Tag: lcwr

When Sister Theresa Kane asked Pope John Paul II back in 1979 to consider ordaining women as priests, she probably had no idea that her quiet words would not only be televised around the world, but that they would end up echoing for at least 35 more years.

Sister Theresa Kane was president of the LCWR — the Leadership Conference of Women Religious — at the time. The group is now one of the biggest organizations of nuns in the United States.

Sister Theresa is no longer president of the organization. But her legacy lives on in some of the positions that the LCWR espouses. And some of these positions are raising the hackles of the leadership of the Church.

For example, the LCWR chose at the recipient of its Outstanding Leadership Award feminist theologian Elizabeth Johnson, whose book Quest for the Living God was publicly denounced by the Committee on Doctrine of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in 2011.

The Committee had lots of issues with Johnson’s book, including varying from the understanding of God as “incorporeal, impassible, omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent.” The Committee said that doing so is “seriously to misrepresent the tradition and so to distort it beyond recognition.”

Needless to say, having the U.S. nuns laud Johnson did not sit well. The U.S. nuns crackdown would intensify.

The LCWR says they support congregations experiencing “diversity of cultures, world views, and theologies“. This diversity of theologies is at the heart of the trouble they are experiencing with the Vatican.

Pope Benedict ordered the group to be evaluated by Archbishop J. Peter Sartain in what is called a Doctrinal Assessment. The LCWR took issue with the disciplinary tone and findings of the Assessment. They said the findings were in error. And they balked at the idea of changing how they saw the Church evolving to encompass all people, including gays, just to placate the Vatican.

As a result, they were recently chastised for not conforming. Cardinal Gerhard Mueller, recently addressed the LCWR leadership about the Church’s disappointment in their progress since the Assessment, particularly about their disagreement with the Assessment as a whole.

Mueller said, “We are aware that, from the beginning, LCWR Officers judged the Doctrinal Assessment to be ‘flawed and the findings based on unsubstantiated accusations’ and that the so-called ‘sanctions’ were ‘disproportionate to the concerns raised and compromised the organization’s ability to fulfill its mission.’”

Mueller went on to remind the LCWR that its very existence is in jeopardy, since it is a canonical organization that exists only because the Church allows it.

“The LCWR, as a canonical entity dependent on the Holy See, has a profound obligation to the promotion of that faith as the essential foundation of religious life. Canonical status and ecclesial vision go hand-in-hand, and at this phase of the implementation of the Doctrinal Assessment, we are looking for a clearer expression of that ecclesial vision and more substantive signs of collaboration.”

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Why is the Vatican so upset with some of the nuns in the United States? Is there trouble brewing in the sisterhood that has Rome concerned? What could be so bad that it warrants a “crackdown”?

The Leadership Conference of Women Religious, or LCWR, is the organization at the center of all this lately. The LCWR is the largest umbrella group for U.S. nuns.

Cardinal Gerhard Mueller, recently addressed the LCWR leadership about the Church’s disappointment in some of that organization’s activities and statements. His comments were based on a previous Doctrinal Assessment, or probationary improvement plan, that had been imposed upon the LCWR by the Vatican.

Back in 2012 Archbishop J. Peter Sartain was tasked with overseeing changes in the LCWR to conform more closely to “the teachings and discipline of the Church.” This action was ordered by Pope Benedict, but has carried on under the leadership of Pope Francis.

But the beginnings of the Church’s displeasure with the LCWR goes back further than Pope Benedict.

Back in 1979, when John Paul II was still Pope, the group asked the Pope to consider ordaining women as priests. The topic was broached by Sister Theresa Kane, then president of the LCWR. She had been invited to publicly address Pope John Paul II during a his visit to the United States.

In a publicly televised moment, Sister Theresa said, “We have heard the powerful message of our church addressing the dignity and reverence of all persons. As women, we have pondered these words.” The Church, “must respond by providing the possibility of women as persons being included in all ministries.”

