Vatican Pressure on American Sisters

UPDATES The US bishops will spend church funds on this: http://enlightenedcatholicism-colkoch.blogspot.com/2009/09/youve-got-to-be-kidding-me.html

 (July, 2009): http://paulsurlis.wordpress.com/2009/07/09/fr-karban-on-vatican-visitation-of-women-religious-in-the-usa/

http://thewildreed.blogspot.com/2009/07/vatican-and-us-women-religious.html

http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2009/07/vatican-scrutiny-puzzles-some-nuns.html

http://donfrancobarbero.blogspot.com/2009/07/tempeste-vaticane.html

One of the nastiest sports of fundamentalists is nun-baiting -- it is the successor of witch-hunts and Gothic tales of convent horrors. It is well represented today by the confused and immature columnist Damian Thompson. The comments in his combox are steeped in the most rabid misogyny. The Vatican should be ashamed to be fnding their supporters in such quarters. 

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/9084211/The_Sisters_of_Perpetual_Indignation_tell_the_Vatican_to_get_stuffed/

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While the Church in Ireland reels over revelation of mismanagement and abuse, the Vatican is investigating Sisters who seem to represent the best spirit of Vatican II, the very thing that has proved an antidote to abuse both in Ireland and throughout the Church. See http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2009/05/international-religious-superiors-back.html

1. THE APOSTOLIC VISITATION OF CONVENTS

‘The action was initiated by the Congregation’s prefect, Slovenian Cardinal Franc Rodé, C.M. The decree, issued Dec. 22, 2008, indicated the Visitation is being undertaken in order to look into the quality of the life of the members of these religious institutes.’

http://ncronline.org/news/women/vatican-begins-study-us-women-religious

http://whispersintheloggia.blogspot.com/2009/01/first-seminaries-now-convents.html

http://apostolicvisitation.org/en/materials/decree.pdf 

Joan Chittister commented:

‘From where I stand, if the church really wants to support women religious, it’s about time for a statement that says again, “These are great women living a great spiritual life and doing great things.” Let’s hear it: loud and clear. After all, if religious life for women disappears -- or, conceivably, begins to function outside the boundaries of the institutional church -- it will not only affect religious women -- it will also definitely affect the church in the modern world.’

http://ncronline.org/blogs/where-i-stand/if-they-really-mean-it-its-about-time

Sandra Schneiders commented:

‘But we can receive them, politely and kindly, for what they are, uninvited guests who should be received in the parlor, not given the run of the house. When people ask questions they shouldn’t ask, the questions should be answered accordingly.’

http://www.catholicculture.org/news/features/index.cfm?recnum=60296 

2. THE REIKI BAN

‘The six-page doctrinal committee statement was approved for publication by the administrative committee of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops at a meeting in Washington in late March. It says that “a Catholic who puts his or her trust in Reiki would be operating in the realm of superstition, the no-man’s-land that is neither faith nor science.” ... While Christians believe in the efficacy of prayer for healing, they do so with a reliance on divine power, not with the expectation that the person engaged in invoking that power can cause the release of that power, it says. “For Christians, the access to divine healing is by prayer to Christ as Lord and Savior, while the essence of Reiki is not a prayer but a technique that is passed down from the ‘Reiki master’ to the pupil, a technique that once mastered will reliably produce the anticipated results,” it says.’

http://ncronline.org/news/spirituality/reiki-good-health-spirituality-or-only-superstition

http://enlightenedcatholicism-colkoch.blogspot.com/2009/04/reiki-ban-and-lcwr-investigation-go.html

3. THEOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT OF LEADERSHIP

‘The Vatican congregation [CDF] informed the leadership conference officers of its new “doctrinal assessment” in a February 20 letter, which the officers received March 10. The letter came from Cardinal William Joseph Levada, the congregation’s prefect. In his letter, Levada explained the congregation is undertaking its “assessment” of the women’s leadership conference after initial Vatican doctrinal concerns were expressed in 2001.’

http://ncronline.org/news/women/vatican-investigates-us-women-religious-leadership

http://whispersintheloggia.blogspot.com/2009/04/under-assessment.html

http://enlightenedcatholicism-colkoch.blogspot.com/2009/04/catholic-sojourner-and-lcwr.html

http://enlightenedcatholicism-colkoch.blogspot.com/2009/04/vatican-men-enter-uppity-liberal.html

An ecstatic reaction from the neocath publication New Oxford Review (which has no connection with the University): http://pblosser.blogspot.com/2009/07/surprise-femi-nuns-find-themselves.html. Purge the Church of liberal nuns, it urges.

There is indeed a popular New Age theology that the CDF do well to worry about. They should highlight the values in the following address of Laurie Brink, OP, but point out how these values can be squared with orthodox Christology, as correctly interpreted in function of today’s frameworks if understanding:

The dynamic option for Religious Life, which I am calling, Sojourning, is much more difficult to discuss, since it involves moving beyond the Church, even beyond Jesus. A sojourning congregation is no longer ecclesiastical. It has grown beyond the bounds of institutional religion. Its search for the Holy may have begun rooted in Jesus as the Christ, but deep reflection, study and prayer have opened it up to the spirit of the Holy in all of creation. Religious titles, institutional limitations, ecclesiastical authorities no longer fit this congregation, which in most respects is Post-Christian.

