Thursday, August 9, 2012

The Vatican, LCWR, and Definitions of Dialogue

The Vatican, LCWR, and Definitions of Dialogue

NCR

Commentary As I watch the back-and-forth between the Vatican and the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), I’m struck by how the two sides are defining the concept of dialogue and its role in resolving Church conflict. Their starkly different views of that term were highlighted in the separate the interviews that Bishop Leonard Blair of Toledo, Ohio, and Franciscan Sr. Pat Farrell did with National Public Radio. For Farrell, dialogue is about creating “a safe and respectful environment where church leaders along with the rank-and-file…can raise questions openly.” In Blair’s case, dialogue is a pathway for the LCWR to “remedy serious doctrinal concerns.”

1 comment:

  1. For years now we’ve heard the title “cafeteria Catholics” disgustedly hurled by the hierarchy as an epithet at thinking people of faith who discern the Spirit’s movement in the “signs of the times.” It seems the Vatican “administrators” might be guilty of a similar “picking and choosing” of tenets of belief regarding dialogue. We might call their stance "Cafeteria Cardinals."
    Of course, some may blatantly deny the major of Kevin Aschenbrenner’s NCR article about the Vatican and LCWR,
    Read more at http://jacksspat.blogspot.com/

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