The Pope did not immediately respond, but the question had made it to the airwaves. The Church asked the group to not ask about it again.

The group was taken to task by Mueller for presenting its Outstanding Leadership Award to feminist theologian Elizabeth Johnson, whose book Quest for the Living God was publicly denounced by the Committee on Doctrine of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in 2011.

Mueller told the nuns, “It saddens me to learn that you have decided to give the Outstanding Leadership Award during this year’s Assembly to a theologian criticized by the Bishops of the United States because of the gravity of the doctrinal errors in that theologian’s writings. This is a decision that will be seen as a rather open provocation against the Holy See and the Doctrinal Assessment. Not only that, but it further alienates the LCWR from the Bishops as well.”

“I realize I am speaking rather bluntly about this, but I do so out of an awareness that there is no other interpretive lens, within and outside the Church, through which the decision to confer this honor will be viewed.”

Mueller also criticized the LCWR for its talk of “religious moving beyond the Church or even beyond Jesus”. Mueller said that such talk constitutes “a movement away from the ecclesial center of faith in Christ Jesus the Lord.”

In the end, Mueller reminded the nuns that their organization exists at the pleasure of the Vatican, and that they are expected to get back in line.

“The LCWR, as a canonical entity dependent on the Holy See, has a profound obligation to the promotion of that faith as the essential foundation of religious life. Canonical status and ecclesial vision go hand-in-hand, and at this phase of the implementation of the Doctrinal Assessment, we are looking for a clearer expression of that ecclesial vision and more substantive signs of collaboration.”

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“Stifle yourself, Edith! Stifle!” – Archie Bunker

The Leadership Conference of Women Religious is once again the target of a Vatican crackdown. The Conference, which is the largest umbrella group for U.S. nuns, came under criticism under the papacy of Pope Benedict XVI, the predecessor to Pope Francis.

As far back as 1979, the group asked then-Pope John Paul II to entertain the idea of ordaining women as priests. The Church rejected this, and asked the group to not ask about it again.

The group was singled out due to its stances that run afoul of established Church doctrine, as well as its willingness to entertain points of view of those persons that the Church has deemed contrary to its established order.

This and other stances led the Church to declare that the group needed to be reformed, or else cease to exist. They have not let go of some of the reforms they are asking take place in the Church. Church administrators have warned the LCWR that they must “renew” their organization or risk having their charter revoked.

Now the Church is continuing its crackdown on this group, even under what is seen as a more liberal administration of Pope Francis. In 2012 Archbishop J. Peter Sartain of the Archdiocese of Seattle was appointed as an Archbishop Delegate with the task of overseeing changes in the LCWR to reform its statutes, programs, and affiliations to conform more closely to “the teachings and discipline of the Church.”

Another Church representative, Cardinal Gerhard Mueller, the Vatican orthodoxy watchdog, recently reprimanded the LCWR leadership for not falling more in line with the wishes of the Vatican on these matters, as expressed through their Assessment.

“This concern is even deeper than the Doctrinal Assessment’s criticism of the LCWR for not providing a counter-point during presentations and Assemblies when speakers diverge from Church teaching,” Mueller said. “The Assessment is concerned with positive errors of doctrine seen in the light of the LCWR’s responsibility to support a vision of religious life in harmony with that of the Church and to promote a solid doctrinal basis for religious life.”

“The LCWR, as a canonical entity dependent on the Holy See, has a profound obligation to the promotion of that faith as the essential foundation of religious life,” Mueller said. “We are looking for a clearer expression of that ecclesial vision and more substantive signs of collaboration.”

The LCWR officially takes as its mission the promotion of a developing understanding and living of religious life by:

* assisting its members personally and communally to carry out more collaboratively their service of leadership in order to accomplish further the mission of Christ in today’s world.
* fostering dialogue and collaboration among religious congregations within the church and in the larger society.
* developing models for initiating and strengthening relationships with groups concerned with the needs of society, thereby
* maximizing the potential of the conference for effecting change.

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