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BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

Ultimo Aggiornamento: 23/08/2021 11:16
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19/04/2012 14:34
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Vatican announces reform of
US women's religious conference

By Michelle Bauman


Washington D.C., Apr 19, 2012 (CNA/EWTN News).- The Vatican called for reform amid a doctrinal “crisis” within the U.S.'s Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), appointing Archbishop J. Peter Sartain of Seattle to lead renewal efforts.

The appointment was made as the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith revealed the findings of its multi-year doctrinal assessment of the women's conference, which has more than 1,500 members throughout the country.

The assessment document explained, “it is clear that greater emphasis needs to be placed both on the relationship of the LCWR with the Conference of Bishops, and on the need to provide a sound doctrinal foundation in the faith of the Church.”

Initiated by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 2008, the assessment was carried out by Bishop Leonard P. Blair of Toledo, Ohio, a member of the U.S. bishops’ doctrine committee.

Among the key findings of the assessment were serious theological and doctrinal errors in presentations at the conference's annual assemblies in recent years.

Several of the addresses depicted a vision of religious life that is incompatible with the faith of the Church, the assessment said. Some attempted to justify dissent from Church doctrine and showed “scant regard for the role of the Magisterium.”

The document cited one address about religious sisters “moving beyond the Church” and even beyond Jesus. Such positions – which constitute “a rejection of faith” and “serious source of scandal” – often go unchallenged by the LCWR, it said.

It also noted a lack of sufficient doctrinal formation in material prepared for new superiors and formators, which may be reinforcing confusion on Church doctrine.

Furthermore, it voiced concerns about “certain radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith” that were prevalent in some programs and presentations sponsored by the conference, and risked distorting Church teaching on the divinity of Christ, the Holy Trinity, the Eucharist and the inspiration of Sacred Scripture.

The assessment observed that letters from LCWR officers have suggested dissent from Church teaching on human sexuality and protested the Holy See’s actions on women’s ordination and ministry to homosexual persons.

It also said that while the women's religious group has been a strong advocate of social justice issues, it has remained silent on the right to life from conception to natural death, a prominent topic in the U.S. public debate surrounding abortion and euthanasia.

To address these “serious doctrinal problems,” Archbishop Sartain has been mandated for up to five years to work with LCWR leadership in renewal efforts.

The archbishop will report regularly to the Holy See and will be aided by Bishop Blair and Bishop Thomas J. Paprocki of Springfield, along with an advisory group including clergy, religious women and other experts.

Archbishop Sartain will work with the conference to revise its statues, which will be submitted for approval by the Holy See, and to review its links to affiliated organizations.

Future speakers and presentations at major programs and assemblies will be subject to the approval of the archbishop, who will also work to create new formation programs to provide a deeper understanding of Church teaching.

In addition, Archbishop Sartain will “review and offer guidance” in the application of liturgical norms and texts,” ensuring, for example, that the Eucharist and Liturgy of the Hours are given proper priority in LCWR events.

Cardinal William Levada, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said that the findings of the doctrinal assessment are aimed at “fostering a patient and collaborative renewal of this conference of major superiors.”

He expressed hope that the new measures will help “provide a stronger doctrinal foundation” for LCWR’s “many laudable initiatives and activities.”


Vatican orders crackdown
on US nuns association

By RACHEL ZOLL


VATICAN CITY, April 19 (AP) - The Vatican orthodoxy watchdog announced Wednesday a full-scale overhaul of the largest umbrella group for nuns in the United States, accusing the group of taking positions that undermine Roman Catholic teaching on the priesthood and homosexuality while promoting "certain radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith."

An American archbishop was appointed to oversee reform of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, which will include rewriting the group's statutes, reviewing all its plans and programs -- including approving speakers -- and ensuring the organization properly follows Catholic prayer and ritual.

The Leadership Conference, based in Silver Spring, Md., represents about 57,000 religious sisters and offers programs ranging from leadership training for women's religious orders to advocacy on social justice issues. Representatives of the Leadership Conference did not respond to requests for comment.

The report from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith said the organization faced a "grave" doctrinal crisis, in which issues of "crucial importance" to the church, such as abortion and euthanasia, have been ignored.

Vatican officials also castigated the group for making some public statements that "disagree with or challenge positions taken by the bishops," who are the church's authentic teachers of faith and morals."

