VATICAN CITY
Crux
By John L. Allen Jr.
Associate editor April 16, 2015
Sometimes in the news business, stories run their course without the explosive ending their dramatic arc would seem to merit. Think a nasty lawsuit, for instance, which ends with an amicable settlement, or the early years of the Super Bowl when a matchup that looked like a heavyweight collision on paper ended with a blowout.
Such would appear to be the case with the conclusion announced Thursday of the Vatican’s now six-year-old investigation of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), the main umbrella group for the leaders of women’s religious orders in the United States.
The review was first communicated to the LCWR in 2009, and came to a preliminary crescendo with a tough “doctrinal assessment” in 2012 accusing the organization of various forms of dissent and error.
Purely at the level of perception, this was a made-for-Hollywood standoff between rigid male hierarchs and feisty progressive nuns. Most media outlets and a solid chunk of Catholic opinion at the grassroots, naturally, sided with the nuns.
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