VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Two days after the head of the Vatican office overseeing religious life said he had not been consulted by the Vatican’s doctrinal office about a controversial investigation of American nuns, the two bodies affirmed their “common commitment” to reform of the U.S.-based Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR).

Brazilian Cardinal Joao Braz de Aviz, prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, told an international gathering of sisters May 5 that his office had not been consulted about the doctrinal congregation’s investigation of the LCWR, and he expressed hopes for “a dialogue, something which did not take place previously.”

In newspaper reports, Cardinal Braz de Aviz was not quoted as disagreeing with the doctrinal congregation’s final assessment of the LCWR or challenging the congregation’s decision that the group’s statutes must be revised. He did, however, say the way the process was handled personally caused him pain.

 by Carol Glatz

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Pope Francis reaffirmed the Vatican’s call for reform of the U.S.-based Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR).

Archbishop Gerhard Muller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, told the U.S.-based nuns’ group that he had “recently discussed the doctrinal assessment with Pope Francis, who reaffirmed the findings of the assessment and the program of reform for this conference of major superiors.”

The doctrinal congregation met April 15 with the LCWR leadership and Seattle Archbishop J. Peter Sartain, who had been assigned by the Vatican to oversee the reform of the pontifically recognized leadership group.

LCWR, in a statement on its website, said its representatives included Franciscan Sister Florence Deacon, president; Sister Carol Zinn, a Sister of St. Joseph, president-elect; and Sister Janet Mock, a Sister of St. Joseph and the organization’s executive director.

LCWR is a Maryland-based umbrella group that claims about 1,500 leaders of U.S. women’s communities as members, representing about 80 percent of the country’s 57,000 women religious.

The organization said in its statement that “the conversation was open and frank.”

“We pray that these conversations may bear fruit for the good of the church,” it said without further elaboration.

Last April, the doctrinal congregation issued an assessment of LCWR, citing “serious doctrinal problems which affect many in consecrated life.” The assessment called for the organization’s reform to ensure its fidelity to Catholic teaching in areas including abortion, euthanasia, women’s ordination and homosexuality. LCWR’s canonical status is granted by the Vatican.

During the April 15 meeting at the Vatican, Archbishop Muller said the group, like any conference of major superiors, “exists in order to promote common efforts among its member institutes as well as cooperation with the local conference of bishops and with individual bishops.”

“For this reason, such conferences are constituted by and remain under the direction of the Holy See,” said the written statement released by the doctrinal congregation.

“It is the sincere desire of the Holy See that this meeting may help to promote the integral witness of women religious, based on a firm foundation of faith and Christian love, so as to preserve and strengthen it for the enrichment of the church and society for generations to come,” the statement said.

The meeting marked the first time Archbishop Muller met with the LCWR leadership, giving him the opportunity to express “his gratitude for the great contribution of women religious to the church in the United States as seen particularly in the many schools, hospitals, and institutions of support for the poor which have been founded and staffed by religious over the years,” the statement said.

During the meeting, the archbishop “then highlighted the teaching of the Second Vatican Council regarding the important mission of religious to promote a vision of ecclesial communion founded on faith in Jesus Christ and the teachings of the church as faithfully taught through the ages under the guidance of the Magisterium,” it said.

Bishop Leonard P. Blair of Toledo, Ohio, and Bishop Thomas J. Paprocki of Springfield, Ill., were named last year to assist Archbishop Sartain in reviewing and providing guidance and approval, where necessary, of the work of LCWR. They were also to draw on the advice of fellow bishops, women religious and other experts.

Bishop Paprocki has said, “It is important to note that the doctrinal assessment of LCWR does not deal with the faith and life of the 57,000 women religious in the United States” nor is it meant “to call into question the faith and witness of so many dedicated and faithful women religious throughout the country.”

In an article he published last May in the Catholic Times, the diocesan newspaper in Springfield, the bishop said the major concerns center on “problematic statements and serious theological, even doctrinal, errors” in talks at LCWR’s annual assemblies; “policies of corporate dissent” on such issues as women’s ordination and ministry to homosexual persons; and the “prevalence of certain radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith” in some LCWR programs and presentations.

Bishop Paprocki had said the work with Archbishop Sartain and Bishop Blair included “the development of initial and ongoing formation material that provides a deepened understanding of the church’s doctrine of the faith” and “guidance in the application of liturgical norms” to give the Eucharist and Liturgy of the Hours “a place of priority in LCWR events and programs.”

“In sum, the purpose of the doctrinal assessment is to work collaboratively to renew LCWR and strengthen the doctrinal foundations that should guide the organization’s many important initiatives and efforts,” Bishop Paprocki had said.

by Carol Zimmermann

At the opening sessions of the LCWR assembly, Archbishop Robert J. Carlson of St. Louis, left, welcomed the group and spoke highly of the dedication and work of the nation’s women religious. Chairman of the USCCB Committee on Clergy, Consecrated Life and Vocations, the archbishop broke away from his prepared remarks to urge the sisters to look at examples in church history of people working as they faced challenges.

