UNITED STATES
Commonweal
Mollie Wilson O’Reilly July 24, 2014
In my column last month, I asked, “Why hasn’t Pope Francis stepped in to get the Vatican off the nuns’ backs” and revoke the CDF’s mandate to reform the LCWR? “If Francis really wants a less authoritarian, more mission-focused church,” I wrote, “shouldn’t he have called this whole thing off already?”
Mary Gordon asks a similar question in the August issue of Harper’s, in an essay titled “Francis and the Nuns.” It’s a strong piece of writing and a very good summary of the tensions between U.S. sisters and the Vatican. Harper’s readers will be well caught up on where things stand and how they got that way. And the piece ends with an interview with Simone Campbell, SSS, that gives a personal dimension to the way she and her fellow sisters from LCWR congregations have responded to the scrutiny and censure directed their way from Rome.
But when it comes to the Francis angle, Gordon’s analysis is less solid. That’s because there simply isn’t much to go on. “Is the new Vatican all talk?” the essay’s subhed asks. But on this subject Francis has hardly talked at all, so that anyone who wants to build a case for or against him has to resort to reading tea leaves. And silence has many interpretations, after all.
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