Posts Tagged LCWR
On St. Clare Feast, Catholics Support Sisters, Pray for Authentic Dialogue
Posted by Voice of the Faithful in Religious Women, Vatican, Voice of the Faithful on August 7, 2013
Printed below is the news release disseminated by the Nun Justice Project, which is supported by Voice of the Faithful®, announcing that Catholics will pray in solidarity with the sisters this Sunday, Aug. 11, the feast of St. Clare, in advance of LCWR’s 2013 General Assembly next week, Aug. 13-17 (Download the Nun Justice Project prayer service for the feast of St. Clare by clicing here):
Contact: Erin Saiz Hanna 401-588-0457, Jim FitzGerald 773-404-0004
For immediate release: August 7, 2013
On St. Clare Feast Catholics Support Sisters, Pray for Authentic Dialogue
WASHINGTON D.C. – Next week, hundreds of Catholic nuns are expected to gather in Orlando, FL for the annual meeting of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR).
On August 11, 2013 in solidarity with U.S. women religious, thousands of Catholics will join in prayer [link to prayer] on the Feast of St. Clare.
“The pope intentionally chose St. Francis as his namesake, and he has shown himself to be open to dialogue” stated Erin Saiz Hanna, spokesperson for the Nun Justice Project. “St. Francis of Assisi’s sacred friendship with St. Clare is well documented. St. Francis worked collaboratively alongside his sisters rather than against them. We pray Pope Francis, and Archbishop Sartain, will not only speak but listen and authentically dialogue with the sisters as St. Francis did with St. Clare.”
LCWR, an umbrella group representing 80% of the 57,000 nuns in the United States, remains under scrutiny from the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF). In the spring of 2012 the CDF issued a statement accusing LCWR of promoting “radical feminist themes” and “corporate dissent,” causing outrage among Catholics around the globe.
LCWR responded that the CDF statement was based on “unsubstantiated accusations’ and the result of a “flawed process that lacked transparency.” Last August, the organization’s president, Sr. Pat Farrell, announced that “open and honest dialogue” would be LCWR’s next step with Archbishop Sartain who had been appointed to oversee the mandate.
Last summer, nearly 70,000 Catholics signed a Change.org petition and hundreds organized vigils to rally around the sisters.
“Catholics around the country have been inspired by the faith and work of the sisters and will continue to support them; we urge Pope Francis to recognize their commitment and contributions and dismiss the mandate,” said Jim FitzGerald, spokesperson for the Nun Justice Project.
The Nun Justice Project is a grassroots movement supported by the following organizations: American Catholic Council, Association for the Rights of Catholics in the Church, Call to Action, Catholics for Choice, CORPUS, DignityUSA, Federation of Christian Ministries, FutureChurch, New Ways Ministry, Quixote Center, RAPPORT, Voice of the Faithful, WATER: Women’s Alliance for Theology, Ethics and Ritual, and Women’s Ordination Conference.
For more information, visit www.nunjustice.org
As LCWR 2013 General Assembly Approaches, Key U.S. Sister Says Vatican’s Order Is ‘Unacceptable’
Posted by Voice of the Faithful in Religious Women, Vatican, Voice of the Faithful on August 2, 2013
A year and a half after the Vatican ordered the main representative group of U.S. Catholic sisters to place itself under the control of three U.S. bishops, many sister-leaders still consider complete compliance with the order ‘unacceptable,’ the head of the largest order of sisters in the Western Hemisphere said Thursday (Aug. 2). By Joshua J. McElwee, National Catholic Reporter
Read McElwee’s entire article, “Key U.S. Sister: Vatican’s LCWR Order ‘Unacceptable,'” by clicking here. McElwee also reports today that Archbishop J. Peter Sartain, whom the Vatican appointed to oversee U.S. sisters, will attend LCWR’s 2013 General Assembly, which takes place Aug. 13-16 in Orlando, Florida — Vatican-Appointed Overseer to Attend LCWR Gathering.
Former LCWR Leader Says Pope Should Open Door to Women Priests / National Catholic Reporter
Posted by Voice of the Faithful in church reform, Religious Women, Vatican, Voice of the Faithful on July 31, 2013
A key former leader of U.S. Catholic sisters said Pope Francis should reconsider the Catholic church’s ban on women priests, likening the male-only priesthood to ‘a form of inequality which is a form of idolatry.’ Commenting to NCR on Francis’ remarks on the papal plane Monday (July 29) that the late Pope John Paul II had ‘definitively … closed the door’ to Catholic women priests, Mercy Sr. Theresa Kane said Francis has a chance to ‘begin a whole new movement and a whole new philosophy.'” By Joshua McElwee, National Catholic Reporter
Read McElwee’s entire article in National Catholic Reporter by clicking here.
Serious Misunderstandings Exist Between Vatican/LCWR & Vatican Religious Prefect Says He Was Left Out of LCWR Discussions
Posted by Voice of the Faithful in Religious Women, Vatican, Voice of the Faithful on May 6, 2013
The head of the U.S. Leadership Conference of Women Religious told nuns worldwide on Saturday that “serious misunderstandings” exist between Vatican officials and Catholic sisters, while on Sunday, the head of the Vatican’s Congregation for Religious, Cardinal Joao Braz de Aviz, claimed he was neither consulted, nor had prior knowledge of the Vatican’s decision to place the LCWR under the control of bishops.
