Vatican attempts to silence group of liberal thinking US nuns

"Finished" is right, "abandoned as a ruin." As the Gospel says about self- appointed surrogates of the First Christian, "But those who think Heaven's domain belongs to them will be thrown where it is utterly dark. There'll be weeping and grinding of teeth out there." And "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you murder the prophets and stone those sent to you. . . . Can't you see your house is being abandoned as a ruin?" (Matt 8:11-12, 23:37-38, SV translation 1994). Censorship is how the Church stones its 21st century messengers from God (here, the sisters). Christianity will survive, but the Vatican's power to use it as a political force, not so much.

Nicoletta | Apr 20, 2012, 08:36 PM EDT Dannyboy, the Catholic church is not, and never will be finished." It is finished, brought down by itself like all great empires before it.

rgray222...Here's the quote you refer to: “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. Where is the slant?

This article is very misleading, as is the NY Times. It states that the issues are females in leadership roles and homosexuality when in fact the contentious and major issue is abortion. Please do not slant your articles like the Times does it dings your credibility.

Support for the sisters comes from today's NY Times editors, who write, "A crucial focus in the inquiry appears to be the fact that dozens of American nuns involved in the conference and in antipoverty and hospital work provided prominent support to President Obama’s health care reform. Conference leaders said Vatican investigators had pointedly raised the issue and the fact that the conference had split with American bishops, who opposed reform. The sisters’ leaders said they reaffirmed their opposition to abortion but also claimed the right to speak out on a 'moral imperative' like health care, just as the bishops had. The nuns clearly are caught in a classic crossfire of church doctrine, politics and hierarchical obedience. It would be a tragedy, far beyond the church, if their fine work and their courageous voices were constrained."

Clarification: That's $1.5 billion of government money, funding from US taxpayers for Catholic organizations, in the form of grants for hospitals, Catholic Charities, etc.

Helmet365, Bishop Shelby said what I've been thinking since the 'war against women' began against the background of high unemployment: "Freedom from unexpected pregnancies has been the major factor in opening career opportunities for women.... There is now ample evidence that this new equality of opportunity is resented by a significant number of males. This is the counterattack." If the economy continues to improve, the counterattack will end, which is in everyone's interest because it's not possible to support a family on one income. The Bishop also points to another motive of the USCCB--money. According to NETWORK, 1/31/12, "more than $1.5 billion went to Catholic organizations over the past two years." The sisters who run the hospitals, schools, and other Catholic agencies could secularize some organizations to continue receiving federal funding for their work, rather than refusing to obey the federal HHS rule and losing the money, as the USCCB wants them to do. Secularizing would leave the bishops' political lobbying under-funded. Women's work helps support USCCB politics, especially when there's little money coming from people in the pews. I think the nuns will not give in so easily and the patriarchy is sputtering its last.

Well put. Maybe there are larger issues here. I recommend reading Bishop John Shelby's article last week "The contraception debate :Is misogyny on the rise? and the LCWR debate. He concludes with "Is the current debate the last gasp of a dying patriachy or the opening debate in a new dark age? . I reluctantly believe it will be the latter. As A C Grayling says "The idiology usually wins". Much fuss is made about changes and how things should be run from within but in the end the sisters and the priests of the world will probably fall into line and back off at the slighest threat. Sad. A new dark age? Comment eiriamack or anyone?

The 1,500 sisters in the LCWR were elected by 59,000 sisters in their various orders. They represent the overwhelming majority of American women religious. The censorship and controls imposed on the LCWR are punishment by the bishops, who are backed up by the CDF, for the LCWR's unwillingness to support the USCCB's well-funded but unsuccessful opposition to health reform legislation. I most appreciate the LCWR's honesty in publicly contradicting a salient lie promulgated by the USCCB. In their 2010 letter of support for the Obama health care reform legislation the LCWR wrote that the Affordable Care Act "will make crucial investments in community health centers that largely serve poor women and children. **And despite false claims to the contrary, the Senate bill will not provide taxpayer funding for elective abortions.** It will uphold longstanding conscience protections and it will make historic new investments – $250 million – in support of pregnant women. This is the REAL pro-life stance, and we as Catholics are all for it." Cheers for these courageous women of the LCWR! Americans-- Catholic or not-- will rally to their support.

This opinion piece distorts the facts and deals in negative stereotypes. The second paragraph made me laugh - informed US Catholics have known about this "secret' investigation for 3 years now. The dissenters at the LCWR do not represent the the thinking of the majority of sisters in the US. Those interested should take a look at "Vatican picks a side in the nun wars" at getreligion dot org

JESUS would sack the church like he chucked out all the salesmen from his house of worship,the salesmen were disrespecting his place of worship,the church are disgracing the ethos of his worship.god made man and women in his likeness with certain undefined rules.i would go to church again if you replaced the clergy with the parishioners or followers of the faith,you are to follow the faith not the clergy,who get it oh so wrong and twisted mainly the male greedy evading the prison leaders of the church.

"How liberal is liberal?" Read the "Doctrinal Assessment of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious," available online. It gives only one trumped-up example of the nuns' straying from doctrine: in 1977 the LCWR did not publicly voice agreement with RC teaching on the male-only priesthood, and they still have not said anything about it. But they also have not violated this teaching! The "Assessment" accuses them of a "grave ... matter of serious concern." The nuns have not been obsequiously obedient Echos of their bishops. (The magisterium translates "Obsequium religiosum" as "religious obedience.") They have not parroted the USCCB statements against homosexuality and contraception. Instead, they've been serving the poor and the needy and educating the young, in keeping with their vocations. So the Vatican is making an example of their independence, which it considers a violation of "doctrine." The "Assessment" document equates "doctrine" with unquestioning obedience to the will of pope and bishops. Anything short of that is "liberal."

How liberal is liberal?

The Vatican can't stop a river flowing, sisters are doing it for themselves!I believe they have a direct line to Jesus and need not get distracted by Mad Popes and Barmy Bishops

These sisters are on the frontlines of poverty and illness; far removed from the men who sit in a Vatican castle, eating the best, wearing the best, and becoming very far removed from today’s poor and Christ's message once again.