After a years-long investigation, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) has called for major reforms in an association of women’s religious congregations in the U.S., citing “serious doctrinal problems” with the way the organization has been conducting itself.
Pat Farrell OSF, President LCWR
The Catholic News Service is reporting that the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), an umbrella group that claims to represent 80 percent of the country’s 57,000 women’s religious, will now be under the care of Archbishop J. Peter Sartain of Seattle who will provide “review, guidance and approval where necessary” of the work of the LCWR. Assisting him will be Bishop Leonard P. Blair of Toledo and Bishop Thomas J. Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois. The bishops will also draw on the advice of their fellow bishops, women religious and other experts as they seek to reform the group.
The announcement was made on April 18 and was accompanied by an eight-page “doctrinal assessment” based on an investigation of the group that began in 2008. During that time, the Vatican found that “the current doctrinal and pastoral situation of LCWR is grave and a matter of serious concern, also given the influence the LCWR exercises on religious congregation in other parts of the world.”
The LCWR has been an outspoken critic of Church teaching on the ordination of women, homosexuality, and other issues concerning sexuality. It was one of the few Catholic groups in the country to support ObamaCare and the HHS mandate accommodation.
“While there has been a great deal of work on the part of LCWR promoting issues of social justice in harmony with the church’s social doctrine, it is 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 doctrinal congregation said. “Further, issues of crucial importance in the life of the church and society, such as the church’s biblical view of family life and human sexuality, are not part of the LCWR agenda in a way that promotes church teaching.”
The Vatican also found that “public statements by the LCWR that disagree with or challenge positions taken by the bishops, who are the church’s authentic teachers of faith and morals, are not compatible with its purpose.”
The CDF also took issue with addresses given during LCWR annual assemblies that contain serious theological errors. The document specifically cites an address given by Sr. Laurie Brink who suggested that some religious are “moving beyond the Church” and even beyond Jesus. “This is a challenge not only to core Catholic beliefs; such a rejection of faith is also a serious source of scandal and is incompatible with religious life,” the CDF writes.
According to the document, these positions “routinely go unchallenged by the LCWR,” and suggested that teachings such as Brink’s should be seen as “a cry for help.”
The Congregation also cited the group for its policies of corporate dissent as evidenced by letters it has received from “leadership teams” of various congregations, many of them from LCWR officers, protesting the Church’s position on women’s ordination and its pastoral approach to homosexual persons.
“The terms of the letters suggest that these sisters collectively take a position not in agreement with the Church’s teaching on human sexuality,” the document states. “It is a serious matter when these Leadership Teams are not providing effective leadership and example to their communities, but place themselves outside the Church’s teaching.”
The group’s radical feminism was also cited, with the CDF saying the prevalence of certain feminist themes in the group’s programs and presentations are “incompatible with the Catholic faith . . . including theological interpretations that risk distorting faith in Jesus and his loving Father who sent his Son for the salvation of the world.”
Some of the group’s commentaries on “patriarchy” distort the way in which Jesus has structured sacramental life in the Church, the CDF writes. “Others even undermine the revealed doctrines of the Holy Trinity, the divinity of Christ, and the inspiration of Sacred Scripture.”
The Vatican stressed that the motive of the work of any conference of major superiors of women religious ” can and should be a fruitful means of addressing the contemporary situation and supporting religious life in its most ‘radical’ sense — that is, in the faith in which it is rooted” (emphases original).
As a result, Archbishop Sartain will now oversee a revision of the LCWR’s statutes, its liturgical practices, and the creation of formation programs for the conference’s member congregations. They will also investigate the LCWR’s links to two outside groups; Network, a Catholic social justice lobby which was founded by a group of feminist nuns and promotes eco-feminism; and the Resource Center for Religious Institutes which provides legal and financial expertise to religious orders.
Sr. AnnMarie Sanders, IHM, director of communications for the LCWR, said in a statement posted on the group’s website that the “presidency of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious was stunned by the conclusions of the doctrinal assessment of LCWR by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Because the leadership of LCWR has the custom of meeting annually with the staff of CDF in Rome and because the conference follows canonically-approved statutes, we were taken by surprise.
“This is a moment of great import for religious life and the wider church. We ask your prayers as we meet with the LCWR National Board within the coming month to review the mandate and prepare a response.”
