Every day for years I’ve prayed the liturgy of the hours and attended daily Mass. I say a rosary each day, join my parish for a novena, participate in exposition and benediction, play the organ, and still have favorite Latin hymns. I’ve taught the documents of Vatican II, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and encyclicals of John Paul II and Benedict XVI. I’ve never worn full-length religious garb but do wear the modified habit of my congregation. I cooperated graciously with the apostolic visitation, as did all of the sisters in my community.
I was also a member of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) for several years, very recently. (I write anonymously because I work in a leadership position in my diocese, and wouldn’t want to put my bishop—or my community—in a difficult position.) Like many others, I am deeply distressed by the document produced by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) and the effect it is having on women religious around the country. And I must concur with the national board of the LCWR in its sense that accusations made against it are “unsubstantiated” and the “sanctions…disproportionate.”
Overall, the document I’ve read and reread does not square with my experience of the LCWR. True, there are some members I’d consider “out there” ecclesiologically and politically. They are, however, also deeply committed to the following of Christ and idealistic about the past, present, and future of religious life. Also true is the fact that a number of women religious, including their leaders, have not had the advantage of an extensive theological education. I’m reminded of the fact that in the mid-1970s Mother Kathryn Sullivan, RSCJ, a Scripture scholar who spent at least half her year in Rome at the Biblicum, reminded us that Catholic women had long been barred from doing doctoral work in Scripture and theology at Catholic institutions. Her doctorate, therefore, had been earned at the University of Pennsylvania.
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In the years since, any number of sisters have earned masters degrees in biblical studies, pastoral ministry, and theology. Some few have also attained doctorates—PhD or DMin—in theological and ministerial specialties. Not all have been officers or board members of the LCWR. So perhaps there have been actions or statements of the LCWR leadership that have not been fine-tuned or given a good theological review.
However, a number of statements in the CDF document strike me as patently inaccurate, misleading, and unfair. I cannot attest to whether the LCWR featured or supported New Ways Ministry before the Vatican forced the resignation of Br. Robert Nugent and Sr. Jeannine Gramick from its leadership. I do know that when Sr. Jeannine had been counseled to be silent on issues pertaining to the church and homosexuals, she petitioned to be given a forum at one of the LCWR national assemblies—against the wishes not only of Rome but of her congregational leadership. After considerable discussion among the entire body of LCWR membership present, she was not given that platform. After that assembly, I did what one speaker had recommended we do individually: express to bishops we met our concern for compassionate care and outreach to gay and lesbian people on the part of the church. As I recall, no one argued in favor of marriage rights. I have not been privy to every meeting or every discussion or every draft of statements in the years since that assembly, but I bear an indelible memory of a painful and sometimes heated discussion that came to what seemed to me a very balanced and nuanced conclusion.
What’s more, many of us have signed vigorously prolife statements; participated in rosary rallies, forty-days-for-life observances, the annual marches in January; and have been scrupulously faithful to magisterial guidelines, including those set forth in John Paul II’s Evangelium vitae, in our health care facilities, in our teaching, and in decisions we have made as those bearing power of attorney for members facing extremely difficult end-of-life situations. I’m offended at being characterized by association as being insufficiently prolife.
What I have valued deeply in the LCWR is that its members have called attention to policies and practices that offend our Catholic life ethic or our Catholic social teaching in ways that have sometimes gone unnoticed. For example, the LCWR, along with the International Union of Superiors General, highlighted the problem of human trafficking long before others took notice. At LCWR meetings I learned what multinational corporations were doing to illiterate peasants and squatters, what was happening at detention centers in the aftermath of 9/11, and how immigration laws and crackdowns on undocumented people were affecting families. LCWR has served as a consciousness-raiser for those of us who are not on the mailing list of every justice group and aren’t among sisters who have participated in organized protests. Because of LCWR, my congregational leadership signed on to the Earth Charter and a number of other causes that otherwise would not have crossed our minds.
The liturgical controversy in the CDF document seems to be twofold. One issue is the content of public prayer and the celebration of Eucharistic liturgies. I’ve probably attended more regional than national gatherings, but I am one of those liturgically sensitive people. The opening and closing prayers at LCWR meetings have always been devotional, reverent, and creative. The Masses always seemed well within rubrical guidelines. There were locations for smaller daily liturgies as well as the large whole-convention liturgy. These daily liturgies were sometimes held at hotels, sometimes at nearby parishes, and were celebrated by priests of the dioceses where we met, or priests from the men’s group for major superiors.
