UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter
by Ken Briggs on May. 01, 2012 NCR Today
The grudge hardened in 1971 when the superiors of women’s religious communities decided to re-name themselves the Leadership Conference of Women Religious.
The flash point was the word “leadership.” The Vatican protested it’s use, the superiors overrode the objections and Rome’s campaign against “radical feminism” became a fixture in Holy See strategy.
“Leadership” signified a breaking loose from the pre-Vatican II assumption that male clerics had the final say on everything about sisters’ existence. They were insisting on a degree of autonomy based on “Perfectae Caritatis,” the instructions given them by Vatican II.
The ink had barely dried on the document as the head of the Italian bishops was warning the sisters not to take this freedom too far. That would be abusing official authority. Eventually this bacame a full fledged attack on renewal as a mindless fling with worldliness, individualism and apostacy.
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