It takes nerves of steel to stand in your doorway and tell rebel soldiers waving guns that no, the woman they are seeking is most certainly not in the room behind you, when in fact she is hiding a few feet away, under your bed. But that’s what Sister Rosemary Nyirumbe did. It takes stunning Read more
Two women from Tonga, Sister Malia Cecilia and Sister Malia Makalita, were among six novices who took first their first vows as as Little Sisters of the Poor in the United States at the beginning of the month. Cardinal Dolan presided at the Mass of Religious Profession at St. Ann’s Novitiate, Queens Village, New York. He Read more
The Vatican congregation that deals with religious life was not consulted over the decision to require the major group of women religious in the United States to reform its statues and programmes, the congregation’s head has revealed. Cardinal João Braz de Aviz, prefect of the Congregation for Religious, said the lack of discussion over the action Read more
Pope Francis has reaffirmed the need to reform the major group of women religious in the United States, accepting the Vatican’s 2012 assessment that found it had “serious doctrinal problems”. The Pope’s view was conveyed to representatives of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, led by president Sister Florence Deacon, by the prefect of the Read more
Britain’s ambassador to the Holy See says he is looking to the Catholic Church to better use the talents, energy and loyalty of the women in the Church. “Anyone who works with the Holy See network will be aware of the vital role played by women religious in almost every aspect of Church life on Read more
As leaders of most of the women’s religious congregations in the United States prepared for their response to the Vatican’s call for reform, their outgoing president said they would tap their collective wisdom “thoughtfully and deliberately”. Franciscan Sister Pat Farrell was addressing the 900-strong assembly of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious in St Louis, Read more
Cardinal Levada has issued regulations “regarding the manner of proceeding in the discernment of presumed apparitions or revelations.” The regulations, updated from the time of Pope Paul VI, are aimed at helping pastors “in their difficult task of discerning presumed apparitions, revelations, messages, or extraordinary phenomena of presumed supernatural origin.” In his column in NCR, Eugene Cullen Read more
In one sense it is correct to say that the crackdown on the LCWR would seem to be “Rome vs. America”, in that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has declared that the Leadership Conference of Women Religious needs renewing. But, says John L Allen Jr in his National Catholic Reporter column, “At Read more