WUNRN
Vatican Ends Confrontation With US
Catholic Nuns
Pope Francis met with a delegation
from the Leadership Conference of Women Religious at the Vatican on Thursday.CreditPool photo
by L'Osservatore Romano
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN - APRIL 16, 2015
The Vatican has
abruptly ended its takeover of the main leadership group of American nuns two
years earlier than expected, allowing Pope Francis to
put to rest a confrontation started by his predecessor that created an uproar
among American Catholics who had rallied to the sisters’ defense.
Anticipating
a visit by Francis to
the United States in the fall, the Vatican and the American bishops were eager
to resolve an episode that was seen by many Catholics as a vexing and unjust
inquisition of the sisters who ran the church’s schools, hospitals and
charities.
Under the
previous pope, Benedict
XVI, the Vatican’s doctrinal office had appointed three bishops in
2012 to overhaul the nuns’ group, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious,
out of concerns that it had hosted speakers and published materials that
strayed from Catholic doctrine on such matters as the all-male priesthood,
birth control and sexuality, and the centrality of Jesus to the faith.
But Francis
has shown in his two-year papacy that he is less interested in having the
church police doctrinal boundaries than in demonstrating mercy and love for the
poor and vulnerable — the very work that most of the women’s religious orders
under investigation have long been engaged in.
Ending the
standoff with the nuns is one of several course corrections that Francis has
set in motion. He has also worked on reforming the Vatican Curia, the Vatican’s
central administration, instituting tighter oversight of Vatican finances, and
has created a commission to deal with sexual abuse by clergy members.
He has made
no changes in doctrine — on Wednesday, he reiterated the church’s teaching that
marriage can be only between a man and a woman — but Catholics worldwide say he
has done much to make the church’s tone more welcoming.
On Thursday,
that included calling an unexpected meeting with four of the leaders of the
Leadership Conference. The four women were photographed in his office and said
afterward in a statement that they were “deeply heartened” by Francis’
“expression of appreciation” for the lives and ministry of Catholic sisters.
“He met with
them himself for almost an hour, and that’s an extravagant amount of papal
time,” said Eileen Burke-Sullivan, a theologian and consultant for women’s
religious orders and vice provost for mission and ministry at Creighton
University, a Jesuit school in Omaha. “It’s about as close to an apology, I
would think, as the Catholic Church is officially going to render.”
Francis has
never talked explicitly in public about the imbroglio with American nuns. But
he has spoken about creating “broader opportunities” for women in the church,
and the value of nuns and priests in religious orders. He is a member of the
Jesuit order.
A clear
signal that the Vatican under Francis was taking a more conciliatory approach
to American sisters came in December with the announcement of the conclusion of another,
separate investigation of American women’s orders, which was
known as an apostolic visitation. That process involved sending questionnaires
to 350 religious communities and teams of “visitors” to 90 of them, asking
about everything from their prayer practices to living arrangements.
Both of
these investigations of American women’s religious orders began at the urging
of American and some foreign prelates who accused the sisters of disobeying the
bishops and departing from Catholic doctrine. It set off protests by Catholic
laypeople across the country, who signed petitions and sent letters to the
Vatican in defense of the sisters.
It even
became a movement with its own anthem, “Love Cannot Be
Silenced,” composed by a folk-singing sister in Chicago.
The news
came in a brief report issued jointly by
the Leadership Conference and the three American bishops who had been appointed
by the Vatican three years ago to take over and overhaul the organization.
The report
cast the process as one of collaboration, saying, “Our extensive conversations
were marked by a spirit of prayer, love for the church, mutual respect and
cooperation. We found our conversations to be mutually beneficial.”
It was a far
cry from three years ago, when the Vatican’s doctrinal office, led by an
American cardinal, William Levada, issued a report finding
that the Leadership Conference had “serious doctrinal problems.” It said the
sisters were promoting “radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic
faith.” It also accused the nuns of spending more time working against poverty
and social injustice than abortion and same-sex marriage.
The
Vatican’s doctrinal office in 2012 appointed Archbishop J. Peter Sartain of
Seattle, with assistance from Bishop Leonard Blair of Hartford and Bishop
Thomas J. Paprocki of Springfield, Ill., to spend as many as five years
assessing and overhauling the Leadership Conference.
