UNITED STATES
U.S. Catholic
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
By Meghan Murphy-Gill
Were you under the impression that the Vatican investigation of U.S. women religious had just blown over? News on that front had been quiet for nearly three years. Well, the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith and USCCB announced today an initiative to “renew” the Leadership Conference of Women Religious following an “assessment” from the CDF. Seattle Archbishop Peter Sartain will be the new Archbishop Delegate for organization, the main organizing body for women religious in the U.S., assisted by Bishops Leonard Blair and Thomas John Paprocki.
The assessment names three things Cardinal William Levada found problematic in the investigation, but remains extremely vague and relies on what seem to have become buzz words for “out of line”: “addresses at the LCWR assemblies” (naming Sister Laurie Brink, OP, a former US Catholic interviewee), “policies of corporate dissent,” and “radical feminism.” (Ironically, the document makes a point earlier of the usage of the word “radical” to mean “the roots,” but fails to do so in this case, thus relying on the whole “feminism is scary” trope.)
Likewise, “The doctrinal assessment criticized positions espoused at LCWR annual assemblies and in its literature as well as the absence of support from LCWR for Church teaching on women’s ordination and homosexuality” and that the LCWR isn’t doing enough to promote “the Church’s Biblical view of family life and human sexuality.”
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.