You can read Joshua McElwee’s reports in National Catholic Reporter online by clicking the headlines below.
Sr. Joan Chittister / LCWR: ‘Radical Feminism’ or ‘Living the Gospel’
Posted by Voice of the Faithful in Religious Women, Vatican, Voice of the Faithful on April 24, 2013
The BBC just called, an incident that in itself may well be a measure of the larger import of the situation. It’s a strange moment in history: Suddenly everyone in the world, it seems, wants to know what is happening to the nuns and what they can do next. “Next,” of course, means what they can do now that the Vatican is back to questioning both their intelligence and their faith. In fact, what self-respecting journalist could possibly skip the story? After thousands of years of life-giving service to the church at poverty level — building its schools, its orphanages, its hospitals, its missionary outposts, its soup kitchens, its homes for the indigent, its catechetical centers — the nuns are told the problem with their work is that it has been “tainted by radical feminism”? And that by a group of men whose chance of knowing what the term “radical feminism” even means is obviously close to zero.” By Sr. Joan Chittister, National Catholic Reporter
Read this entire story, ‘Tainted by Radical Feminism?’ More Like ‘Living the Gospel,’ in the National Catholic Reporter by clicking here.
Nuns on the Bus Leader Responds to Reaffirmation of Vatican LCWR Mandate
Posted by Voice of the Faithful in Religious Women, Vatican, Voice of the Faithful on April 22, 2013
Vatican Plays Politics with American Nuns by Sister Simone Campbell, Commentary in The Washington Post
I would be lying if I wrote that I was not hurt by the reaffirmation of the censure of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) and by extension of NETWORK, the Catholic social justice lobby that I lead. I had hoped that the censure would quietly disappear in an Italian bureaucratic way. But this is not to be. Rather we are to continue to be caught in macro-church-politics of a group of Catholics at odds with the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF).”
Vatican, LCWR Approaching Critical Crossroads / National Catholic Reporter Editorial
Posted by Voice of the Faithful in Religious Women, Vatican, Voice of the Faithful on April 19, 2013
He (Pope Francis) went on to say in the process of “going out” the church always risks running into “accidents,” adding, “I prefer a thousand times over a church of accidents than a sick church.” A church of accidents … a church willing to take risks on the edges … a church dedicated to service of the most needy … a church working on behalf of mercy, peace and justice… This sounds a lot like the church U.S. Catholic sisters have been building in recent decades. Not only U.S. women religious, but also women religious around the world have been at this work. It is the women who have lived closest to the marginalized; it is the women who have worked on the “peripheries;” it is the women who have gone precisely where Francis is encouraging others to go. And what has been their reward? Have they been acclaimed by their church leadership? No. Despite occasional laudatory words to the contrary, these faith-filled women have been too often demeaned and too often tarnished with accusations of alleged infidelity.” By National Catholic Reporter Editorial Staff
Read the entire National Catholic Reporter editorial by clicking here …
America Magazine Commentary Sees Hope for the American Nuns
Posted by Voice of the Faithful in Religious Women, Vatican, Voice of the Faithful on April 18, 2013
Pope Francis, the CDF and the LCWR by James Martin, S.J., in America magazine
Today (April 15) the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a statement about the ongoing oversight and “reform” (to use their word) of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, the main umbrella organization of women religious in the United States, which represents roughly 80% of American Catholic sisters and nuns. In their statement, the Congregation noted that the new prefect of the Congregation, Archbishop Gerhard Ludwig Müller, as well as Archbishop J. Peter Sartain, the Holy See’s Delegate for the Doctrinal Assessment of the LCWR, met with the Presidency of the LCWR. Archbishop Müller also noted that he had spoken with Pope Francis, who “reaffirmed” the findings of the Assessment, and the “program of reform.” The LCWR issued a statement, which listed the participants in the meeting in full, and said that the meeting was “open and frank.” Several things need to be kept in mind before people jump to conclusions about what this may or may not portend.
Pope Upholds Reprimand of American Nuns’ Group / The New York Times
Posted by Voice of the Faithful in Vatican, Voice of the Faithful on April 16, 2013
Pope Francis has reaffirmed the reprimand of American nuns issued by his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, and endorsed the plan to have three bishops supervise an overhaul of the nation’s largest umbrella group of American nuns.” By Laurie Goodstein, The New York Times
What Will Franciscan Jose Rodriguez Carballo’s Curial Appointment Mean to Women Religious
Posted by Voice of the Faithful in Vatican, Voice of the Faithful on April 10, 2013
Can Pope Francis uproot corruption and drive scandal from the storied offices of the church’s bureaucracy? He’s already appointed Franciscan José Rodríguez Carballo as the new secretary in the Congregation for Religious. Of course, most of the world’s religious are women, and there is nothing about Rodríguez’s job a woman could not do. But the man who was already president of the Union of Superiors General and minister general of his order would have more clout inside the Vatican ‘sashway.’ He also understands religious life.” By Phyllis Zagano, National Catholic Reporter
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