It is impossible to miss the flood of social media updates and news articles that have made LCWR a household acronym. The Leadership Conference of Women Religious, a canonical organization representing the vast majority of Catholic Sisters in the United States, received notice by the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) that Archbishop Peter Sartain of Seattle will be overseeing a “renewal” of the organization.
With our sisters and the broader Catholic family, we are shocked and saddened. We are still processing the news and there are still many unknowns. We do not know, for example, how the mandates in the Doctrinal Assessment of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious will be implemented. As we’ve read and listened to the news, we’ve found some resources that have been helpful to us in looking at both the immediate story and the bigger picture. We hope these are helpful to you as well.
- Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) website
- Dr. Margaret Susan Thompson’s guest blog post for The Tablet – Peggy is Professor of History and has researched and written extensively on the history of women religious in the United States (and she’s a frequent A Nun’s Life guest!)
- Sister Simone Campbell, Executive Director of NETWORK, talking with NPR’s Melissa Block (April 19, 2012)
- Scripture, in particular the Gospel of Jesus Christ
- The Transformation of American Catholic Sisters by Sisters Lora Quiñonez and Mary Daniel Turner (1993) – provides a history of LCWR including its relationship to the Vatican
- James Martin’s Twitter Drive #WhatSistersMeanToMe Supports US Nuns via Huffington Post (April 19, 2012)
We ask for your continued prayer and support of LCWR and the sisters it represents, of Archbishop Sartain and his assistants Bishop Leonard Blair and Bishop Thomas John Paprocki, and of the whole Catholic Church in the U.S.
We hold LCWR in our prayers for their faithful service to the Church and for furthering the mission of the Gospel in today’s world.
Archived Comments
- April 20, 2012 at 10:51 am
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Thanks for this post. I just linked it to my blog.
- April 20, 2012 at 10:56 am
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Oh, sisters, praying for you all, and for this church of ours. It’s a rather odd recommendation, but I recently read “A Bitter Trial”, a compilation of Evelyn Waugh’s letters and notes and things while dealing with Vatican II. I’m not quite sure what he would have thought about all this (although it almost certainly would have been that it would sound better in Latin) but his combination of persistence and faithfulness in the face of the loss of something he quite obviously loved was rather inspiring – it certainly made me appreciate the choices I now have, liturgy-wise.
The seed grows while we sleep, and we don’t know how, but we do know that with this marvellous God of ours, it always does grow.
- April 20, 2012 at 2:25 pm
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I have read some of the articles you have linked to. Still, I really don’t understand what behavior the Vatican is complaining about. The problem is that, once you decide to investigate anything, you exaggerate the problematic, because the purpose of any investigation is to identify problems not point out what’s working. Take heart Sisters and join the rest of us: lay Catholics are scolded regularly by the Vatican.
- April 21, 2012 at 1:13 pm
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even after days, this news renders me without words to adequately articulate my heartache for every nun i have known and loved.
i keep thinking about that old movie, shoes of the fisherman, and how the world would be so much better and the church so much holier if we’d had a pope like that in real life. you know, a pope who’d abandon riches to save the poor. a pope who would gladly sacrifice power to turn the eyes of the faithful on jesus instead. you know, a nunly pope.
i pray god our church will survive.
- April 22, 2012 at 2:42 pm
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While I am not a Roman Catholic, I am Anglican, I just want to add my support to the Good Sisters. I am a 64 year old Grandma, but I still remember where women were 40 years ago, the battles we fought, won and lost. I fear for young women today. There are those individuals who are again gearing up to put “Women in their place.” Sisters, remain strong in your commitment to Jesus and HIS teaching. You’ve had it right all along. Please don’t change just to accommodate. God truly bless and keep you all.