Members of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) announced Aug. 10 at the close of their four-day assembly in St. Louis that they will continue to dialogue with church officials about the Vatican’s doctrinal assessment of their organization.

LCWR’s outgoing president, Franciscan Sister Pat Farrell, said the group’s leaders would begin dialogue with Seattle Archbishop J. Peter Sartain, who is charged with overseeing the group’s reform.

Great Understanding

Sister Pat said the LCWR members hoped its leaders would have “open and honest dialogue” that would lead to greater understanding and to greater opportunities for women to have a voice in the Church.

She said the officers would “proceed with these discussions as long as possible but would reconsider if LCWR is forced to compromise the integrity of its mission.”

Archbishop Sartain said that along with LCWR, he remained “committed to working to address the issues raised by the doctrinal assessment in an atmosphere of prayer and respectful dialogue.

“We must also work toward clearing up any misunderstandings, and I remain truly hopeful that we will work together without compromising church teaching or the important role of the LCWR,” Archbishop Sartain said in a statement released Aug. 11 after his meeting with the LCWR board.

“I look forward to our continued discussions as we collaborate in promoting consecrated life in the United States,” he added.

Women religious representing the majority of U.S. women’s congregations met several times during their Aug. 7-10 annual assembly in St. Louis to discuss their response to the Vatican’s doctrinal assessment of their organization, the LCWR.

The Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has called for reform of LCWR to ensure its fidelity to Catholic teaching in areas including abortion, euthanasia, women’s ordination and homosexuality.

At the meeting’s start, the sisters were reminded of how atypical this year’s gathering would be. They were urged to take a thoughtful and prayerful approach to discerning the Vatican assessment and not to discuss the deliberations with members of the media since the process of discernment would continue to unfold in each day’s executive sessions.

During an Aug. 9 press conference a reporter asked if an LCWR representative could indicate which way the group was “leaning” in its discussions. The sisters said they would not discuss that either.

“We know well enough to honor the process and not predict” an outcome, said Sister Mary Pellegrino, a Sister of St. Joseph from Baden, Pa.

The process of discernment, which one sister described as “muddling through,” is not new to the sisters, they said, but rather is something they are used to doing particularly in their work with other religious communities and lay groups.

Mercy Sister Mary Waskowiak, from Burlingame, Calif., said discerning involves finding the answer to “what we believe is being asked of us” and asking God to help them to the next best step, which she also added, is not always clear.

References to how the sisters were discerning their next steps were clear in the daily prayer sessions where the sisters were continually reminded that they were at a crossroads and should let go of fears and preconceived ideas and trust the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

In the Aug. 9 prayer service, the sisters watched a clip from the movie “Of Gods and Men” based on the true story of a group of French Cistercian Trappist monks living in Algeria during the 1990s civil war. In the clip, the brothers had just finished discerning if they would stay in the monastery and risk their lives or leave for their own safety. Having chosen to stay, they each drink from a cup of wine in silence.

After this scene was shown on the large screen, Franciscan Sister Florence Deacon, LCWR’s president-elect, told the 900 sisters assembled at tables of eight that they also “are in a place we could not have anticipated. We’ve arrived at where we are and like our brother monks, we too are being asked to drink from a cup for which we did not ask.”

The sisters were then asked to silently reflect and to drink from a glass of juice at each table pledging to each other to do God’s will, not their own.

Sister Mary, former LCWR president and current director of development and fundraising for the Mercy International Association, said the movie’s imagery was “a powerful juxtaposition” that made her think about what it means to surrender and also to look beyond the Vatican doctrinal assessment to what is truly being asked of today’s women religious.

“What am I really willing to die for and what will this cost?” she asked.

Dominican Sister Donna Markham, from Cincinnati, told reporters the sisters need to figure out “how to get through the mandate together.”

“We can’t risk further splitting our Church and getting into more fragmentation,” said Sister Donna, vice president of behavioral health services at Catholic Health Partners.

“We have to get through this in a way that respects the integrity” of the Church, she said.

LCWR’s members are the 1,500 leaders of U.S. women’s communities representing about 80 percent of the country’s 57,000 women’s religious congregation. The organization’s canonical status is granted by the Vatican.

Dominican Sister Mary Hughes, past president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, left, joins Franciscan Sister Pat Farrell, outgoing LCWR president, and Franciscan Sister Florence Deacon, president-elect, as supporters offer a blessing at a rally. Laypeople and religious held the rally during LCWR’s 2012 assembly in St. Louis.