The other liturgical issue—and one about which considerable ado is made in the CDF document—is the question of the ordination of women. References to actions taken and statements made harking back to 1977-79 highlight this discussion. When Sr. Teresa Kane, RSM, stood up in the basilica in Washington, D.C., and appealed to Pope John Paul II for the full equality of women in roles of ministry in the church, I thought her action was imprudent and ill-advised. Years later, she received a standing ovation at an LCWR meeting, and I joined the applause--not for what she said to the pope, but because I’d bumped into her several times in a small chapel in Pittsburgh and saw her faithfulness to prayer.
I had also learned of the heroism of her sisters who were advocating for poor women amid tremendous threat from the Shining Path in Peru. At the time, Sr. Kane was struggling with cancer, yet still strong in her sense of serving the voiceless. Admiration for a person does not imply endorsement of everything she has said or done.
The CDF document charges that LCWR never officially repudiated those early actions or statements regarding the ordination of women. With the presidency changing every year and membership shifting with every election held by the membership orders and congregations, that means that the makeup of the assembly changes from year to year. It seems strange to expect new membership to undertake a review of what past members have done and issue commendations or condemnations.
Strangely, the CDF document repeatedly refers to what “some members” are or are not doing. For example, the CDF objects that “some members” put greater emphasis on professional formation than doctrinal formation for those in initial formation and in offerings for the ongoing formation of their professed members. It is difficult to put that generalization in context. LCWR has no authority over the formation policies of member orders and congregations. Neither does LCWR have authority over any member group’s governance, communal living, prayer life, spirituality, mission, or ministry. For those matters, congregations are accountable either to their local bishops (if diocesan communities) or to the Vatican (if pontifical).
Finally, it’s helpful for any ecclesial group to have a bishop as a chaplain or liaison. But it seems strange for the Vatican to give Archbishop J. Peter Sartain, who is not a professed religious, authority over an organization whose members are religious. Having a Redemptorist in Rome overseeing the conclusion of the apostolic visitation is one thing. Having someone in charge who has not experienced consecrated life in community seems quite another.
As all of us try to digest the practical effects of the CDF’s action, I find myself simply hoping for clear water and a cabin in the woods in which to take shelter. Forty years ago I could have pursued the independent professional life I had already undertaken, married or not married the man of the hour, kept my car, bought a house, charted my career path, moved far from home, befriended many people, espoused many causes, and continued attending Mass at the Puerto Rican and Irish parish around the corner. While scores of my peers were leaving formation programs and being dispensed from their vows, I came to religious life and stayed. I wonder now why that choice has become so suspect.
Meanwhile, the convent supper I ate immediately before writing this article was prepared for us by a mother whose three children we watched and fed a few weeks ago while she was at a police station reporting that she’d been raped while alone at her job. She brought so much food that we resolved to share it with our neighbor and the three boys who wish their father was home for dinner rather than deployed in Afghanistan. Somehow these day-to-day realities seem worthy of my energy and perseverance.
At bottom, my life as “Sister” is about serving with Christ, in Christ, and to some extent as Christ for the sake of the people on my street, in my town, and within reach. My life as “Sister” is about translating the good news into a knock on a door, a meal for children, a listening ear, a word of comfort. I know that walking with people through their messy and complex lives is good reason not to head for the hills or to expend too much energy being vexed by a turn of events which will, in the long roll of history, likely be interpreted as one of many distractions of the early twenty-first-century church. When it comes to the impulse to flee and become a hermit, I have to admit that it isn’t what Jesus would do. And, as far as that clear water is concerned, I’ll just have to heed the lesson learned by the Samaritan woman—who, by the way, led others too.
Related: Cross Examination, by Sister X
Bravo Sue (a former Dominican), and thank you Sr. Y.
The Church would be far better off with a female pope and a proportionate number of "ordained" women religious in the Roman Curia.
Dear Sr. Y,
There are so many people WITH you and the other Religious on this, in exactly what you have so brilliantly exposee-d, we know the error in the accusations. I myself, have emailed the CDF office with a very clear admonition of obvious counter-focus to the real issues that face our Church and particularly the hierarchy today. This is just another addition to the long sad list of why there are 30 million departed and disillusioned Catholics out there. Why do WE stay, as Religious or Lay, because we see more good than bad and know that the Spirit will and has acted in ways that will do nothing but astonish us going forward.
