ST. LOUIS — American nuns described as dissenters in a Vatican report that ordered an overhaul of their group said Friday they will talk with church leaders about potential changes but will not compromise on the sisters’ mission.
Sister Pat Farrell, president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, called the Vatican assessment of the organization a “misrepresentation.” But she said the more than 900 women who attended the group’s national assembly this week decided they would for now stay open to discussion with three bishops the Vatican appointed to oversee them.
“The officers will proceed with these discussions as long as possible but will reconsider if LCWR is forced to compromise the integrity of its mission,” Farrell said at a news conference, where she declined to discuss specifics.
The organization represents about 80 percent of the 57,000 Roman Catholic nuns in the U.S.
The St. Louis meeting was the group’s first national gathering since a Vatican review concluded the sisters had “serious doctrinal problems” and promoted “certain radical feminist themes” that undermine Catholic teaching on all-male priesthood, birth control and homosexuality. The nuns also were criticized for remaining nearly silent in the fight against abortion.
Farrell acknowledged the nuns’ plan going forward was vague, but noted the process would stretch over five years and had only just started. The board is expected to meet this weekend with Seattle Archbishop Peter Sartain, who will be in charge of the overhaul.
“Dialogue on doctrine is not going to be our starting point,” Farrell said. “Our starting point will be about our own life and about our understanding of religious life, and the (Vatican) document’s, in our view, misrepresentation of that, and we’ll see how it unfolds from there.”
The Vatican orthodoxy watchdog, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, undertook the assessment in 2008, following years of complaints from theological conservatives that the American nuns’ group had become secular and political while abandoning traditional faith.
The critique, issued in April, prompted a nationwide outpouring of support for the sisters, including parish vigils, protests outside the Vatican embassy in Washington and a congressional resolution commending the sisters for their service to the country.
After the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s, many religious sisters shed their habits and traditional roles as they sought to more fully engage the modern world. The nuns said prayer and Christ remained central to their work as they focused increasingly on Catholic social justice teaching, such as fighting poverty and advocating for civil rights.
“I think what we want is to finally, at some end stage of the process, to be recognized and understood as equal in the church, that our form of religious life can be respected and affirmed,” Farrell said Friday.
The minute they disregard to follow the teachings of the Catholic Church in a 100% manner, they become Protestants. Protestantism was founded on Martin Luther’s “believe as you wish to believe.” If you want to believe your own way, go ahead, but be prepared to try to explain that to Jesus Christ the Judge when you die. If you refuse to follow Catholic teaching 100%, then you give up the privilege of rightly being known as a Catholic nun.
I think you’d better re-research what Martin Luther really said. Invalid one-liner summary.
Luther built his rebellion from the Christ-given authority of the Catholic Church on the premises that: 1) the Bible is the supreme authority in matters of religion (even though the Bible was produced by the Catholic Church, not the other way around), and 2) any person was free to read the Bible and interpret it as he or she saw fit to interpret (thus making everyone able to be their own pope).
I think you need to read Luther’s own words before you instruct me to do more research. Read “The Facts about Luther,” by Fr. Patrick O’Hare. It is based completely on Luther’s own writings and sermons, and the writings of his colleagues.
Wow, you think the bible was produced by the RCC? It was written over thousands of years, by many different people, and most of them were Jews. I’m sorry, but you know absolutely nothing about what you are saying. Plus, let’s not forget about the times when the RCC made it punishable by death to own a bible in a language other than Latin, okay?
God is the supreme authority in matters of spiritual truth. Not the pope or his church. To think that a single church on this earth, is what we should look to for answers concerning spirituality, is the biggest “thumbing your nose” at God I could think of. Why not just ask God what He means, and pray to Him that you’ll understand it? Or do you not believe God is capable of showing you what He wants to show you?
I maintain that your flip one-liner does not even come close to what Luther said or advocated. If that’s what one gets by reading a tract obviously prepared by a Catholic, your impressions are more like blinders than lenses. Either way, I suggest that you read works on Luther by less biased authors, even (gasp) by Lutherans.
The Bible that we see was indeed redacted and codified by the early RCC but, as stated elsewhere, was rfestricted unless it was in the Church approved Vulgate, rather than in Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek. Many valid manuscripts were not included. Those that were had an RCC spin when translated into Latin (read Alister McGrath’s “In the Beginning”, an account of the preparation of the KJV and it’s predecessors).
You go girls!