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Rome vs the Sisters

By editorsub1 on April 30, 2012 5:39 am in Opinion / 5 comments

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Commentators offer a range of explanations for last week’s Vatican “assessment” charging a group that includes the largest number of US Catholic sisters, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) with “serious doctrinal problems” and “radical feminism.”

One frequent explanation is that the report was issued in retaliation for support given the 2009 Affordable Care Act (ACA) by Network, a Catholic social justice lobby with close ties to the LCWR. For example, in a BBC News interview several days after the release of the assessment, Sister Simone Campbell, Network’s executive director, acknowledged “a strong connection” between Network’s challenge to the US bishops over the ACA and the Vatican accusations.

No doubt there is some truth to this analysis. But it’s worth noting that the Vatican launched the investigation that culminated in this document in January 2009, more than a year before Congress passed the ACA. Given the speed with which Rome does things, it’s more than likely that while the sisters’ support for the ACA contributed to the harshness of the statement, it by no means caused it. Indeed, Pope John Paul II mandated a previous investigation of US religious in 1983, though the outcome of that process was less brutal than the current one has proven to be. [More]

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Marian Ronan/Religion Dispatches

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5 Comments

Sean says:

April 30, 2012 at 9:27 pm

I doubt many (any?) of the sisters that are part of LCWR are cloistered nuns. So why does this Catholic news website use a picture of a cloistered nun (in full habit) for this news story? The news editor really needs to do a better job.

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Michael says:

April 30, 2012 at 3:30 pm

Catherine of Siena and Teresa of Avila were true “Daughters of the Church.” They knew church teaching very well are were faithful to those teachings and obedient and respectful to the Pope. They didn’t run around watering down the churches teachings in order to make themselves look like the ones who care while the, so called, “disfunctional men in the Vatican” don’t care about the poor.” It’s not easy to follow the “narrow way”. Popular opinion gets you more applause. The church will always defend the poor, but not at the cost of killing babies by the millions. And having compassion for those who are gay doesn’t mean condoning that type of sexual practice. That’s not being obedient to God. It’s about time the Vatican confronted the LCWR and challenged them. Be assured, they don’t represent the majority of Women Religious. Those Sisters who oppose the LCWR are condemned to silence, otherwise they are doomed to persecutions in their convents and Motherhouses. You have no idea what many true obedient Catholic women religous must live under. They are white martyrs of today. They are the ones who are like Catherine of Siena and Teresa of Avila.

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John says:

April 30, 2012 at 3:07 pm

Another USELESS article. How many of you actualy READ the statement released by the Vatican? If you did, you would see the lies and distortions being spun by the LCWR and their friends. The truth always wins out in the end.

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Recovering Catholic says:

April 30, 2012 at 12:40 pm

“I don’t think the boys have any idea what they’re in for.”
Sister Simone Campbell

Go, Sister Campbell !!

By the way, is there anything called radical maleism? How about war?

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Tony says:

April 30, 2012 at 9:30 am

Women deserve better in 2012 than to be dominated by dysfunctional men.
Good for the women who, like Saint Catherine of Siena, are determening their own lives.

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