As the largest leadership organization
for U.S. women religious begins to discern what steps to take following news
Wednesday that the Vatican has ordered it to reform and to place itself under
the authority of an archbishop, experts say the options available to the group
are stark.
Ultimately, several canon lawyers told
NCR, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious has two choices: Either
comply with the order or face ouster as a Vatican-recognized representative of
sisters in the United States.
What’s more, the lawyers say, LCWR has
no recourse for appeal of the decision, which the U.S. bishops' conference
announced Wednesday in a press release. That release stated that, following a
three-year "doctrinal assessment" by the Vatican’s Congregation for
the Doctrine of the Faith, Seattle Archbishop Peter Sartain had been appointed
to review and potentially revise the organization's policies.
One prominent canon lawyer, Oblate Fr.
Frank Morrissey, summed up the situation facing LCWR in one sentence: “If they
want to continue as a recognized conference, they’re going to have to work with
this.”
Another, Jesuit Fr. Ladislas Orsy, also
put it succinctly: “It’s not very complicated. The Vatican is taking control.
They are taking control ... and they hope that in five years, they will put
[LCWR] on a different track.”
While other canon lawyers contacted by
NCR generally confirmed Orsy and Morrissey’s analysis, they declined to speak
on the record, citing the sensitivity of the situation. A short press release
from the LCWR on Thursday morning said the group was preparing to meet with its
national board members “within the coming month to review the mandate and
prepare a response.”
On the one
hand, we know all these ladies are the feminist kinds of liberals, who got to
where they are because of “the Spirit of Vatican II”, which enabled the liberal
factions within the RCC to gain ascendancy. So here you have an organization
that represents the leadership of some 80% of the “women religious” in the US.
On the other
hand, now, the Vatican is doing what we’ve chastised them for not having done
all along: bringing discipline to bear on its errant members, especially the
errant leadership within its ranks.
I’ve got a
little bit of news for the Vatican. This isn’t the 1950’s, and these are not,
by and large, regenerate women they’re dealing with.
Let’s just
see how this goes. Because there are other
unregenerates within the Roman Catholic ranks, some
in high places.
This is
Roman ecclesiology at its finest.
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