The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has accepted a final report of a doctrinal assessment of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious.

The LCWR represents 80 per cent of US religious sisters.

Seattle Archbishop Peter Sartain was appointed three years ago to oversee a programme of reform for the LCWR.

But on April 16, the Vatican "mandate" ended at a meeting between LCWR and CDF representatives and Archbishop Sartain.

The archbishop and the LCWR officers presented a joint report on the implementation of the mandate, which the doctrinal congregation approved.

The report addresses two main issues: updating the organisational statutes of LCWR and the process by which the group chooses speakers and writers for its annual conferences and publications.

The report stresses the need for LCWR speakers and writers "to have due regard for the Church's faith".

The report also stated that LCWR publications "need a sound doctrinal foundation".

"Measures are being taken to promote a scholarly rigour that will ensure theological accuracy and help avoid statements that are ambiguous with regard to Church doctrine or could be read as contrary to it," the report continued.

The report also stated that LCWR manuscripts "will be reviewed by competent theologians, as a means of safeguarding the theological integrity of the conference".

The report says that "a revised process" for choosing the winner of the group's annual Outstanding Leadership Award "has been articulated".

LCWR president Sr Sharon Holland said in a statement that the oversight process brought the sisters and the Vatican to "deeper understandings of one another's experiences, roles, responsibilities, and hopes for the Church and the people it serves".

"We learned that what we hold in common is much greater than any of our differences," she said.

Former LCWR president Sr Joan Chittister said the most important thing was that the LCWR has not lost its ability to operate freely.

Sources

• National Catholic Reporter
• National Catholic Reporter
• The Tablet
• Vatican Radio
• Image: New Ways Ministry

Rapped knuckles belonged to LCWR, to Fordham theologian Elizabeth Johnson, CSJ, and to any other American woman walking around with letters after her name.

Even Seattle Archbishop J. Peter Sartain, charged with keeping LCWR in order, took a hit for not controlling those uppity females.

To be sure, the main target of CDF's latest document is Barbara Marx Hubbard and her "conscious evolution," which admittedly has spread its bubbles across the websites and newsletters of many institutes of women religious.

Hubbard, a Jewish agnostic, is the 84-year-old "futurist" who was the featured speaker at LCWR's 2012 assembly. She was, to put it kindly, rather different. (She told me at the assembly she did not like all that sin and redemption business in Christianity.)

However, to lump the serious theological work of Elizabeth Johnson in with obviously gnostic claptrap is not only intellectually dishonest — it is a huge public relations mistake.

That is what CDF did. Has CDF ever heard of the Internet? How about television? Statements like this always backfire.

Score: LCWR 2, CDF 0. When will they ever learn? Continue reading.

Phyllis Zagano is a Catholic scholar and lecturer on contemporary spirituality and women's issues in the church.

Source: National Catholic Reporter

Image: Hofstra University