Nuns Group Sanctioned by Vatican to Meet This Month

By Rossilynne Skena
Chicago Tribune
May 4, 2012

www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-mct-nuns-group-sanctioned-by-vatican-to-meet-this-20120504,0,3819242.story

The national group of Roman Catholic nuns led by a Western Pennsylvania woman will meet at month's end to discuss a Vatican rebuke of the organization.

Last month, the Vatican, which oversees the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, slapped the group with sanctions for promoting "certain radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith."

The Leadership Conference's national board will meet in Washington May 29 through June 1, "beginning to look at what the next steps will be in response to this (Vatican) report," according to Sister Annmarie Sanders, the group's associate director for communications.

Sister Janet Mock, a Johnstown native affiliated with the Sisters of St. Joseph in Baden, was named executive director of the Leadership Conference in early April. Sanders said Mock is not available for interviews.

The conference represents 80 percent of the nation's 57,000 nuns.

The Vatican announced last month a full-scale overhaul of the group, accusing it of taking positions that undermine Roman Catholic teachings on the priesthood and homosexuality. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith said in its report that the Leadership Conference has been "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."

An American archbishop, Peter Sartain of Seattle, was appointed to oversee the reform. Efforts to reach him for comment last night were unavailing. Nor could anyone be reached at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Washington.

In a statement responding to the assessment, the presidency of the Leadership Conference said it was "stunned by the conclusions. ... Because the leadership of the conference has the custom of meeting annually with the staff of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome and because the conference follows canonically approved statutes, we were taken by surprise."

The Leadership Conference's national board and conference staff will attend the meeting to discuss the assessment. The 20-member board consists of a three-person presidency, a secretary, a treasurer and 15 regional representatives.

Sartain will not attend the meeting, Sanders said.

The Leadership Conference, based in Silver Spring, Md., released a statement about its upcoming meeting, saying it will "begin its discussion of the conclusions of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's doctrinal assessment and the implementation plan put forth by that Vatican office. ... The conference plans to move slowly, not rushing to judgment."

In addition to Mock's time as a Sister of St. Joseph, she has worked in community outreach at a satellite campus of Carlow University and as an elementary teacher.