Church officials did not cite a specific example of those public statements, but said the reform would include a review of ties between the Leadership Conference and NETWORK, a Catholic social justice lobby.

NETWORK played a key role in supporting the Obama administration's health care overhaul despite the bishops' objections that the bill would provide government funding for abortion. The Leadership Conference disagreed with the bishops' analysis of the law and also supported President Barack Obama's plan.

Sister Simone Campbell, executive director of NETWORK, said in a phone interview that the timing of the report suggested a link between their health care stand and the Vatican crackdown. The review began in 2009 and ran through June 2010, a few months after the health care law was approved. The report does not cite Obama or the bill.

"I can only infer that there was strong feeling about the health care position that we had taken," Campbell said. "Our position on health care was application of the one faith to a political document that we read differently than the bishops."


When the Vatican-ordered inquiry was initially announced, many religious sisters and their supporters said the investigation reflected Church officials' misogyny and was an insult to religious sisters, who run hospitals, teach, and play other vital service roles in the Church. Conservative Catholics, however, have long complained that the majority of sisters in the U.S. have grown too liberal and flout Church teaching.

Around the same time of the doctrinal review of the Leadership Conference, the Vatican ordered an Apostolic Visitation, or investigation, of all American congregations for religious sisters, looking at quality of life, the response to dissent and "the soundness of doctrine held and taught" by the women. The results of that inquiry have not been released.

The report released Wednesday paints a scathing portrait of the Leadership Conference of Women's Religious as consistently violating Catholic teaching. [A finding that cannot surprise any Catholic in the United States who has minimal awareness of what these so-called nuns do habitually in order to grab media attention and an instant maxi-amplifier for their dissident messages! In fact, it was this facile manipulation of the MSM - all too happy to blow up any dissent against the Church - and the consequent media celebrity of the dissidents that called attention to their questionable behavior as 'Catholic nuns', and therefore the formal investigation of just how terrible their unsubordination to the Magisterium has been!]

Investigators cited a speech by Sister Laurie Brink at an annual assembly that argued that religious sisters were "'moving beyond the Church' or even beyond Jesus." Brink is a professor at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. She did not respond to an email request for comment.

[This overweening pride is what I cannot understand about these dissidents. When they decided to profess a vocation, they knew it meant (for most of them, anyway) a triple vow of poverty, obedience and chastity. Those who ended up being dissidents must have known from the start that the 'vocation' they really felt called to was "to speak their mind openly in order to improve the Church", since each one thought, and thinks, that she is surely wiser and more Christian than anyone in the Church, past or present, or anything in the Magisterium at whatever level. That generates the endorphins that fire their ego inexhaustibly and give them an incomparable and constant high - "Look at me! I'm just little Sue from smalltown America, but I can think better than the Pope - imagine that some think he is one of the great intellects of our time! But I know better than him, better than the whole Church, what is good for the Church. In fact, I am better than any of those poor misguided saints who lived their lives obeying the Church. Watch me change this Church!" How pathetic, and how toxic! Like they were never taught that disobedience due to pride (or pride that led to disobeying God) was the original sin that cast man out of Paradise.]

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith said the Leadership Conference had submitted letters that suggest that sisters in leadership teams "collectively take a position not in agreement with the church's teaching on human sexuality."

In programs and presentations, investigators noted "a prevalence of certain radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith."

"Some commentaries on 'patriarchy' distort the way in which Jesus has structured sacramental life in the church," the authors of the report wrote. The investigation also found that while the Leadership Conference has emphasized Catholic social justice doctrine, the group has been "silent on the right to life from conception to natural death, a question that is part of the lively public debate about abortion and euthanasia in the United States.

The reform will be managed by Seattle Archbishop Peter Sartain and could stretch over five years.

Nick Cafardi, a canon lawyer and former dean of Duquesne Law School, said he has worked over the years with many nuns and that the description in the report does not reflect his experience with them. Cafardi is an Obama supporter.

"I don't know any more holy people," Cafardi said of American religious sisters. "I see a lot more holiness in the convents than I see in the chancery." [Cafardi should be able to detect faux holiness in the faux-holy since it smacks him in the face every time he has to meet them.]

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 19/04/2012 15:17]
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