Click here to read the full text of the CDF document.
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I wish these people would have the honesty and integrity to leave the Catholic church, which they obviously do not feel a part of, and join the Episcopal church. There, they will find everything they are looking for. The land of milk and honey for them!
Good riddance.
In my mind, after being a Catholic all of my life and after all of my family being Catholics since the 4th century, I believe the women religious have become the authentic “catholic” voice of justice and the love of Christ within the US Church, the Church which continues to shield those who let our children be abused and who now is attempting to exercise complete control over women so they have no voice.
If they go, the best of us goes with them!
Terry,
I coud not agree more. They are polluting a great religion and corrupting others by their disobedient example.
Stunned!!??? How can these nuns be stunned by this crackdown? Don’t they grasp the teachings of the RC Church they vowed to obediently serve?
Meanwhile, bishops who disregard dicta like “Thou shalt not steal or bear false witness” in order to serve the illegal immigrant population ie supposedly fulfilling their Christian mandate need to review the Law of Moses that Jesus upheld in his teachings. Their deviation also gives rise to self-interpretation of Catholicism …liberal left politics informing doctrine instead of vice versa…just like these radical feminist nuns.
Indeed who is upholding the faith these days?
I thank God that the Vatican and the Bishops finally responded to the dissident Nuns and (similarly to the dissident priests and theologians) regarding doctrinal issues on Faith and Morals. For years, many of us (the lay faithlful) were distubed, harassed and intimidated by these nuns and priests who challenge the Church in the areas of Faith and Morals such as women ordination, abortion, contraception, same sex marriage, celebacy, and others areas so clearly layed out in the Catechism and by the Holy Father(s). I, and many of us, feel scandalized by the pride and the ego of these nuns who claim that they have gone beyond the Church and Jesus. Whose footsteps are they following? We, the lay faithful, pray for courage to follow the Church inspite of these dissident nuns, priests and secular theologians. We will continue to pray that our Bishops will do their pastoral duty to speak up and defend us all in the areas of Faith and Morals so clearly spelled out by the Church in the Catechism and by the Holy Fathers.
In JMJ,
Violete Stevens
Grand Junction, CO
It is very sad to see religious so confused. It inspires me to pray, read, and educate myself on what the Church teaches and to uphold it in my own heart. But for the grace of God, we each could become puffed up with pride. Obviously, things have become so sloppy for so long that their surprise is genuine. I pray for all nuns who have remained faithful!
I am so glad to be able to find information about this! All that I have seen published is in the secular press which of course, has little good to say about the Church. It breaks my heart to see the divisiveness that this brings. It is also difficult to have a reasonable discussion with firends who “demand” that I sign petitions in support of the religious. They are not willing to listen to the other side….they seem to only be interested in supporting those who do nothing but criticize and mock the Church. I pray for all.
I’m so disappointed that the women commenting on this site are not standing up for Catholic sisters. These women are our leaders in our Catholic faith who have given up everything in lives of humble service. Why are you not standing along side them in prayer and courage?
Dear Rose B:
We cannot stand alongside anyone, male or female, who depart from the clear teachings of the Church. You mustn’t make this a “women issue”. I sit in stunned horror as Cardinals like Schonborn, Wuerl, Mahony and others thumb their nose at Church teachings every day, or persecute good priests who try to do their Catholic duty, yet I do not look at that problem as a “man’s issue”. Bad Catholics come in both sexes.
If the Church authorities are really, and I mean really, trying to rein in these recalcitrant nuns then they are doing a job that is long, long overdue. And if they follow this up with reforming, say, the Jesuits, the Dominicans and other orders crying out for true Catholic reform then, and only then, will things start to improve in Church and State.
And if, at last, Rome starts to finally discipline episcopal villains like the aforementioned Wuerl, et al, then we will really be on the road to recovery. But these things will require a strong Pope with a very stiff backbone, something the Church has lacked, to be honest, for over 100 years.
Again, don’t feel slighted because you are a woman. We are all sinners, and we are all in this together. And if we’re going to call ourselves Catholics we have to start behaving like Catholics. That doesn’t mean we can consider ourselves Catholic and support abortion, divorce and sodomy. Sinners who commit these heinous sins need love, yes; but it is a “tough love” that they need, the kind that will lead them to the Confessional, and then a state of grace.