Author and journalist Ann Carey, who has for many years researched
and covered the situation of women's religious in the U.S., reacted
yesterday to the news of the CDF statement about the LCWR and the
response, so far, of the LCWR:
Ann Carey is author of the book Sisters in Crisis: The Tragic Unraveling of Women’s Religious Communities, so she’s not remotely surprised by the Vatican’s call for reform of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious.
“Some
people have speculated that the CDF renewal of the Leadership
Conference of Women Religious was prompted by the LCWR and Network
support of Obamacare in opposition to the bishops,” she observes.
“That may have been the last straw, but the CDF move was a long time
coming,” she tells me.
Carey provides the background:
The LCWR
has disagreed with the Vatican on major issues since the early 1970s.
The renewal model promoted by LCWR was a misinterpretation of
the Vatican II mandates, and the Vatican tried to issue guidelines to
correct the situation several times over the years, only to be rebuffed
by LCWR. The LCWR leadership has been open about its right to “loyal
dissent” and its determination to re-make religious life, and has
influenced many religious orders to follow its path.
Read the entire piece on National Review Online. Carey has written several pieces for Catholic World Report about
the LCWR and related matters. They are helpful in dispelling the
dominant media image of sweet, little nuns doing nothing more than
helping the poor and fighting the forces of injustice. In one, "In Denial" (May
2011), readers are given a sense of how badly some orders have gone off
the rails, failing to observe even the most basic doctrines of
orthodox, "mere" Christianity, never mind robust, authentic Catholicism:
For
example, a sister whose motherhouse is in New York reports that the
elderly in her order are dispersed in secular nursing homes where
access to the sacraments is limited. Many sisters say that it is common
in their religious orders for sisters chosen by leadership to give
a“reflection” in place of the homily. And they say that strange rituals
often replace observances of the Church’s liturgical practices.
Sister
Elizabeth McDonough, OP wrote in Review for Religious in 1992 what
sisters in dozens of communities have told her: “They are repulsed by
rituals that center on shells and stones, streams and twigs, windmills
and waterfalls, and at which so fundamental a Christian symbol as the
cross of Jesus Christ is often noticeable only by its absence.” And it
is obvious this trend continues today, as anyone can see by looking at
photos on the web pages of a variety of women’s orders, as well as
photos from LCWR assemblies that are posted on www.lcwr.org.
Even the
doxology prayed in many of the women’s orders has been debased and
neutered, with “Father” being replaced with “Source of all being,” and
“Son” replaced with “Eternal word.” Liturgical books also have been
corrupted, with many women’s orders replacing the Church’s Liturgy of
the Hours with an inclusive-language, feminist version of the daily
office. And routinely it is made quite clear to priests that they are
not welcome to concelebrate at convent liturgies because the sight of
multiple priests is upsetting or offensive to sisters who support the
ordination of women.
Another essay, "Post-Christian Sisters",
provides helpful background information for those unfamiliar with the
contentious history of the LCWR. Carey notes that "the LCWR has had a
stormy relationship with the Vatican for the past 40 years, and the
LCWR has been very clear about its determination to 'transform'
religious life as well as the Church itself." And:
The LCWR assembly in 1972 featured a
canon lawyer who spoke on “Religious Communities as Providential Gift
for the Liberation of Women” and suggested that women bring lawsuits
against the Church in both civil and Church courts and stage economic
boycotts of parish churches.
At the LCWR 1974 annual assembly, the
membership approved a resolution calling for “all ministries in the
church [to] be open to women and men as the Spirit calls them.” Also
in 1974, the LCWR published the book Widening the Dialogue, a response to Evangelica Testificatio,
the Pope’s exhortation on renewal of religious life. The LCWR book was
highly critical of the Pope’s teachings and was used by the LCWR in
workshops for sisters.
When the first Women’s Ordination
Conference was being organized in 1975, the LCWR president appointed a
sister as liaison to the group planning the event. The Vatican curial
office overseeing religious subsequently directed the LCWR to
dissociate itself from the ordination conference, but the LCWR officers
refused, and the sister went on to become coordinator of the
organizing task force for the event.
At the 1977 assembly, the new LCWR
president, Sister Joan Doyle, BVM, related that sisters were moving
into “socio-political ministries” in or out of Church institutions, and
she called for women’s involvement in decision-making at every level
of the Church, as well as “active participation in all aspects of the
church’s ministry.” It was during the 1970s that the LCWR board voted
to join the National Organization for Women’s boycott of convention
sites in states that had not ratified the Equal Rights Amendment, and
the board obtained NGO status for the LCWR at the United Nations.
The piece details how the CDF issued a doctrinal warning to the LCWR
in 2001 but was continually put off by seemingly endless talk of
talking—that is, "dialogue" and "conversation", also known as "buying
time" and "stonewalling" in the real world. And all at the service of
continuing to reject Church teaching, ignore legitimate authority, and
actively promote dissent:
In the LCWR
2001 annual report, Sister Mary Mollisson, CSA, LCWR president,
reiterated the long-held conference strategy to keep “dialoging” with
Church authorities to keep the issues open. She wrote: “In keeping with
our desire for right relationships among church officials and members
of the Conference, the Presidency continues a dialogue with bishops and
Vatican officials. We approach this dialogue with a sense of urgency
and with a passion to stay in conversations that will decrease the
tension between doctrinal adherence and the pastoral needs of
marginalized people. We also continue to express our desire for women
to be involved in more decision-making within church structures. The
risk of this part of our journey is being misunderstood and being
perceived as unfaithful to the Magisterium of the church.” And she
characterized Church officials as just not comprehending the sisters’
message: “Understanding of authority, obedience, communal discernment,
and the prophetic nature of religious need further conversations.”
The LCWR national board agreed in 2002 to
write letters of support to New Ways Ministry and chose as the theme
for that year’s assembly “Leadership in Dynamic Tension.” In her
presidential address to the assembly, Sister Kathleen Pruitt, CSJP
continued the LCWR mantra that the Church needed to be reformed, and
that LCWR sisters were the very people to do it: “The challenge to us,
how best to speak clearly, to act effectively to bring about necessary
change, reform, renewal, and healing within our wounded world, our
nation, among ourselves, and particularly in our church.… Call for
change or reform of structures, modes, and methods of acting that
perpetuate exclusivity, secrecy, lack of honesty and openness, all of
which foster inappropriate exercise of power, is tension-filled.”
A LCWR press release after the 2003
assembly reported that “LCWR president Sister Mary Ann Zollmann, BVM
challenged the [LCWR] leaders to maximize the potential to create
change that is inherent in religious life. ‘We have uncovered within
ourselves the power most necessary for the creation, salvation, and
resurrection of our church, our world, and our earth. It is the power
of relationship, of our sisterhood with all that is. This power is
prophetic; it is the most radical act of dissent.’”
Read the entire piece. Ann Carey is writing a new piece for CWR about the current situation; it will appear on this site very soon.