FIRST READ:
The clash of Roman Catholicism with Radical feminism: Vatican criticizes U.S. nun's book on sexuality
An American Nun Responds To Vatican Criticism
http://www.npr.org/2012/07/17/156858223/an-american-nun-responds-to-vatican-condemnation
July 17, 2012
In April, the Vatican
announced that three American bishops (one archbishop and two bishops) would be
sent to oversee the Leadership Conference of Women
Religious, a member organization founded in 1956 that represents 80 percent
of Catholic sisters in the United
States, to get them to conform with the
teachings of the Church.In its assessment of the group, the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith said the leadership conference is undermining Roman Catholic teachings on homosexuality and birth control and promoting "radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith." It also reprimanded the nuns for hosting speakers who "often contradict or ignore" church teachings and for making public statements that "disagree with or challenge the bishops, who are the church's authentic teachers of faith and morals."
In their own statement, the nuns said the Vatican's doctrinal assessment of the group was based on "unsubstantiated accusations" and may "compromise" the ability of female nuns to "fulfill their mission."
"I would say the mandate is more critical of positions we haven't taken than those we have taken," says Sister Pat Farrell, the president of the Leadership Conference. "As I read that document, the concern is the issues we tend to be more silent about when the bishops are speaking out very clearly about some things. There are issues about which we think there's a need for a genuine dialogue, and there doesn't seem to be a climate of that in the church right now."
Farrell tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross that the leadership organization is currently gathering the perspectives of all of its members in preparation for its national assembly in August.
"We're hoping to come out of that assembly with a much clearer direction about [the Vatican's decision], and that's when the national board and presidency can proceed," she says.
Among the options on the table, she says, are fully complying with the mandate, not complying with the mandate or seeing if the Vatican will negotiate with them.
"In my mind, [I want] to see if we can somehow, in a spirited, nonviolent strategizing, look for maybe a third way that refuses to define the mandate and the issues in such black and white terms," she says.
Interview Highlights
On questioning doctrine within the Catholic Church"The question is, 'Can you be Catholic and have a questioning mind?' That's what we're asking. ... I think one of our deepest hopes is that in the way we manage the balancing beam in the position we're in, if we can make any headways in helping to create a safe and respectful environment where church leaders along with rank-and-file members can raise questions openly and search for truth freely, with very complex and swiftly changing issues in our day, that would be our hope. But the climate is not there. And this mandate coming from the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith putting us in a position of being under the control of certain bishops, that is not a dialogue. If anything, it appears to be shutting down dialogue."
On their options
"We're not talking about the risk of excommunication or leaving the church. That's not our intent. We're talking about the Vatican's dealing with a national organization, not with specific religious congregations or individual religious. The one and only underlying option for us is to respond with integrity with however we proceed. That is our absolute bottom line in this. Some of the options would be to just comply with the mandate that's been given to us. Or to say we can't comply with this and see what the Vatican does with that. Or to remove ourselves and form a separate organization."
And this mandate coming from the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith putting us in a position of being under the control of certain bishops, that is not a dialogue. If anything, it appears to be shutting down dialogue.
On the criticism from the Vatican regarding human sexuality
"We have been, in good faith, raising concerns about some of the church's teachings on sexuality. The problem being that the teaching and interpretation of the faith can't remain static and really needs to be reformulated, rethought in light of the world we live in. And new questions and new realities [need to be addressed] as they arise. And if those issues become points of conflict, it's because Women Religious stand in very close proximity to people at the margins, to people with very painful, difficult situations in their lives. That is our gift to the church. Our gift to the church is to be with those who have been made poorer, with those on the margins. Questions there are much less black and white because human realities are much less black and white. That's where we spend our days."
On roles within the church
"A bishop, for instance, can't be on the street working with the homeless. He has other tasks. But we can be. So if there is a climate of open and trusting and adequate dialogue among us, we can bring together some of those conversations, and that's what I hope we can help develop in a deeper way."
