Vactican takes on reforming US nuns

[Sidewinder]

Clash of the titans: Vatican takes on reforming US nuns

By Claudio Lavanga, NBC News

ROME - What do American nuns do when they are accused of being radical feminists? They respond as radical feminists might: by challenging the male authority face-to-face.

Sister Pat Farrell, head of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), the umbrella group that represents 80 percent of the U.S.'s 57,000 Catholic nuns, traveled to Rome to confront accusations that her organization promotes "radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith."

Farrell met American Cardinal William Levada, head of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, on Tuesday. The gathering was aimed at reconciling their differences, but it has the potential to permanently alienate many American nuns from the Holy See.

From the beginning, the meeting was fixing to be a titanic clash between strong-willed servants of God.

On one side next to Farrell sat Sister Janet Mock, the group’s executive director.

Opposite them, Cardinal Levada was joined by Vatican-appointed Archbishop Peter Sartain, who has been named to oversee the overhaul of the the LCWR. Sartain has been given the power to rewrite the group's statutes, its meeting agendas and liturgical texts.

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Alessandro Speciale, the Vatican Correspondent for Religion News Service, said the discussions – held in private – were unlikely to have been amicable.

"It will (have been) a deaf argument," he told NBC News. "They will both try to force their message across, but it's unlikely to be a friendly chat."

Both sides emerged from Tuesday's meeting without giving much away.

Farrell told journalists outside the Vatican she had an "open dialogue" with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and found the support in America "very affirming."

Likewise, the Vatican did not go into much detail on the meeting's outcome, but said the gathering had happened in an "atmosphere of openness and cordiality."

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What is almost certain is that Farrell, a determined representative of thousands of American nuns, asked Levada to reconsider the damning assessment his office issued about her group. The report followed a two-year investigation into the nuns' outspoken social and political outreach, which has often differed from the Vatican's official position.

Tensions between the American nuns and the Vatican have been simmering for years, and stem from the open discussion among LCWR's members of sensitive issues such as gay marriage, contraception and on the ordination of women.

On April 18, the Vatican harshly criticized the group, and accused it in a statement of perpetuating "a distorted ecclesiological vision, and (having) scant regard for the role of the Magisterium as the guarantor of the authentic interpretation of the Church's Faith."

Magisterium, the official teaching authority of the Catholic Church, is made-up of the pope and bishops. Ecclesiological refers to the nature and functions of the church.

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The Vatican then appointed a trio of bishops to deal with the differences with the LCWR.

The LCWR's official response came more than a month later, but it was just as strong-worded.

The nuns said that the Vatican's charges are based "on unsubstantiated accusations and the result of a flawed process that lacked transparency. Moreover, the sanctions imposed were disproportionate to the concerns raised and could compromise their ability to fulfill their mission. The report has furthermore caused scandal and pain throughout the church community, and created greater polarization."

Whatever happened behind closed doors at the Vatican on Tuesday, the meeting will eventually help the world's estimated 1.2 billion Catholics understand whether the Vatican and the American nuns can reach a compromise – or, as seems more likely, remain poles apart.

Just how radical is the LCWR, anyways?

THE HOMOSEXUALITY ISSUE

Also in 1993, the national board of the LCWR issued a statement, “Concerning the Rights of Gay and Lesbian Persons.” That statement charged, “Recent Church documents invoke religious principles to justify discrimination against homosexual persons.” This no doubt referred to a 1992 background paper from the CDF intended for bishops but leaked to the press and misinterpreted. Also ongoing at the time was a Vatican-commissioned evaluation of public statements and activities of Father Robert Nugent, SDS, and Sister Jeannine Gramick, SND, co-founders of New Ways Ministry, an outreach to homosexual persons that had been banned in some dioceses because of its flawed philosophies.

After an 11-year study of the work of these two religious, the Vatican in 1999 permanently prohibited them from any further pastoral work involving homosexuals because: “The ambiguities and errors of the approach of Father Nugent and Sister Gramick have caused confusion among the Catholic people and have harmed the community of the Church.” Father Nugent accepted this disciplinary decision, but Sister Jeannine did not, and the LCWR rushed to her defense.

At the 1999 assembly, where the theme was “Change at the heart of it all,” the LCWR passed a special resolution regarding the Gramick case, complaining about “a pattern in the exercise of ecclesiastical authority experienced as a source of suffering and division by many within the Catholic community.” The LCWR leadership then laid out a one-year plan to engage the bishops and the Vatican on the issue.

