U.S. Nuns Group Deserves Support

By Brian Cahill
San Francisco Chronicle
April 27, 2012

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/04/26/ED8C1O8BC6.DTL&type=gaylesbian

Maria McClain (center), a former nun, defied the church's ban on women becoming priests and went through an ordination ceremony, joining a push to crack open the all-male clergy.

Led by Cardinal William Levada, the former archbishop of San Francisco, the Vatican has initiated a crackdown to control the activities of the largest leadership group of American Catholic nuns. If it were not so tragic and destructive, it would be the height of irony that the leaders of the Catholic Church, who are big fans of religious liberty when it serves their interests, now attempt to curtail the freedom and the good work of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious.

This group represents 80 percent of Catholic sisters in the United States. These are women who do so much of the heavy lifting in our church, especially in education, health care and social services.

The bishops worry that the conference's positions on homosexuality and the ordination of women will "give scandal," a mystifying position given that these same bishops have presided over the most serious church scandal in the past 500 years, where thousands of children were molested and hundreds of cases have been ignored or covered up.

A committee of American bishops has been authorized by Levada to revise the women's group's statutes, review its plans and programs, approve its conference speakers and examine its affiliations with other organizations, such as Network, a national Catholic social justice group founded by Catholic sisters. The Vatican document is critical of the women's conference for focusing too much on poverty and injustice while not sufficiently supporting church teaching on abortion and marriage.

But according to Rome, the sisters need not worry.

The Vatican document states that the American bishops will "work collaboratively" with LCWR officers, that the pope wanted to make sure that "pastoral concern" was shown to the sisters and that the purpose is "aimed at fostering a patient and collaborative renewal" of the organization. The sisters know, as most Catholics know, that this effort is not pastoral and it is not collaborative. The word "bully" comes to mind.

While this Roman review began in 2008, an exacerbating factor probably was the anger of the U.S. Bishops Conference at the women's group since the sisters crossed the bishops and supported President Obama's health care legislation in 2010.

This situation might have been avoided with sincere dialogue, but church leaders refuse to dialogue. Pope John Paul II decreed there would be no discussion about the ordination of women. Bishop William Lori, the point man for religious liberty, refused to participate in a Fordham University conference on Catholicism and homosexuality. Without dialogue there is conflict and mistrust.

It is becoming increasingly obvious to many Catholics that these "men only" club members are not in control, are not relevant and have lost their moral authority.

Those of us who stay in the church, in spite of the arrogance, disrespect, paternalism and hypocrisy, do so because these bishops do not get in the way of our relationship with God and our ability to pray and worship. When we get angry and frustrated, as we often do, we can call upon the words of the great Catholic theologian Hans Kung, who wrote, "As members of this community, we ourselves are the Church, and should not confuse it with its machinery and administrators, still less leave the latter to shape the community."

These women will respond to this fiasco with strength and faith and grace. They do not need anyone else to speak for them. But those of us who respect their special role and service in our community, and those of us who understand what real church is, should stand with them.