On women's ordination
"The position we took in favor of women's ordination in 1977 was before there was a Vatican letter saying that there is a definitive church position against the ordination of women. So it's interesting to me that the document [just released by the church] goes back 30 years to talk about our position on the ordination of women. There has, in fact, been an official opinion from the church that that topic should not be discussed. When that declaration came out, the response of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious was to call for a nationwide time of prayer and fasting for all Women Religious in response to that. Because our deep desire for places of leadership of women in the church be open. It remains a desire. Since then, the Leadership Conference has not spoken publicly about the ordination of women. Imposing a silence doesn't necessarily change people's thinking, but we are in a position to continue to be very concerned that the position of women in the church be recognized."
On the phrase "radical feminist themes"
"Sincerely, what I hear in the phrasing ... is fear — a fear of women's positions in the church. Now, that's just my interpretation. I have no idea what was in the mind of the congregation, of the doctrine of the faith, when they wrote that. But women theologians around the world have been seriously looking at the question of: How have the church's interpretations of how we talk about God, interpret Scripture, organize life in the church — how have they been tainted by a culture that minimizes the value and the place of women?"
On abortion
Our gift to the church is to be with those who have been made poorer, with those on the margins. Questions there are much less black and white because human realities are much less black and white. That's where we spend our days.
"I think the criticism of what we're not talking about seems to me to be unfair. Because [Women] Religious have clearly given our lives to supporting life, to supporting the dignity of human persons. Our works are very much pro-life. We would question, however, any policy that is more pro-fetus than actually pro-life. If the rights of the unborn trump all of the rights of all of those who are already born, that is a distortion, too — if there's such an emphasis on that. However, we have sisters who work in right-to-life issues. We also have many, many ministries that support life. We dedicate to our lives to those on the margins of society, many of whom are considered throwaway people: the impaired, the chronically mentally ill, the elderly, the incarcerated, to the people on death row. We have strongly spoken out against the death penalty, against war, hunger. All of those are right-to-life issues. There's so much being said about abortion that is often phrased in such extreme and such polarizing terms that to choose not to enter into a debate that is so widely covered by other sectors of the Catholic Church — and we have been giving voice to other issues that are less covered but are equally as important.
"Our concern is that right-to-life issues be seen across a whole spectrum and are not narrowly defined. ... To single out one right-to-life issue and to say that that's the only issue that defines Catholic identity, I think, is really a distortion."
Feeling Under Siege, Catholic Leadership Shifts Right
http://www.npr.org/2012/07/04/156190948/feeling-under-siege-catholic-leadership-shifts-right
July 4, 2012
The Catholic Church is drawing a line in the sand.Perceiving its core beliefs to be under threat from popular culture, the White House and even Catholics themselves, the Vatican and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops are pushing back.
In recent months, the church leadership has been cracking down on liberal theologians, disciplining nuns and emphasizing a more orthodox theology.
The most recent example is the bishops' response to the new health care law. After the Obama administration announced that religious universities, hospitals and charities must offer insurance plans that cover birth control, the bishops swung into action.
The group sued in federal court. They warned religious organizations and believers that birth control is intrinsically evil. And the Conference launched the Fortnight for Freedom campaign, asking the faithful to pray, fast and attend special Masses about religious liberties in the two weeks leading up to July 4.
Enforcing Conservative Theology
Many Catholics view the controversial campaign as an anti-Obama move in an election year.
I just think we're in an era with secular culture where compromise can be fatal in a way that was not the case in the past. ... So we're seeing an attempt to find an equilibrium
"The Fortnight for Freedom is becoming a kind of marker of being a good Catholic," says David Gibson, a Religion News Service reporter who has written several books about the Catholic Church.
"It's an effort to kind of rally the troops to recreate this unified Catholic community that's really disappeared in the last 50 years," he says.
Gibson and others say, increasingly, the church appears to be enforcing a conservative theology. The Vatican has instituted a more traditional liturgy and has openly criticized or censured several liberal theologians in recent months.