Leaders of
the nuns’ group, which represents about 80 percent of Catholic sisters in the
United States, insisted all along that the accusations were unfounded and that
the Vatican simply did not understand the culture and process of American
women’s religious orders, many of which emphasize open discussion and communal
decision-making.
They decided
that rather than take a confrontational approach, they would engage in rigorous
dialogue with Archbishop Sartain and the other overseers, using the same
process the sisters employ among themselves to settle disagreements and make
decisions.
Ultimately,
the report issued on Thursday said that the nuns’ group would take care in
selecting the speakers and programs at its conferences, and have “competent
theologians” review its publications. It did not specify who would select the
theologians, and indeed, women’s religious orders are full of trained and
competent theologians.
The report
said the goal was “to promote a scholarly rigor that will ensure theological
accuracy and help avoid statements that are ambiguous with regard to church
doctrine or could be read as contrary to it.”
On Thursday,
neither the nuns nor the bishops involved would grant interviews. The Vatican’s
doctrinal office also would not speak. The nuns’ group said that the doctrinal
office had asked all of those involved not to speak to the news media for 30
days.
The Rev.
Federico Lombardi, a Vatican spokesman, said in a telephone interview: “Once
they discussed and cleared the issues on the table, they published a joint
report. That’s it.”
In a
statement, Sister Sharon Holland, president of the Leadership Conference, said,
“We are pleased at the completion of the mandate, which involved long and
challenging exchanges of our understandings of and perspectives on critical
matters of religious life and its practice.”
Archbishop
Sartain, striking a similar tone, said in a statement, “Our work together was
undertaken in an atmosphere of love for the church and profound respect for the
critical place of religious life in the United States, and the very fact of
such substantive dialogue between bishops and religious women has been mutually
beneficial and a blessing from the Lord.”
The friendly
resolution came as a great relief to the sisters and their supporters, who had
feared that the Vatican could dissolve the Leadership Conference or take
permanent control of it, said the Rev. James Martin, editor at large with the
Jesuit magazine America, who wrote often about the conflict. “What you see with
the sisters is true courage, which is being faithful to the church authority
and also to who they are,” he said.
He said that there was no way to know how involved Francis was in the resolution, but that “as a member of a religious order who himself felt under the gun many times by his superiors, he would have some natural sympathy toward the sisters.”
http://www.demanjo.com/news/world/1278492/friendly-move-from-vatican-clears-american-nuns.html
FRIENDLY MOVE FROM THE VATICAN CLEARS AMERICAN NUNS
The Vatican
has abruptly ended its takeover of the main leadership group of American nuns
two years earlier than expected, allowing Pope Francis to put to rest a
confrontation started by his predecessor that created an uproar among U.S.
Catholics.
The
eight-page document stunned affiliates and the conference, which oversees and
acts as a support system for nuns in leadership roles.
Rome's
enforcer of orthodoxy, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, also
criticized the nuns for "protesting the Holy See's actions regarding the
question of women's ordination and of a correct pastoral approach to ministry
to homosexual persons."
The
nuns' emphasis on social justice, however, falls in line with Pope Francis's
emphasis on austerity and serving the poor.
On
Thursday, a delegation from the conference had a 50-minute meeting with the
pope during an annual visit to Vatican offices.
"We
were also deeply heartened by Pope Francis's expression of appreciation for the
witness given by Catholic sisters through our lives and ministry and will bring
that message back to our members," Leadership Conference of Women
Religious officials said in a statement.
The
president of the conference, Sister Sharon Holland, said the investigation led
to "long and challenging exchanges of our understandings of and
perspectives on critical matters of religious life and its practice."
Thursday's
report, issued jointly, does not detail the extent of any revisions to the
nuns' statutes, but it does say "measures are being taken" to ensure
the group's publications "avoid statements that are ambiguous with regard
to church doctrine or could be read as contrary to it."
“We
have to clarify that we are not misogynists, we don’t want to gobble up a woman
a day!” December 2014: The parallel Vatican review of women’s orders in the
U.S., launched in 2008, concludes with a report designed to bury the
differences and celebrate the sisters’ contributions to the Roman Catholic
Church.
Cardinal
Gerhard Mueller, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, seemed
intent on moving past the controversy, calling the sisters "essential for
the flourishing of religious life in the church."