UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Maureen Fiedler | Aug. 13, 2013 NCR Today

The website of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) offers this headline: “We welcome new members and new ideas for living religious life into the future.” And this year, some of those new ideas might come from the keynote speaker at the annual LCWR assembly in Orlando, Fla.: Franciscan Sr. Ilia Delio, who directs the Catholic Studies Program at Georgetown University. She is one of the emerging thinkers emphasizing the “new cosmos story” and, in this case, its relevance for contemporary religious life.

But hanging over the entire assembly is the Vatican “mandate” that made headlines last year. LCWR leaders and many others offered stinging critiques of the mandate’s thrust and inaccuracies. Thousands of Catholics took to the streets and cathedral steps to voice their protest.

Now, Sr. Patricia McDermott, president of the Sisters of…