WASHINGTON (CNS) – There can be no “middle ground” on matters of faith and morals, the bishop who conducted the Vatican-ordered doctrinal assessment of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious said in an interview that aired on National Public Radio’s “Fresh Air” program.

Bishop Leonard P. Blair of Toledo, Ohio, one of two U.S. bishops assisting Archbishop J. Peter Sartain of Seattle in providing “review, guidance and approval, where necessary, of the work” of LCWR, was responding to a call for dialogue by Franciscan Sister Pat Farrell, LCWR president, on the same program July 17.

“If by dialogue they mean that the doctrines of the church are negotiable and the bishops represent one position and the LCWR presents another position, and somehow we find a middle ground about basic church teaching on faith and morals, then no,” he said. “I don’t think that is the kind of dialogue that the Holy See would envision.

“But if it’s a dialogue about how to have the LCWR really educate and help the sisters to appreciate and accept church teaching and to implement it in their discussions and try to hear some of the questions or concerns they have about these issues, then that would be the dialogue,” he added.

But the bishop said that “up till now there’s been a lot of just denial” by LCWR on the concerns raised by the Vatican.

Named in April, 2008, to carry out a doctrinal assessment of LCWR, Bishop Blair submitted an eight-page report to the Vatican in July, 2010. In April, 2012, the Vatican announced a major reform of LCWR, citing “serious doctrinal problems which affect many in consecrated life.”

The Maryland-based LCWR has about 1,500 leaders of U.S. women’s religious communities as members and represents about 80% of the country’s 57,000 women religious. Its canonical status is granted by the Vatican.

Fidelity to Church Teaching

The assessment said reform was needed to ensure LCWR’s fidelity to Catholic teaching in areas that include abortion, euthanasia, women’s ordination and homosexuality.

Bishop Blair expressed “great disappointment” at Sister Pat’s comments on abortion in the earlier NPR program. She said the work of U.S. women religious is “very much pro-life,” but they would question “any policy that is more pro-fetus than actually pro-life.”

“You know, if the rights of the unborn trump all the rights of all those who are already born, that is a distortion, too,” she said. “There’s so much being said about abortion that is often phrased in such extreme and such polarizing terms that (we) choose not to enter into a debate that is so widely covered by other sectors of the Catholic Church – and we have been giving voice to other issues that are less covered, but are equally important.”

Noting that Blessed John Paul II said “all other human rights are false and illusory if the right to life … is not defended with maximum determination,” Bishop Blair said, “So to kind of relativize or say … the right to life of an unborn child is a preoccupation with fetuses, or it’s relative in its importance, I can’t agree with that.

“And I don’t think that represents the church’s teaching and the focus of our energies in trying to deal with this great moral issue,” he added.

Asked whether he thought it was hypocritical for the bishops to be “cracking down” on LCWR in light of their own failures in the area of clergy sexual abuse, Bishop Blair said, “I think that the sexual abuse scandal is a great shadow over the church and over the hierarchy that we have to live. But we also have to keep going on as a church with integrity.”

“I don’t think you or anyone would suggest that because there is this scandal and because there were tremendous failures and we have to live with that and try to make reparation for it, that doesn’t mean that the Catholic Church now is somehow going to cease to exist or that the bishops can no longer exercise their responsibility for being teachers of the faith, for proclaiming the Gospel, for celebrating the sacraments, for speaking to the world about Christ,” he said.

He also disputed that the Vatican action was a crackdown, saying it is “meant to be an effort to work with (women religious) to have them enter into dialogue with us in order to remedy what we feel are serious doctrinal concerns.”

Bishop Blair said the Catholic Church refrains from ordaining women to the priesthood not “because women are somehow unfit to carry out the functions of the priest,” but because “it’s not the choice that our Lord made when it comes to those who act in his very person, as the church’s bridegroom.”

Conflict between the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) and the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith over the reform of LCWR boils down to whether one can “be a Catholic and have a questioning mind,” the conference’s president said in an interview on National Public Radio’s “Fresh Air” program.

Franciscan Sister Pat Farrell also told “Fresh Air” host Terry Gross that she would like to see discussion about whether “freedom of conscience in the church (is) genuinely honored.”

“One of our deepest hopes is that in the way we manage the balancing beam of this position we’re in, if we can make any headway in helping to create a safe and respectful environment where church leaders, together with rank-and-file Catholics, can raise questions openly and search for truth freely with very complex and swiftly changing issues that we face in our day,” she said.

“That would be our hope,” she added. “But the climate is not there.”

Sister Farrell was discussing the Vatican-ordered doctrinal assessment of LCWR, which has about 1,500 leaders of U.S. women’s religious communities as members and represents about 80% of the country’s 57,000 women religious. Its canonical status is granted by the Vatican.

