quickly. If the CDF has closed the file, to quote one of the Left’s darlings, what difference does it make? They have no vocations.
Another point may be that the CDF isn’t the monstrous bogey which liberals delight in reviling. Perhaps the process simply ran its course and ended.
John Allen at Crux as a somewhat less left-skewed view of what happened. He might have joined the Eleusinian conga by clapping a little on the side-lines, but he didn’t strut. His analysis is, in its essentials, right, though his own leanings bleed through.
Over at
Catholic World Report, Carl Olson has a good round-up of how the story has been covered, the twisted headlines, etc.
[Fr. Z then quotes Olson's report generously, but since Olson's round-up is exhaustive, I will post it in full separately.]
It will be interesting to see what happens when the LCWR has its annual meeting. I wonder if they will again go with a keynote speaker like Barbara Marx Hubbard in 2012 with her snake oil: “I am here to be a voice for the Collective Emergence of humanity as a Co-creative Universal Species!” or Ilia Delio and her view that “There is no cosmos without God, and no God without cosmos.”
[They all sound like Hillary Cinton driven nuts by feminist hyper-ambition.] … Lest anyone doubt that the CDF investigation was necessary….
If the CDF process produced some good fruits, I’ll be delighted. We shall see.
Meanwhile, as one of my correspondents wrote to me: "The only Catholic Franciscans left are chased like Jews in 1944 Poland for the grievous sin of attracting vocations while sticking to the rule and using certain liturgical books."
Final point…. The way I see it, the nuns signed a public agreement, not a “fig leaf”, as one of the liberals in the conga line called it.
If they violate the agreement the whole Church and world can be reminded that they signed it.
In one year, in five… whatever.
Scriptum manet.
The CDF did not promise to do – or not to do - anything.
The nuns did. Let’s see if they keep their word.
[You think? You really think...?]
Making sense of nun-sensical, controversial headlines
Did you read the news? The Vatican caved in! No, wait, the sisters caved in!
Or did they both win? Well, something happened!
by Carl E. Olson
April 16, 2015
Pope Francis meets with representatives of the U.S. Leadership Conference of Women Religious at the Vatican April 16 - the day the Vatican announced the conclusion of a seven-year process of investigation and dialogue with the group to ensure fidelity to Church teachings. The outcome resulted in revised statutes approved by the Vatican.
"In journalism," stated Abp. Fulton Sheen wrote 60 years ago in
Thinking Life Through, "the modern man wants controversy, not truth." Plenty of examples abound.
Take, for instance, the news that — as one Catholic news outlet described it — "American Sisters accept Vatican reforms on doctrine, theology". This bit of news is quite interesting, in part, because it lacks the sort of crackling controversy that seemed almost inevitable, considering all of the turbulent water under the ecclesial bridge.
As John Allen, Jr. observed in his piece on the matter:
Sometimes in the news business, stories run their course without the explosive ending their dramatic arc would seem to merit. Think a nasty lawsuit, for instance, which ends with an amicable settlement, or the early years of the Super Bowl when a matchup that looked like a heavyweight collision on paper ended with a blowout.
Such would appear to be the case with the conclusion announced Thursday of the Vatican’s now six-year-old investigation of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), the main umbrella group for the leaders of women’s religious orders in the United States. ...
Purely at the level of perception, this was a made-for-Hollywood standoff between rigid male hierarchs and feisty progressive nuns. Most media outlets and a solid chunk of Catholic opinion at the grassroots, naturally, sided with the nuns.
As Allen admits, "Despite all of that, the whole thing ended on Thursday with a whimper rather than a bang."
Of course, headlines sell newspapers — or, more accurately, drive traffic — so the headline of Allen's piece avoided the whimper and went for bang:
"Why the Vatican’s crackdown on nuns ended happily".
It's a clever juxtoposition: the harshness of a "Vatican crackdown" (ooh!) and the uplift of nuns and happiness (aah!). Associated Press reporters, Nicole Winfield and Rachel Zoll, went for a combination of surprise and conflict:
"Vatican unexpectedly ends crackdown of US nun group". After all, no one really expects the angry old men in the Vatican to get along with the sweet old nuns on the bus. That piece indicated that "social justice-minded" Pope Francis had saved the day:
The Vatican has unexpectedly ended its controversial overhaul of the main umbrella group of U.S. nuns, cementing a shift in tone and treatment of the U.S. sisters under the social justice-minded Pope Francis.
There are, however, several ways of skinning the controversial Catholic cat, as Reuters reporter Philip Pullella makes evident in a piece titled
"Activist U.S. nuns make concessions after Vatican investigation". Instead of reconciliation, Pullella apparently smells capitulation and oppression. And guess who the Bad Guys are?
A six-year row between activist American nuns and Vatican officials who had branded them radical feminists ended on Thursday with the nuns conceding to demands that they keep within the doctrine of the Roman Catholic church.
The clash with the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), an umbrella group representing 80 percent of U.S. nuns, became a national issue in America, with many supporters accusing the Vatican of bullying them.
