UNITED STATES
Detroit Free Press
By Patricia Montemurri
Detroit Free Press Staff Writer
Sister Sharon Holland, a Catholic nun who grew up in Pontiac as a judge’s daughter and became one of the highest-ranking women at the male-dominated Vatican, is used to navigating conflict and controversy.
And there’s more ahead.
On Friday, Holland, 75, becomes the president of the Leadership Council of Women Religious (LCWR), an organization representing most of America’s Catholic sisters that is under attack by Vatican overseers for being too liberal.
Observers say her 21 years of experience working as a Vatican-based canon lawyer — a legal expert trained in Catholic Church law — will assist her in the delicate, yet confrontational, discussions with Vatican representatives.
Holland is a member of the Monroe-based Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (IHM) and before she earned a Catholic canon law degree from Gregorian University in Rome, she once taught elementary school at St. Mary’s in Wayne as Sister Marie Russell.
The LCWR, which is holding its annual meeting in Nashville beginning Tuesday, is comprised of female religious leaders from orders across the U.S. The Leadership Council’s 1400 members represent some 80% of an estimated 52,000 Catholic sisters in the country. Holland, who declined to be interviewed for this article, will become LCWR’s president Friday.
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