UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Apr. 19, 2012
By Joshua J. McElwee

The largest leadership organization for U.S. women religious says it was “stunned” by announcement Wednesday that the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had ordered it to reform its statutes and had appointed an archbishop to oversee its revision.

“The presidency of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious was stunned by the conclusions of the doctrinal assessment of LCWR by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith,” the group says in a press statement this morning.

“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.”

On Wednesday, the Vatican announced it had appointed Seattle Archbishop Peter Sartain to oversee the LCWR, which has been the subject of a “doctrinal assessment” by the…