The Vatican investigated the group for three years and then in 2012 issued a stinging report saying the LCWR had "serious doctrinal problems" and promoted "radical feminist themes incompatible with the (Roman) Catholic faith".
The Vatican criticized the group for taking a soft line on issues such as birth control and homosexual activity. (emphasis added for fun)
Goodness! It's as if the sweet little nuns had been doing nothing but putting band-aids on skinned knees and singing sweet, lilting songs of sisterhood when — wham! — those nasty guys in Rome went all patriarchal on them. Of course,
the truth about the history of the LCWR and its various actions in recent years suggest a rather different story. But I don't expect Reuters to tell it.
The
New York Times says a "battle" has ended, Seattlepi.com says the "the nuns stand tall", and
Slate claims the Vatican tacitly admitted the entire matter was a waste of time.
Slate demonstrates its tenuous grasp on the story by illustrating it with a photo of habit-wearing youthful members of Sisters of Life — an order that belongs to the Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious, not the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), which is the (aging) body in question and which is not known for wearing habits (see photo with the Pope, thank you). For those not versed in these matters, it is analogous to illustrating a story about a Hillary Clinton campaign stop with photos from a Tea Party convention.
A far better balance it struck by veteran reporter Francis Rocca, writing for the
Wall Street Journal:
The Vatican brought to an end a three-year overhaul of a U.S. nuns’ group stemming from a controversial investigation that found the sisters had neglected church teachings on abortion and other issues.
In a final document released Thursday, the Vatican went lightly on the nuns, effectively sparing them from any sanction or further oversight. The outcome represented a markedly more conciliatory tone in a controversy that saw the Vatican widely criticized for its treatment of the sisters.
His title?
"Vatican Ends Overhaul of U.S. Nuns’ Group".
One final thought: Are matters with the LCWR really resolved — with a whimper? Maybe. Frankly, I doubt it. I have a hard time believing that a group whose leadership has thumbed its nose at the CDF and bishops and has so often ignored (or even denied) Church teaching is going to so suddenly change its spots. I'd like to be wrong on that count. But, time will tell. In the meantime, let's hear it for more truth in headlines and the stories beneath them.
Meanwhile, let age take its toll on the fast-aging LCWR harpies! Feminazis like them give all women and nuns a bad name!... Meanwhile, I really see no aesthetic or practical reason why the LCRW sisters choose not to wear a nun's habit, which not only confers unmistakable identity on the wearer, but also dignity and the equalizing sense that all uniforms give (aren't these socially-conscious sisters always going on about 'equality'?). Not any less important, a habit serves to mask any ungainly physical characteristics like weight, girth and bad legs. And imagine all the time and trouble they would save themselves from not having to worry every day, "Now what shall I wear today? And what will go well with what?"
Fr. Lucie-Smith beautifully ties up the LCWR case with that of embattled Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone in San Francisco...
The result is in: Now the LCWR
must prove it can change its ways
by Fr Alexander Lucie-Smith
Friday, 17 Apr 2015
The Vatican and the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), the umbrella body that represents most American nuns, have announced the conclusion of the seven-year investigation that the Vatican undertook into the LCWR.
Reading the report, everything seems to be happily settled. B
ut only time will tell if the LCWR will now start acting as a recognisably Catholic body, as opposed to one that is Catholic in name only. While I am sure there are many good Sisters in the orders represented by the LCWR, there have certainly been some who have caused grave scandal and damage to the Church.
Some years ago one of them made headlines when her work as an abortion clinic escort came to public attention. Nor is this all: as recently as 2012 she was advocating so-called “choice” with regard to abortion, and, as recently as 2013, advocating same-sex marriage.
All of that is perfectly fine (though profoundly wrong). It is after all, as the saying goes, a free country.
But it is absolutely not fine to do so while being a nun.
The investigation into the LCWR was occasioned by people like this, and is really a no-brainer in its conclusions.
The Vatican is now insisting that the LCWR act in a Catholic manner: in other words, they should do what it says on the tin. What could be simpler?
As one case closes, another controversy rages, surrounding the Archbishop of San Francisco, which presents a parallel case. Archbishop Cordileone recently insisted that those who taught in a Catholic school should act as Catholics and sign a behaviour clause to that effect.
As a result of this, he now faces an insurgency in his diocese from some very well-heeled and well-placed people. But all the archbishop is doing is asking that Catholic schools should be Catholic in fact, rather than Catholic in name only. He is just doing his job, and defending the faith.
The behaviour of his critics – claiming he is divisive – recalls opponents of the Vatican’s investigation into the nuns. People who oppose Catholic teaching from within the Catholic Church, particularly from within the institutional Church, always feel a huge amount of pain when challenged, and are never reticent about sharing it. They usually ignore, however, the pain they cause to ordinary believing Catholics in the pew.
May God give Archbishop Cordileone strength as he restores the faith in San Francisco. He is certainly going to need it. He is a brave and good man to take on the entrenched interests in his diocese. And let us pray that the investigation into the LCWR will bear fruit, and not just be a purely cosmetic exercise.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 18/04/2015 23:12]