After meeting with the heads of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) in Rome this week, Cardinal William Levada, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), said that while he hopes the group will be more faithful to the Church in the future, they could face decertification if they don’t.
Cardinal William Levada
According to the John Allen of the National Catholic Reporter (NCR), Cardinal Levada met with LCWR president Sr. Pat Farrell and executive director Sr. Janet Mock on June 12 to discuss an April 18 assessment in which the LCWR was cited for “serious doctrinal problems” and “doctrinal confusion” on matters such as female ordination, homosexuality, and radical feminism.
In an interview that took place shortly after the meeting, Cardinal Levada said that while he still believes the relationship between the Vatican and the LCWR can work, thus far it has been more like a “dialogue of the deaf” because of a lack of movement on Church concerns by the nuns.
Levada told the NCR that depending on how well the group cooperates with Seattle’s Archbishop J. Peter Sartain of Seattle, who was appointed by the Vatican to oversee reform of the group, the errant nuns could lose Church recognition and be replaced by a group more faithful to Catholic teaching.
Thus far, the LCWR hasn’t shown much willingness to work with the Vatican. For instance, even after the assessment when the CDF allowed them to go forward with plans for their August assembly, the group chose to invite New Age guru Barbara Marx Hubbard to give the keynote address. They also decided to bestow an award on Sr. Sandra Schneiders, a theologian who is well-known for her dissent.
Levada said that when he gave LCWR the go-ahead to proceed with its August assembly, he wasn’t aware of their choice of speakers or honorees, and that “I wish they hadn’t made these choices.”
“Too many people crossing the LCWR screen, who are supposedly representing the Catholic church, aren’t representing the church with any reasonable sense of product identity,” Levada said.
He also strongly rejected the LCWR’s charge that the assessment made against them was based on “unsubstantiated accusations” or that the process lacked transparency.
“In reality, this is not a surprise,” he said. The process began four years ago and its results were not based on secret accusations, but “what happens in their assemblies, what’s on their website, what they do or don’t do.”
Levada also denied accusations that the move against the LCWR was motivated by the Church’s desire to seize assets from religious orders or that it was intended to bring the group under the permanent control of the U.S. Bishops. The Cardinal said the focus should be on the substantive issues in the Vatican critique rather than on these “conspiracy theories.”
“The church is a broad umbrella, and it doesn’t quickly exclude people, even people who disagree on one point or the other,” he said. “But ultimately, this is about a group that represents the church doing so in a way that is accountable to the teaching and tradition of the church.”
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