LCWR past president Sister Camille D’Arienzo, RSM wrote in the LCWR 2000 annual report that, in speaking to Vatican officials, the LCWR leadership found it necessary to interpret cultural differences in their discussion about Sister Jeannine’s notification. “Homosexuality is often a subject of conversation in the US, but not necessarily in other countries or the Vatican,” she explained. Similarly, “questioning and disagreement are acceptable interactions in our society, but in other settings they may be seen as disloyalty.” And referring to the visit to the Vatican, she further opined: “There are times when we question the significance of supporting a structure that is so foreign to our commitment to right relationships, to our expression of a living faith and to our desire for an inclusive Church.”

The year of lobbying and “dialogue” with the hierarchy about the Vatican’s discipline of Sister Jeannine Gramick culminated in the LCWR August 2000 assembly. In her presidential address, Sister Nancy Sylvester talked about LCWR’s “tension and conflict” with the Vatican, stating, “We believe in the power to change unjust structures and laws. We respect loyal dissent.” She continued that the sisters had been “disappointed, frustrated, angered, and deeply saddened by official responses that seem authoritarian, punitive, disrespectful of our legitimate authority as elected leaders, and disrespectful of our capacity to be moral agents.” She then presented what she called a “casualty list” sustained from dealings with Church officials. That list of injuries included: sisters who had signed the New York Times 1984 abortion statement; the 1995 Vatican letter on the ordination of women; theologians and scholars who had been silenced by the Church; the canonical approval of the alternate superiors’ conference; and the CDF discipline of Sister Jeannine Gramick. In conclusion, Sister Nancy observed: “I do believe that we are at an impasse with the official church that we love,” and she speculated about whether the Vatican would de-legitimize the LCWR.

Any chance the Vatican will finally awaken to the fact this is the 21st century?

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Not a chance. As the article states, the Vatican has already placed the LWSC under a sort of receivership to be administered by Archbishop Sartain. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is (basically,) the present term for what used to be called the Inquisition. The Vatican is likely to do everything in its power to put the boots to the LWSC, and will ultimately alienate the American nuns that it represents. However, since the Vatican is a European gerontocracy, it will likely catch up with the 21st century by about the middle of the 22nd.

[Sidewinder]

What are the chances Martin Luther's American descendent will appear and then break the continent free of the Vatican? At least to spare the American priests from being seen as "guilty by association" for the Vatican's mishandling of child abuse scandals?

[Simon_Jester]

The remaining Catholic clergy are pretty schism-averse. It'd take a lot to make that happen.

[Bakustra]

What are the chances Martin Luther's American descendent will appear and then break the continent free of the Vatican? At least to spare the American priests from being seen as "guilty by association" for the Vatican's mishandling of child abuse scandals?

Zero. Catholicism is not something that invested Americans are going to abandon over something like this, as you, in your ignorance of Christianity, have suggested. Liberation theologians still consider themselves Catholic despite being Christian Marxists (basically), after all. Turns out spiritual leaders may make spiritual decisions over temporal ones?

[bobalot]

I don't see how this will help the Catholic faith in anyway in America.

The Vatican continues its slide into irrelevancy in the industrialized nations.

[Highlord Laan]

I don't see how this will help the Catholic faith in anyway in America.

The Vatican continues its slide into irrelevancy in the industrialized nations.

Pity theres no legal way to hurry that slide along. Kicking the entire bigoted, hypocritical and pedo-defending organization out of the US would be glorious release for the whole world.

[Irbis]

At least to spare the American priests from being seen as "guilty by association" for the Vatican's mishandling of child abuse scandals?

Care to inform me how paedophilia scandals committed on American soil by American priests are somehow caused by association with Vatican?

The only thing Vatican did was shielding these responsible until US law system started auctioning churches to pay fines Curia was unwilling to pay, which made Vatican reconsider its stance quickly, but still, root cause was local, not brought in by evil Rome.

[Lord of the Abyss]

At least to spare the American priests from being seen as "guilty by association" for the Vatican's mishandling of child abuse scandals?

Care to inform me how paedophilia scandals committed on American soil by American priests are somehow caused by association with Vatican?

The only thing Vatican did was shielding these responsible until US law system started auctioning churches to pay fines Curia was unwilling to pay, which made Vatican reconsider its stance quickly, but still, root cause was local, not brought in by evil Rome.

That pretty much is the scandal. You'll find pedophiles in any organization; what you won't generally find is them being shielded by the organization in question. It was that shielding that turned it from being something that could be blamed on a few bad priests, into something that was the fault of the whole organization.

[Alyrium Denryle]

The only thing Vatican did was shielding these responsible under the threat of excommunication for those who talked until US law system started auctioning churches to pay fines Curia was unwilling to pay, which made Vatican reconsider its stance quickly, but still, root cause was local, not brought in by evil Rome.

I fixed that for you.

Oh, and even after they have learned about it... the Curia is still not willing to pay the fines, they have been known to grant asylum to kiddy-diddling-priests (or at least bar extradition), and the scandal is MUCH bigger than the US. The policy was ALSO put in place by the current Vicar of Christ.