UNITED STATES
GlobalPost

Jason Berry
Apr 16, 2015

The Vatican’s controversial takeover of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious — which represents 53,000 nuns, America’s largest group of sisters — halted in Rome today, ending a four year standoff.

The nuns won.

Both sides have agreed not to give interviews for 30 days, according to an LCWR spokeswoman.

What a difference a papacy makes.

In a photograph circulated by the Vatican City newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, four sisters sit smiling across from Pope Francis, none wearing habits. The pope also smiles, but made no statement and is not quoted in the documents released by the LCWR, and Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the office that polices theologians and church officials on doctrinal disputes.

“Pope Francis met with them for fifty minutes,” FutureChurch co-founder Sister Christine Schenk told GroundTruth. “We’ve never had the leadership meet in a private…