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In our last episode of the ‘battle of the long dresses and red shoes versus the ladies of the religious’, Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which oversees Roman Catholic doctrine, after a three year investigation, put out a report condemning the largest organization representing US Catholic nuns, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR). The Vatican takes the position that the organization pays too much attention to social justice issues and not enough time condemning contraception, abortion and gay marriage. “The report accused members of the LCWR, which represents around 80 percent of the 45,000 nuns in the United States, of “corporate dissent” with the Church’s teachings against homosexuality, and claimed it was pursuing “radical feminist themes.” The Vatican has appointed the Bishop of Seattle, Peter Sartain, to oversee LCWR. Considering that all the officers of the organization are nuns and in 1956, the Vatican’s Committee for the Religious requested that an organization such as LCWR be formed, this is actually quite a smack.
Today, the organization responded:
“We haven’t violated any teaching,” Sister Simone Campbell, executive director of Network, a Catholic social justice lobby (associated with LVWR), told AFP, insisting the group would not stop “caring for the least among us on the margins of society.”… After the report was published, Campbell said it was “painfully obvious” the Vatican leadership was “not used to having educated women form thoughtful opinions and engage in dialogue.”
“We will keep doing our mission,” she insisted in a phone interview Saturday, saying the group was founded to “lobby, organize and educate” in the name of social and economic justice.”
US Nuns Respond
11 Comments
They don’t need no sticking justice!
Thank you, Toby.
I’m making that noise – tsssust!
“We’ll behaving nun of that behavior”
Because when it starts getting fun, that becomes a Habit.
too much emphasis on social justice. Sigh. I remember when the Church was pretty much allabout social justice. Look what the about-to-be-sainted John Paul II and Pope Ratziner have wrought.
Nuns are the only honorable portion of the Church left. How stupid are they?
The Nuns are fighting back publicly Go Nuns but we need a Vatican Lawyer to tell us the Pope’s next move given his ego this is not over. What can the Pope do next is my question if the Nuns keep defying him?
Thank you for this post, Toby. I’ve been keeping up on this most interesting turn of events.
Even wrote down a quote:
“What woman truly believes she is not equal to a man?”
Sister Beth Rindler
National Coalition of American Nuns
This is going to get interesting.
Thank you, Toby. Lovely post.
I love the nuns in the other two catholic churches – the Episcopal and the Orthodox, – but the Roman Church’s ladies head my list for good folks (despite that discipline thing in grade school).
Peterr has a very detailed response to all of this: http://my.firedoglake.com/peterr/2012/04/23/seattle-archbishop-leads-the-charge-against-marriage-equality-women-religious-and-others-who-think/#comment-259355
“Corporate dissent” as opposed to corporate submission? Yeah, the Catholic church can go stick it’s head up God’s ass.
Anymore these days, it seems that any woman who stands up for her own rights – or the rights of other women & children – are now viewed as Rush Limbaugh has been so careful to bellow out for decades: as “FemiNazi’s.”
As in: how DARE women take a stand, stand up for their rights, take care of themselves & other women & kids and generally be assertive, rather than abjectly submissive to men.
Good on the Nuns! Great to hear about this.
Thanks for the post.