And, Gibson notes, the Vatican made two significant announcements in a single week in April: First, that it wants to reconcile with the ultra-conservative Society of St. Pius the X, and secondly, that it will reorganize the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, which represents 80 percent of Catholic sisters.
As justification for the reorganization, the Vatican accused the group of "radical feminism." It also accused the nuns of failing to emphasize sexual issues like birth control and same-sex marriage as much as their work on poverty and injustice.
Gibson says those two nearly simultaneous announcements are a telling coincidence.
"Rome is doing everything it can to bring a schismatic right-wing group that rejects the reforms of Vatican II back into the fold," Gibson says, "while at the same time, it's censuring nuns and theologians who are actually following the spirit of Vatican II."
Attempting 'To Find Equilibrium'
Fabian Bruskewitz, bishop of Lincoln, Neb., says the nuns are a "precious treasure," but that some of their leaders were promoting ideas about sexuality that were at odds with the Catholic Church.
When it comes to core doctrines, Bruskewitz says, the church is not a democracy.
"These are not open to votes," Bruskewitz says. "These are what God has revealed, and the custody of that revelation is of course in the possession of the church."
Bruskewitz says the church can't compromise its views just because the secular world doesn't like them.
"Some lady [asked] me a short time ago, 'Why don't you adopt what is socially acceptable — divorce, contraception and so on?' I said, 'Well that's not the criterion for morality.' "
"I just think we're in an era with secular culture where compromise can be fatal in a way that was not the case in the past," says Rusty Reno, editor of the conservative Catholic magazine First Things.
If anything, Reno says, the church became too liberal after Vatican II, as people interpreted reform as license to defy the church.
"So we're seeing an attempt to find an equilibrium," Reno says.
Father Thomas Reese, a fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University, sees the changes within the church less as an attempt at equilibrium than a dramatic swing toward the right.
The shift began, Reese says, with Pope John Paul II. Alarmed by Vatican II, the pope set out to rein things in.
First, Reese says, the pope began cracking down on liberal theologians who dissented from the Vatican in an attempt to "control the message."
And second, he says, the pope appointed conservative bishops loyal to the Vatican — the men who are running the U.S. Catholic Church today.
On matters of sexuality and morality, he says, these bishops brook no dissent from the faithful.
"They see themselves as teachers," Reese says. "They teach what they consider the truth. If the students don't accept it, that's the students' problem, not theirs."
Reese says today's church leaders remind him of parents of teenage children.
"They realize they're losing control," he says, "and they think the solution is simply to shout louder, and to say, 'No, you can't do that,' or, 'Not in my house, you won't,' or, 'Because I said so!'
"That's simply not going to work with an educated laity," Reese says.
'Maybe Our Time Has Come'
Reese believes that top-down approach, combined with the bishops' handling of the sex abuse crisis, has alienated many of the faithful.
Polls show that one-third of people raised Catholic no longer attends church.
That may not be a bad thing, says Bill Donohue, president of the conservative Catholic League and author of Why Catholicism Matters.
Donohue notes that Pope Benedict XVI has intimated that a smaller, more orthodox church might be better anyway. If people are so dissatisfied, Donohue says, why don't they just join a liberal denomination, like the Episcopalians?
"I think for a long time, what I would consider the base of Catholic Church — the ones who practice, who go to church regularly and who pay the bills, generally of a more conservative stripe — we feel like we've been neglected," Donohue says. "And now we feel like, 'Hey, maybe our time has come.' "
It certainly feels that way to John Gehring, a church-attending Catholic who works for the progressive advocacy group Faith in Public Life. Gehring says the Church he loves used to care as much about poverty and social justice as sexuality.
"I believe in a 'big tent' Catholicism, where liberals and moderates and conservatives can get along," Gehring says. "We share a faith, we share rituals, we break bread together. But this is as much my church as it is Bill Donohue's church."
And so Gehring plans to stay — and hopes that one day, the pendulum will swing back his way.
Nuns And The Vatican: A Clash Decades In Making
http://www.npr.org/2012/05/03/151943345/nuns-and-the-vatican-a-clash-decades-in-making
May 3, 2012
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.