We stand with the Nuns!! is our mantra these days and, I, for one, write this on my weekly envelope before I drop it in the basket and have demonstrated for you all in my city and archdiocese.
Do not lose your collective voices and stand for who and what you are--women in faith--half of the baptized of our Church!! Women everywhere are rooting for you all and we give you our love and our prayers for a fruitful outcome!!
I am gettting a little tired of the lcwr sisters providing us with resumes of their work with the poor and women who have suffered in some way. I dont recall anyone saying that their work with the poor was suspect??!! Why not have the Leadership just answer some questions about doctrine: what do they really think about Catholic sexual ethics, abortion, hierarchical authority, etc. Recently one lcwr sister went on npr and alluded to the fact that she thinks some or all of these doctrines should be held open for discussion, perhaps even to be changed or developed in a new or opposite direction. THAT is the problem sister Y, not the fact that you take care of the poor. Stop hiding behind the poor and just answer the doctrinal and moral questions. j.keating
and J, Keating, I'm getting just a little tired of people, who have no clue as to what religious women have been doing, praying about and living, still want to back the hierarchy, and demand that the sisters answer questions. Does the hierarchy perhaps have a few questions they might answer...I won't even go there, since ALL OF US know what they are. Do you, Mr. keating, really want to back Cardinal Law, the #1 pedophilia cover-up artist in the hierarchy, and Cardinal Levada, who was, by the way, recently FIRED (no, he did not resign) because of his "clumsy handling of the investigation of the LCWR" which has morphed into a PR nightmare for the Vatican? You are getting "a little tired?" Prepare for more sleeplessness, as the institutional church goes down in flames for egregious violations of the Gospel teachings of Christ, Who asked all of us to be His Hands and Feet...and He certainly didn't want to see His servants, clothed in gold and jewels, "celebrating" the "Mass" at St. Peter's in a charade, led by Cardinal Burke, that would make Jesus weep, if He hasn't wept enough already.
Thank you, Sister, for sharing not only your own, real-life response to Vatican action, but also offering a brief glimpse of your own experience in religious life. To be frank, I am saddened by the fact that -- even in today's world -- you still feel the need to be anonymous so as to avoid putting your religious and diocesan leaders in a difficult situation. What you have written is honest and heart-felt; if honesty and sincerity -- expressed with all charity -- makes things difficult for someone, then so be it.
Please know that the vast majority of Catholics -- including clergy -- stand with you in support of the good work you and religious women continue to do in our country and around the world. Your very balanced and nuanced vignette (at least for me) makes commitment to that stance even stronger.
Thank you, Sister Y for insightful, intelligent, and theologically and biblically informed assessment of the Vatican's actions against American Sisters. How often those people defending the hierarchy's heavy-handed authoritarianism are non-theologically-trained men who consider the Church's historic and current privileging of males, especially clergy, as what Jesus wanted. They also seem woefully lacking in a knowledge of church history which is one of change and redefinition.
I got my Master's in Theology back in '95. I'm a female and I'm Jewish. I studied with some awesome nuns, one of whom would probably be an archbishop had she been male. Among the things they showed was a love of God and how it was communicated through love of others. I am very pro nun and I was horrified at the way the Church treats those nuns who are not strictly cloistered and not involved in the world. Is it that they are so afraid of the power of women that they would destroy any woman who came across as independent and capable of thinking and acting for herself? I am reminded of what Wuerl tried to do to Sr. Elizabeth Johnson and what the disciples did after Jesus died, turning Mary Magdalen into a repentant prostitute instead of an independent and wealthy widow who supported Jesus emotionally if not financially. Jesus would not have had that happen to his friend and confidante and I'm not sure he'd feel any different now.
Postmodern convention seems to require self-disclosure, a welcome antidote to the assumption that the rationalist Euro old white male viewpoint was a synonym for "objective."
So... a Seattle native, raised w/o religion. I'm transgendered, gay, spent 25 years as a blue collar worker, back to college (science degree) late in life. Followed by the Graduate Theological Union, affliated with the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley. Thus thoroughly steeped in intellectual Catholic theology and well acquainted with members of RC religious orders. For whom I have deep respect and more than a little affection. And no, I'm not a Catholic.
I find humor in the title "Missing the Mark." That of course is the meaning of the NT Greek word for sin, harmartia. I really doubt that any among us, including the Curia, are in any position to be casting that parabolic first stone.
