Bishop Takes Another Swing at the Sisters, Nuns, by Cathy Lynn Grossman, USA Today, June 11, 2012

Bishop Takes Another Swing at the Sisters, Nuns

By Cathy Lynn Grossman
USA Today
June 11, 2012

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/Religion/post/2012/06/catholic-nuns-vatican-rebuke/1#.T9cV3MXOlEQ

[wth video]

Bishop Leonard Blair of Toledo is a stickler for doctrine. He's one of three bishops named by the Vatican to take over running the umbrella group of U.S. nuns and sisters called the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, is tired of bishops being blamed for beating up on saintly sisters.

He's got good cause, says Blair, who issued a column and YouTube video blasting the LCWR again this weekend. It is Blair's research that prompted a stinging report of the LCWR as dissenters who fail to live holy lives and promote true doctrine.

Blair says he can "only marvel" at the misrepesentations of the bishops' intentions.

And his comments come just before the president and executive director of the LCWR meet in Rome on Tuesday to present the sisters' concerns about "misrepresentations" in the Blair report. Blair offers a "Reality Check."

He says this is not about good sisters to whom, he says, all should be grateful. It is about the LCWR which, he says...

... constantly provides a one-sided platform -- without challenge or any opposing view -- to speakers who take a negative and critical position vis-a-vis Church doctrine and discipline and the Church's teaching office."

Sister Theresa Kane was head of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious in 1979 when she challenged Pope John Paul II to admit women to "all ministries of our church" during a welcoming speech at the National Shrine in Washington,

Sister Theresa Kane was head of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious in 1979 when she challenged Pope John Paul II to admit women to "all ministries of our church" during a welcoming speech at the National Shrine in Washington,

LCWR speakers also explore themes like global spirituality, the new cosmology, earth-justice and eco-feminism in ways that are frequently ambiguous, dubious or even erroneous with respect to Christian faith. And while the LCWR upholds Catholic social teaching in some areas, it is notably silent when it comes to two of the major moral challenges of our time: the right to life of the unborn and the God-given meaning of marriage between one man and one woman.

He concludes:

... a person who holds the reasonable view that a Catholic is someone who subscribes to the teachings of the Catholic Church will recognize that the Catholic bishops have a legitimate cause for doctrinal concern about the activities of the LCWR, as evidenced by a number of its speakers and some of its resource documents.

So, there. Now, about that open-minded meeting in Rome... That will be handled by Archbishop Peter Sartain, not Blair, together with the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Leveda.