The assessment said reform was needed to ensure LCWR’s fidelity to Catholic teaching in areas that include abortion, euthanasia, women’s ordination and homosexuality.

Archbishop J. Peter Sartain of Seattle was named in April to provide “review, guidance and approval, where necessary, of the work” of the organization, with the assistance of Bishop Leonard P. Blair of Toledo, Ohio, and Bishop Thomas J. Paprocki of Springfield, Ill.

In the “Fresh Air” interview, Sister Farrell said LCWR was in the “process of gathering the perspective of all our members” in anticipation of its Aug. 7-11 national assembly in St. Louis. “We’re hoping to come out of that assembly with a much clearer direction about where the national board and presidency can proceed.”

Asked about the organization’s options, she said “some of the options would be to just comply with the mandate that’s been given to us or to, you know, say we can’t comply with this and see what the Vatican does with that or to remove ourselves, form a separate organization or, hopefully, in my mind, to see if we can somehow, in a spirit of nonviolent strategizing, look for some maybe third way that refuses to just define the mandate and the issues in such black-and-white terms.”

Sister Farrell, whose term as president ends at the close of the assembly, said she thought the Vatican’s concerns focused more on “the issues we tend to be more silent about,” such as abortion and same-sex marriage, rather than on particular stands taken by the LCWR.

“We have been in good faith raising concerns about some of the church’s teaching on sexuality,” she said. “The teaching and interpretation of the faith can’t remain static and really needs to be reformulated, rethought in light of the world we live in and new questions, new realities as they arise.”

On the issue of abortion, she said the work of U.S. women religious is “very much pro-life.”

“We would question, however, any policy that is more pro-fetus than actually pro-life,” Sister Farrell said. “You know, if the rights of the unborn trump all the rights of all those who are already born, that is a distortion, too.”

“There’s so much being said about abortion that is often phrased in such extreme and such polarizing terms that (we) choose not to enter into a debate that is so widely covered by other sectors of the Catholic Church – and we have been giving voice to other issues that are less covered, but are equally important,” she added.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church says church teaching on “the moral evil of every procured abortion” remains “unchangeable.” “Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception…The inalienable right to life of every innocent human individual is a constitutive element of a civil society and its legislation,” it says.

Sister Farrell said the Vatican was critical of a stand taken by the LCWR on the ordination of women as priests, but the position it cited was taken in 1977, before Blessed John Paul II said in the 1988 apostolic letter “Ordinatio sacerdotalis” that “the church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the church’s faithful.”

by Francis X. Rocca

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.

In Silver Spring, Md., the presidency of the LCWR issued a statement saying it was “stunned by the conclusions of the doctrinal assessment of LCWR by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Because the leadership of LCWR has the custom of meeting annually with the staff of CDF in Rome and because the conference follows canonically approved statutes, we were taken by surprise.

“This is a moment of great import for religious life and the wider church. We ask your prayers as we meet with the LCWR National Board within the coming month to review the mandate and prepare a response,” the statement said.

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.”

Among the areas of concern were some of the most controversial issues of medical and sexual ethics in America today.

“While there has been a great deal of work on the part of LCWR promoting issues of social justice in harmony with the church’s social doctrine, it is silent on the right to life from conception to natural death, a question that is part of the lively public debate about abortion and euthanasia in the United States,” the doctrinal congregation said. “Further, issues of crucial importance in the life of the church and society, such as the church’s biblical view of family life and human sexuality, are not part of the LCWR agenda in a way that promotes church teaching.”

The Vatican also found that “public statements by the LCWR that disagree with or challenge positions taken by the bishops, who are the church’s authentic teachers of faith and morals, are not compatible with its purpose.”

According to the Vatican, such deviations from Catholic teaching have provoked a crisis “characterized by a diminution of the fundamental Christological center and focus of religious consecration.”

But the congregation’s document also praised the “great contributions of women religious to the church in the United States as seen particularly in the many schools, hospitals, and institutions of support for the poor, which have been founded and staffed by religious over the years,” and insisted that the Vatican “does not intend to offer judgment on the faith and life of women religious” in the LCWR’s member congregations.

During his tenure as the Holy See’s delegate, which is to last “up to five years, as deemed necessary,” Archbishop Sartain’s tasks will include overseeing revision of the LCWR’s statutes, review of its liturgical practices, and the creation of formation programs for the conference’s member congregations. The archbishop will also investigate the LCWR’s links to two outside groups: Network, a Catholic social justice lobby; and the Resource Center for Religious Institutes, which offers legal and financial expertise to religious orders.

The doctrinal assessment was separate from the Vatican’s “Apostolic Visitation of Religious Communities of Women in the United States,” a study of the “quality of life” in some 400 congregations, which began in December 2008. The visitation’s final report was submitted in December 2011 but has not yet been published.