LCWR Prepares to Discuss Response to Vatican Mandate to Reform

The National Catholic Register ^ | 8/3/12 | Ann Carey

[marshmallow]

LCWR’s Sister Pat Farrell held a press conference Aug. 2 ahead of next week’s assembly.

The annual assembly of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) in St. Louis next week is in a spotlight because the sisters will be discussing how to respond to a Vatican mandate to reform the organization. The 1,500-member LCWR is made up of superiors of 320 religious orders that have about 80% of the sisters in this country.

After a four-year study, done in April, the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) ordered a renewal of the LCWR because of several doctrinal concerns. These concerns included LCWR assembly speeches, presentations and publications that contained errors about the Trinity, centrality of the Eucharist, divinity of Christ, inspiration of sacred Scripture, women’s ordination and Church teaching on human sexuality.

The Aug. 7-10 assembly will be the first opportunity for the entire LCWR membership to gather since the doctrinal assessment was released, and it is expected that the assembly body will reach a consensus about how to respond to the mandate. In a National Public Radio (NPR) interview on July 17, LCWR president, Franciscan Sister Pat Farrell, said there were three options: Comply with the mandate, not comply and possibly form a separate organization, or look for a way “that refuses to just define the mandate and the issues in such black-and-white terms.”

Because of the high interest, and because she will not do media interviews during the assembly, Sister Pat conducted a telephone press conference with media on Aug. 2 to discuss the upcoming assembly. She refused to speculate on the outcome of the LCWR members’ discussions about the mandate, which will be in executive sessions closed to the press.

Sister Pat stressed, “We don’t want to allow this doctrinal assessment to really take..........

[marshmallow]

Sister Pat said Archbishop Sartain will not attend the assembly, but the LCWR will inform him of any decision the assembly reaches before that information is released to the press. According to Mercy Sister Mary Ann Walsh, director of media relations for the bishops’ conference, Archbishop Sartain offered to come to the assembly, but he was told his presence “would not be helpful.”

Well that's certainly very conciliatory of them.

I think a warming to legitimate authority by the sisters is already discernible ......... :-)

[livius]

He offered to attend and discuss this with them, but they refused to have him. Typical leftists.

[wideawake]

We've heard "non serviam" before, Sister. We know where it comes from and what it means.

[Wuli]

" The LCWR leader declined to say whether the individual doctrinal points raised in the CDF mandate would be discussed in those sessions, saying only that trained facilitators will guide the discussion. When asked if a democratic vote of the membership would determine which of the three options is taken, she said members would be given generous time for their input and “a sense of the membership” would be determined........" 'Our process of discernment is typically not taking a vote', she explained."<./i>

And the hypocrisy:

"The LCWR board responded to the mandate in a June 1 press release, complaining that the assessment “was based on unsubstantiated accusations and the result of a flawed process that lacked transparency.”

[Wuli]

By their own words:

“And as I have stated in other interviews, one of our concerns is that questioning is seen as defiance, and that’s not healthy for our Church, nor is it our intention. And that our sense of our own fidelity means that we continue raising and responding to questions, according to our own consciences and according to new information and questions that arise in our day.”

And by those words, apparently answering question of faith "...according to [their] own consciences and according to new information and questions that arise in [their] day."

but NOT according to the faith teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. They should quit being hypocrites and leave the Catholic Church, if that's how they really feel.

I have never understood people of any faith, complaining in one breath that they disagree with a faith they are institutionally a part of, and in the next breath complaining they have a right to remain in it, institutionally.

Who pays these women and how? Is that in the Bishops control?

[Salvation]

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