Fears of Vatican crackdown on 'liberal' US sisters
Wednesday, August 05, 2009 - 08:47 AM
Roman Catholic sisters in the US will be questioned about their loyalty to church doctrine amid fears of a Vatican crackdown on liberalism in women’s religious communities.The review “is intended as a constructive assessment and an expression of genuine concern for the quality of the life” of around 59,000 US Catholic sisters, according to a Vatican working paper delivered in the past few days to leaders of 341 religious congregations.But the nature of some questions in the document seems to validate concerns expressed privately by some sisters that they are about to be dressed down or accused of being unfaithful to the church.The report, for example, asks communities of sisters to lay out “the process for responding to sisters who dissent publicly or privately from the authoritative teaching of the Church”.It also confirms suspicions that the Vatican is concerned over a drift to the left on doctrine, seeking answers about “the soundness of doctrine held and taught” by the women.Other questions explore whether sisters take part in Mass daily, or whether they follow the church’s rules when they take part in liturgies. Church officials expect consistency in how rites and services are celebrated, with approved translations and Masses presided over by a priest.The study, called an apostolic visitation, casts a net beyond fidelity to church teaching, with questions also covering efforts to promote vocations and management of finances.The investigation is focused on members of women’s religious communities, or sisters. These are women who do social work, teach, work in hospitals and do other humanitarian work of the church. The investigation is not looking at cloistered communities, or nuns.“The sisters being investigated have for many years made almost nothing, took very little and gave everything,” said the Rev. James Martin, an editor at America, a Jesuit magazine.Francine Cardman, associate professor of historical theology and church history at Boston College’s School of Theology and Ministry, said it was not clear why these questions were being asked now in the US.But she said the focus on doctrine put it in the context of establishing a “correct” and exclusive interpretation of the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s and of women’s religious communities.She said the inquiry should be seen “as part of a much older tradition of misogyny in the church and especially distrust of women who are not directly and submissively under male, ecclesiastical control”.Catholic sisters, Ms Cardman said, have repeatedly over history been “returned to the confines of the cloister” or restricted in the kinds of ministries they could perform in public view.Conservative Catholics, however, have long complained that the majority of sisters in the US have grown too liberal and flout Church teaching. Some have taken provocative stands, advocating for female priests or challenging church teaching against abortion rights or gay marriage.Helen Hull Hitchcock, director of St Louis-based Women for Faith and Family, a Catholic women’s group that includes sisters and lay people, said an examination of women’s religious communities’ claims to “the right to complete self-determination” with no regard to church hierarchy was 30 or 40 years overdue.“Some good can come of it by identifying where the main problems are, or at least by dealing openly and honestly with a problem that has been going on for a long time,” she said.After Vatican II, many sisters embraced Catholic teaching against war and nuclear weapons and for workers’ rights, shed their habits and traditional roles as teachers or hospital workers and took up activism.The inquiry is being directed by Mother Mary Clare Millea, superior general of the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, a more conservative order.She has already held meetings with heads of religious communities. Next, the superiors will be given detailed questionnaires to be completed by later this autumn, to be followed by visits to selected congregations starting next year and concluding with a confidential report from Mother Millea to the Vatican.The Vatican also has opened a separate “doctrinal assessment” of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, the largest umbrella group for communities of Catholic sisters in the US Read more: http://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/world/fears-of-vatican-crackdown-on-liberal-us-sisters-421323.html#ixzz0O4VwoW3Z
Wednesday, August 05, 2009 - 08:47 AM
Roman Catholic sisters in the US will be questioned about their loyalty to church doctrine amid fears of a Vatican crackdown on liberalism in women’s religious communities.The review “is intended as a constructive assessment and an expression of genuine concern for the quality of the life” of around 59,000 US Catholic sisters, according to a Vatican working paper delivered in the past few days to leaders of 341 religious congregations.But the nature of some questions in the document seems to validate concerns expressed privately by some sisters that they are about to be dressed down or accused of being unfaithful to the church.The report, for example, asks communities of sisters to lay out “the process for responding to sisters who dissent publicly or privately from the authoritative teaching of the Church”.It also confirms suspicions that the Vatican is concerned over a drift to the left on doctrine, seeking answers about “the soundness of doctrine held and taught” by the women.Other questions explore whether sisters take part in Mass daily, or whether they follow the church’s rules when they take part in liturgies. Church officials expect consistency in how rites and services are celebrated, with approved translations and Masses presided over by a priest.The study, called an apostolic visitation, casts a net beyond fidelity to church teaching, with questions also covering efforts to promote vocations and management of finances.The investigation is focused on members of women’s religious communities, or sisters. These are women who do social work, teach, work in hospitals and do other humanitarian work of the church. The investigation is not looking at cloistered communities, or nuns.“The sisters being investigated have for many years made almost nothing, took very little and gave everything,” said the Rev. James Martin, an editor at America, a Jesuit magazine.Francine Cardman, associate professor of historical theology and church history at Boston College’s School of Theology and Ministry, said it was not clear why these questions were being asked now in the US.But she said the focus on doctrine put it in the context of establishing a “correct” and exclusive interpretation of the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s and of women’s religious communities.She said the inquiry should be seen “as part of a much older tradition of misogyny in the church and especially distrust of women who are not directly and submissively under male, ecclesiastical control”.Catholic sisters, Ms Cardman said, have repeatedly over history been “returned to the confines of the cloister” or restricted in the kinds of ministries they could perform in public view.Conservative Catholics, however, have long complained that the majority of sisters in the US have grown too liberal and flout Church teaching. Some have taken provocative stands, advocating for female priests or challenging church teaching against abortion rights or gay marriage.Helen Hull Hitchcock, director of St Louis-based Women for Faith and Family, a Catholic women’s group that includes sisters and lay people, said an examination of women’s religious communities’ claims to “the right to complete self-determination” with no regard to church hierarchy was 30 or 40 years overdue.“Some good can come of it by identifying where the main problems are, or at least by dealing openly and honestly with a problem that has been going on for a long time,” she said.After Vatican II, many sisters embraced Catholic teaching against war and nuclear weapons and for workers’ rights, shed their habits and traditional roles as teachers or hospital workers and took up activism.The inquiry is being directed by Mother Mary Clare Millea, superior general of the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, a more conservative order.She has already held meetings with heads of religious communities. Next, the superiors will be given detailed questionnaires to be completed by later this autumn, to be followed by visits to selected congregations starting next year and concluding with a confidential report from Mother Millea to the Vatican.The Vatican also has opened a separate “doctrinal assessment” of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, the largest umbrella group for communities of Catholic sisters in the US Read more: http://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/world/fears-of-vatican-crackdown-on-liberal-us-sisters-421323.html#ixzz0O4VwoW3Z
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