Vatican Reprimands a Group of U.S. Nuns and Plans Changes
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
The Vatican
has appointed an American bishop to rein in the largest and most
influential group of Catholic nuns in the United States, saying that an
investigation found that the group had “serious doctrinal problems.”
The Vatican’s assessment, issued on Wednesday, said that members of the
group, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, had challenged
church teaching on homosexuality and the male-only priesthood, and
promoted “radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith.”
The sisters were also reprimanded for making public statements that
“disagree with or challenge the bishops, who are the church’s authentic
teachers of faith and morals.” During the debate over the health care overhaul
in 2010, American bishops came out in opposition to the health plan,
but dozens of sisters, many of whom belong to the Leadership Conference,
signed a statement supporting it — support that provided crucial cover
for the Obama administration in the battle over health care.
The conference is an umbrella organization of women’s religious
communities, and claims 1,500 members who represent 80 percent of the
Catholic sisters in the United States. It was formed in 1956 at the
Vatican’s request, and answers to the Vatican, said Sister Annmarie
Sanders, the group’s communications director.
Word of the Vatican’s action took the group completely by surprise,
Sister Sanders said. She said that the group’s leaders were in Rome on
Wednesday for what they thought was a routine annual visit to the
Vatican when they were informed of the outcome of the investigation, which began in 2008.
“I’m stunned,” said Sister Simone Campbell, executive director of
Network, a Catholic social justice lobby founded by sisters. Her group
was also cited in the Vatican document, along with the Leadership
Conference, for focusing its work too much on poverty and economic
injustice, while keeping “silent” on abortion and same-sex marriage.
“I would imagine that it was our health care letter that made them mad,”
Sister Campbell said. “We haven’t violated any teaching, we have just
been raising questions and interpreting politics.”
The verdict on the nuns group was issued by the Vatican’s Congregation
for the Doctrine of the Faith, which is now led by an American, Cardinal
William Levada, formerly the archbishop of San Francisco. He appointed
Archbishop J. Peter Sartain of Seattle to lead the process of reforming
the sisters’ conference, with assistance from Bishop Thomas J. Paprocki
and Bishop Leonard Blair, who was in charge of the investigation of the
group.
They have been given up to five years to revise the group’s statutes,
approve of every speaker at the group’s public programs and replace a
handbook the group used to facilitate dialogue on matters that the
Vatican said should be settled doctrine. They are also supposed to
review the Leadership Conference’s links with Network and another
organization, the Resource Center for Religious Life.
Doctrinal issues have been in the forefront during the papacy of
Benedict XVI, who was in charge of the Vatican’s doctrinal office before
he became pope. American nuns have come under particular scrutiny. Last
year, American bishops announced that a book by a popular theologian at
Fordham University, Sister Elizabeth A. Johnson, should be removed from all Catholic schools and universities.
And while the Vatican was investigating the Leadership Conference, the
Vatican was also conducting a separate, widespread investigation of all
women’s religious orders and communities in the United States. That
inquiry, known as a “visitation,” was concluded last December, but the
results of that process have not been made public.
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