Ah, that infamous Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Sr. Y has done a splendid job explaining exactly how a life in the Faith works in full. So that can't be the issue. Elsewhere on this site, Sr. X did "go there" vis a vis the molesting pedophiles and their enablers, aka the cover-ups by-- how many bishops? She pointed out that the Curia has not shown much interest in investigating those horrors. Why not? Especially since the lack of response has so obviously contributed to that large and increasing group: ex-Catholics. I suspect it's the Doctrine angle. Since the guys stayed within the dictates of doctrine, no problem. But these women...
Anyway, bless all of you who are trying to stick it out! It's your church. Two thousand years of faith, justice, inspired mystics and brilliant theologians is way bigger than the crimped minds of bureaucrats and their fearful minions can ever imagine.
Sister Y, my admiration and respect for you is great. The balanced, nuanced tone of your letter, as much as its content, shows me a sincere, devoted person, who has taken to heart the gospel message and has labored to live the Sermon on the Mount, as well as her vows.
My parents sacrificed to give my sisters and me a Catholic education through high school. I'm in my 65th year, and have been separated from the Church for a very long time. And yet, having been a "Commonweal Catholic" during my high school and early college years, having lived as a Catholic through the heart-opening era of Vatican II and the saintly life of John XXIII, I have never regretted my old fealty. I still look to Commonweal, from time to time; and what I find, mostly, is good-hearted people, trying to be faithful to the words and the life of Jesus, at the same time trying with humility and sincerity to square the circle, to reconcile a Christ-like life (as best they can live it) with deference and obedience to a heirarchy exclusively and jealously male, arrogant and vindictive, dominated by individuals whose words and actions show them to be, as I see them, "whited sepulchers".
The Inquisition they have foisted upon the American sisters has been base and shameful. The heirarchs are fools, weakening their institution by using its power unwisely. (Think of the consequences America faces flowing from the last administration's overreach and malfeasance).
No one knows what the future holds, but you and many other religious and lay people, by remaining open-hearted even as you work to shepherd the superstructure of your church into a new and more truly Christ-like relationship with our world, need not be concerned with the outcomes of your efforts. Outcomes will take care of themselves. You have chosen the better part, and it shall not be taken from you.
Pax tecum.
Art Saulino
The real issue is Rome's stubborn and exaggerated view that the LCWR is violating their vow of obedience. Does not Rome understand that we live in a divided Church and in a Crisis of Truth? Where did this come from? After all did not Vatican II issue a document about the Church and its relationship with the world, Gaudium et specs? Did this not resolve the problem? Unfortunately, anyone with knowledge of Vatianc II know that the problem grew worse because of the differences in interpretation between modern culture and Christian anthropology.... between two groups: the minority neo-Augustinians and the neo-Thomist majority.
Unfortunately, the neo-Augustiinians (Hans Urs von Balthasar, Henri du Lubac, Jean Danielou, Louis Boyer, and Joseph Ratzinger) set the church and the world in a situation of rivals; they see the world in a negative light; evil and sin so abound in the world that the church should be always suspicious and distrustful of it. Any openness to the world would be "naive optimism". This worldview dominated the post-Vatican II Church and it condemns anyone who disagrees with a Church teaching, or wants to open debate on certain teachings for good and just reasons.
Rome has an exaggerated fear of open and respectful debate on the issues that divide our Church, especially many sexual ethical teachings. They guardedly tolerate disagreement by the laity, but not disagreement by clergy, women religious and theologians. Debate on these issues is a closed book...end of discussion. Rome sees itself in a war between good and evil, and the truth and distorted reason. The papacy of John Paul II took away any sense of authority from a decentralized Church..e.g, from the worldwide Conferences of Bishops. Any definitive statement by these conferences would need Vatican approval. This was in large part due to the experience they encountered after the issuance of Humanae Vitae in 1968, whereby many Conferences of Bishops around the world issued carefully worded but less than full agreement statements about his doctrine....e.g., with respect to complex moral issues, the individual could rely on his/her informed conscience. This would not be tolerated by JP II or Ratzinger-Benedict XVI.
The papacy of JP II centralized more power in Rome because he had no patience for anyone who disgreed with his philosophy and theology. Ratzinger-Benedict XVI continued his view point The World and those "Dissenters", versus, the Church Hierarchy and the Magisterium. The LCWR and the Austrian priests are now to be silenced and condemned because they are not obeying their vows by submitting to Rome their minds and spirit to all Church teachings without remainder.
Thank you again Sister Y for expressing your belief that women religious and the LCWR are doing God's Will based on the love of Christ, His Gospel and the Spirit who guides us all.