It just keeps getting better.
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Citing “serious doctrinal problems which affect many in consecrated life,” the Vatican announced a major reform of an association of women’s religious congregations in the U.S. to ensure their fidelity to Catholic teaching in areas including abortion, euthanasia, women’s ordination and homosexuality.
Archbishop J. Peter Sartain of Seattle will provide “review, guidance and approval, where necessary, of the work” of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, the Vatican announced April 18. The archbishop will be assisted by Bishop Leonard P. Blair of Toledo, Ohio, and Bishop Thomas J. Paprocki of Springfield, Ill., and draw on the advice of fellow bishops, women religious and other experts.
The LCWR, a Maryland-based umbrella group that claims about 1,500 leaders of U.S. women’s communities as members, represents about 80 percent of the country’s 57,000 women religious.
The announcement from the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith came in an eight-page “doctrinal assessment,” based on an investigation that Bishop Blair began on behalf of the Vatican in April 2008. That investigation led the doctrinal congregation to conclude, in January 2011, 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.”
Time for them to take their yoga mats pant suits packin’. Matt and I wrote about the secret investigation. Nunjas don’t take crap.
April 19, 2012 at 5:01 am
It's about time! I remember going to a Catholic fundraising conference a few years back, where a Sr. Georgette was in charge. The keynote speech at lunch was "The Wisdom of Islam". I wrote her to say that, even as somebody who was not Catholic, I was appalled and disgusted. Her reply was basically that I didn't "get" the wisdom of the speech.
Later at that same conference, there was a Catholic woman who gave a very, very good seminar. One of the things that she mentioned was that the sisters underestimate the value and power of the habit, and suggested that sometimes that visual will help get donors to contribute. You would not believe how offended that some of the nuns in the room got with just the suggestion that they ever wear habits. I ended up feeling pretty bad for the woman giving the presentation because it ended up being a huge disruption to her and I think she felt bad for "upsetting" the sisters…
April 19, 2012 at 5:03 am
Crap! I picked the wrong time to invest in a polyester pants factory.
April 19, 2012 at 5:11 am
Entirely relevant. Seriously, click the link.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usfiAsWR4qU
April 19, 2012 at 10:20 am
Someone ought to tell these women that "liberal" (political and moral definition) and "nun" are mutually exclusive terms.
April 19, 2012 at 3:02 pm
Great link, Patrick. =) Enjoyed it!
April 20, 2012 at 7:13 am
I will second the sentiment that this is a necessary intervention and overdue, but in what sense is any of this something to be joyful about? The leadership of women who are largely responsible for the Catholic culture in the United States and for the status of the church in the broader culture have veered wildly from the narrow way. Christ is the good shepherd who goes looking for the lost sheep, but we may living out a different metaphor where we have need of a good surgeon to cut away parts of the body that have become necrotic. "Smackdowns" are pathetic attempts at entertainment in the WWE. They are not entertainment in the church.
I concur that this is necessary and dissent from thinking there is anything to celebrate.
April 20, 2012 at 10:24 am
@unitylibertcharity: in absolute terms, yes, it's an occasion for deep regret that it has to come to this. It is, however, an occasion of emotional satisfaction that the issue is finally being resolved.
In the same way, it is regrettable whenever one has to use force against another human being. But it is also not wrong to be happy about winning a fight.
April 20, 2012 at 9:00 pm
I recall listening to a nunja (who was Vocation Director for her dying order) smiling with glee as she described taking students from a local Catholic Girls High School and having them pass out condoms at an area soup kitchen. Now, they have the audacity to complain when the Vatican has decided that enough is enough!
April 20, 2012 at 10:26 pm
@ Anonymous: I think Nunja is being used of the good ones, the ones doing the inspections for the Vatican.
At least one group of real ninja, the O-Niwa Banshu (Garden Squad), who were also the shogun's bodyguards, would go around Japan disguised as medicine peddlers and itinerant monks, making sure the local lords weren't embezzling from the taxes they collected, or abusing their tenants. There's some evidence their predecessors, the Iga ninja, also performed the same role. The third (I think) successor to the Shogunate's official sword-style, Yagyuu Juubei Mitsuyoshi, was rumored to be an Iga ninja—his maternal grandfather definitely was one—and he went "under the radar" for a period of several years; the rumor was that he was doing one of those inspection-missions.
April 22, 2012 at 2:16 pm
The Faithful have a right to the TRUTH.
April 22, 2012 at 4:14 pm
Anonymous 4:00
Condoms do nothing to prevent HIV/AIDS or HERPES or HPV, no virus. These nuns carry the responsibility and guilt for every case of fatal HIV/AIDS they caused.
April 22, 2012 at 8:12 pm
Jesus Christ was crucified and died in obedience to His Father. Jesus Christ in obedience to the Scriptures rose from the dead. Denying obedience to Holy Mother Church denies to the adherents eternal life in the Resurrection of the body.