Enlarge Andrew Medichini/AP American
nuns attend Mass at Sant'Apollinare in Rome.
The umbrella group that
represents the majority of the approximately 56,000 U.S. nuns plans to
meet later this month to discuss its response to a Vatican reprimand.
When Harvard divinity professor Harvey Cox
arranged to meet with Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger at the Vatican in 1988, a
group of nuns thought he was wasting his time.
"I
was chatting and having dinner with a number of Dominican sisters who
were staying there for a 30-day retreat," Cox says. "They were
incredulous that I wanted to bother seeing Ratzinger. 'Why do you want
to do that?' they asked. 'Who pays any attention to him?' "
Flash forward a few decades, and nuns are more than paying attention.
Two
weeks ago, the Vatican issued a report declaring that the umbrella
group representing most American nuns had strayed from church doctrine
and adopted "radical feminist" views. Rome ordered Seattle's archbishop
to begin monitoring all operations of the Leadership Conference of Women
Religious.
It hit "like a sock in the stomach," Sister Simone Campbell, head of the Catholic social justice lobby Network,
told NPR shortly after the word came down.
Tiziana Fabi/AFP/Getty Images Father
Joseph Ratzinger, who became Pope Benedict XVI in 2005, was considered a
liberal at the time of the Second Vatican Council.
The reprimand might have come as a shock to many
U.S. nuns, but observers say the confrontation has been brewing since
Vatican II, the Roman Catholic Church's controversial liberalization in
the 1960s.
Nuns Caught In The Middle
The
Second Vatican Council, popularly known as Vatican II, had asked
religious orders to modernize, which for many nuns meant focusing more
on social justice and other issues in their communities and less on
promulgating church doctrine — including Rome's strict views on birth
control and abortion.
Vatican II "asked them to respond to the needs of society," says the Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest and culture editor for
America magazine, a Catholic weekly.
But
he says the changes ushered in nearly a half-century ago have largely
fallen out of favor in Rome, and that has left many nuns caught in the
middle.
"They have embraced the reforms of
the Second Vatican Council, and they have thrown themselves into work
for the poor and marginalized that other parts of the church wouldn't go
near," says Martin, who refers to the nuns as "my heroes" and recently
started the Twitter hashtag
#WhatSistersMeantoMe.
Rome gets very worried when the chain of command appears to be challenged, either overtly or covertly.
- Harvey Cox, Harvard divinity professor
"Many sisters I know are quite saddened, because
many of the reforms that happened in the last 50 years were the result
of their following the instructions of the Second Vatican Council," he
says.
Harvard's Cox, who calls himself a
"sympathetic outside observer" of the current drama, says the Vatican
crackdown is likely to chafe for many nuns from orders that have long
relished their independence.
"My guess is
that the real worry here with the American sisters is that they are
slipping out of the chain of command," says Cox. "Rome gets very worried
when the chain of command appears to be challenged, either overtly or
covertly."
A Shift Toward Obedience And Order
Both
Bishop Karol Wojtyla, who later became Pope John Paul II, and
then-Father Joseph Ratzinger, installed as Pope Benedict XVI after John
Paul's death in 2005, took part in the opening session of the Second
Vatican Council.
Known as the "pope's
rottweiler" for his hard-line positions back when he led the
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith — the same Vatican office
that issued last month's LCWR assessment — Ratzinger was considered a
liberal at the council.
Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images The
Second Vatican Council opened in Rome on Oct. 11, 1962, under Pope John
XXIII and concluded on Dec. 8, 1965, under Pope Paul VI.
"But Ratzinger got very dismayed and distraught
by what was going on in the late 1960s in the German universities," Cox
says. "He thought it was time to tack [to the right] and emphasize
authority and obedience and order because he thought things were getting
out of hand."
Cox, author of the book
The Future of Faith,
says that during their "long talk" in 1988, one of Ratzinger's chief
concerns was so-called liberation theology, a movement led by Latin
American bishops that emphasizes working to end unjust economic,
political and social conditions.
"The main
objection was not really the theological content of the liberation
theologians, but the fact that they seemed to be forming a kind of
separate magisterium," Cox says. "They had these base communities all
over the place that were not really answerable to the local bishop."
Essentially Two Options
Cox
says that's the same concern with the nuns now. The Vatican's remedy? A
five-year period in which Seattle Archbishop Peter Sartain, along with
two other bishops, will provide "review [and] guidance and approval,
where necessary, of the work of the LCWR," according to the CDF's
doctrinal assessment.
"It means they'll
review all policies, all speakers, all conferences, all publications and
all letters of support," says Mary E. Hunt, a feminist theologian,
writer and activist.
Network Lobby Sister
Simone Campbell, head of the Catholic social justice lobby Network,
says the Vatican reprimand was "like a sock in the stomach."
It's not clear what form the Vatican-mandated
changes will eventually take. And the LCWR — made up of about 1,500
representatives who in turn represent the majority of the approximately
56,000 U.S. nuns — plans to meet later this month on how to respond.
An
LCWR official told NPR this week that members have essentially two
options: They can agree to work with Rome on making the mandated
changes, or they can choose to form a new organization independent of
the church's hierarchy.
"The conference plans
to move slowly, not rushing to judgment. We will engage in dialogue
where possible and be open to the movement of the Holy Spirit," the
group said in a statement.
Sister Mary Ann
Walsh, a spokeswoman for Sartain, says all the parties involved
constitute "a reasonable group of people, and the changes will be made
in a reasonable way."
Waiting In The Wings?
Hunt
wonders whether another factor is at play. She thinks the church would
ultimately like to displace the LCWR in favor of a smaller and much more
conservative order of nuns known as the Council of Major Superiors of
Women Religious.
"They are of course
uniformly anti-choice, anti-gay — all the things that the hierarchical
church stands for, those women agree with and abide by," she says,
adding that with the crackdown on the LCWR, the Council of Major
Superiors of Women Religious "is poised to become the new definitive
group."
Walsh disagrees with that view. "I don't think it could be supplanted, because it is the main body," she says.
Sister
Donna Bethell, chairwoman of Christendom College in Front Royal, Va.,
says the Vatican is simply fulfilling its responsibility to make sure
the sisters reflect church doctrine.
"They're
expected not only not to contradict what the church teaches, which is
one of the complaints, but also to be very active in ... talking to
people since more people see them than see bishops, talking to people
about the fullness of the church's teaching," Bethell says.
The
Vatican oversight may hurt recruitment of U.S. nuns, whose numbers
already have shrunk by two-thirds in the years since Vatican II,
according to data collected by the Center for Applied Research in the
Apostolate.
"Without a doubt, it makes it more difficult," Hunt says.
Cox,
the divinity professor, says he doesn't understand the Vatican's
approach given the way the clergy abuse scandal has played out.
"This is a bit humiliating and angering to have it played out in public this way," he says.
"Why
couldn't they have done it much quieter? Why such a public thing over
this?" Cox wonders. "They could have quietly met after they did their
assessment of American nuns and found ways to counsel and negotiate with
them."
http://www.npr.org/2012/05/03/151943345/nuns-and-the-vatican-a-clash-decades-in-making
The group of Catholic nuns who launched the Nuns On A Bus tour to shed light on the effects the House Republican budget would have on the poor turned its attention to the GOP’s presidential candidate this week, challenging Mitt Romney to join them for a day to learn about the plight of the poor. NETWORK, a Catholic social justice organization, issued the call on Wednesday and was joined yesterday by the Franciscan Action Network, an organization of friars and sisters.