When religious communities embraced the spirit of renewal in the 1970s, they took seriously that the world was no longer the enemy, that a sense of ecumenism required encountering the holy “other,” and that the God of Jesus might well be the God of Moses and the God of Mohammed. The works of Thomas Merton encouraged an exploration of the nexus between Eastern and Western religious practices. The emergence of the women’s movement with is concomitant critique of religion invited women everywhere to use a hermeneutical lens of suspicion when reading the androcentric Scriptures and the texts of the Tradition. With a new lens, women also began to see the divine within nature, the value and importance of the cosmos, and that the emerging new cosmology encouraged their spirituality and fed their souls.

As one sister described it, “I was rooted in the story of Jesus, and it remains at my core, but I’ve also moved beyond Jesus.” The Jesus narrative is not the only or the most important narrative for these women. They still hold up and reverence the values of the Gospel, but they also recognize that these same values are not solely the property of Christianity. Buddhism, Native American spirituality, Judaism, Islam and others hold similar tenets for right behavior within the community, right relationship with the earth and right relationship with the Divine. With these insights come a shattering or freeing realization—depending on where you stand. Jesus is not the only son of God. Salvation is not limited to Christians. Wisdom is found in the traditions of the Church as well as beyond it.

Sojourners have left the religious home of their fathers and mothers and are traveling in a foreign land, mapping their way as they go. They are courageous women among us. And very well may provide a glimpse into the new thing that God is bringing about in our midst. Who’s to say that the movement beyond Christ is not, in reality, a movement into the very heart of God? A movement the ecclesiastical system would not recognize. A wholly new way of being holy that is integrative, non-dominating, and inclusive.

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http://www.lcwr.org/lcwrannualassembly/2007assembly/Keynote.pdf

Philip Powell OP, underlines as objectionable the following: ‘women also began to see the divine within nature, the value and importance of the cosmos, and that the emerging new cosmology encouraged their spirituality and fed their souls’, and: ‘Salvation is not limited to Christians. Wisdom is found in the traditions of the Church as well as beyond it.’

I fail to see any theological problem with these assertions, but there are others that give me pause, which I italicize above.

http://hancaquam.blogspot.com/2009/04/feminismnew-cosmologyjesus-doesnt-save.html 

Fr Geoff Farrow argues that what Sr Brink is saying is not as radical as it sounds, and that John Paul II received the same critical reaction because of his Assisi initiative. http://fathergeofffarrow.blogspot.com/2009/04/beyond-jesus.html

For a fuller picture of US women religious leaders, see: http://www.lcwr.org/lcwrannualassembly/previousassemblies.htm#2005assembly.

Fr Powell seems totally imperceptive of these women's charisms in his dismissive account: http://hancaquam.blogspot.com/2009/04/lcwr-prophets-of-futility-new-age.html. The site has lots of splendid stuff, including an address by Mary Robinson, former President of my country, and some wit from Sr Chittister:

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‘A little girl camel trying to understand the facts of life asked her mother a question: “Momma, why do we have webbed toes?” The mother camel answered, “Darling, we have webbed toes so that we can walk in the desert without sinking into the sand.” “Oh, that sounds right,” said the little girl camel. “But, momma, why do we have long eyelashes?” Her mother answered, “Dear, so we don’t get sand in our eyes from desert storms.” “That makes sense,” said the little girl. “Momma, why do we camels have humps on our backs?” “Sweetheart,” said her mother, “we have humps on our backs so we’ll have water to drink in the desert.” The little girl camel thought for a minute and then said, “Momma, if we camels have webbed toes so we don’t sink in the desert, if we have long lashes so we can go through desert sand storms, and we have humps on our backs so we’ll have water to drink in the desert, then could you tell me what in God’s name we’re doing in the San Diego Zoo?”‘

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The spirit of Christian good humor that characterizes these prophetic women is also found in Elizabeth A. Johnson:

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‘Some years ago, my colleague at Catholic University, Charles Curran, was under investigation for his teaching that differed with the church’s position on birth control (Humanae Vitae). Summoned to appear in Rome for questioning by Cardinal Ratzinger, he came out of the meeting knowing that he had failed to convince. He would be condemned as a Catholic theologian and fired from his faculty position: a public humiliation, a personal disaster, and by implication also a rejection of the many theologians and bishops whose thinking was also critical of this noninfallible teaching on artificial contraception. The next day was Sunday. Bernard Häring, the influential moral theologian who taught in Rome and was Curran’s old professor and mentor, celebrated Mass in a chapel for Curran and his university advisors. The gospel happened to be the Prodigal Son. Looking at Charlie, Häring’s homily went something like this: at this time, the church is the prodigal son. It is taking your treasure -- your training, talent, reputation, contribution – and wasting it, feeding it to the pigs. The Spirit of Jesus calls you to be the father in this parable, not rejecting but welcoming back the prodigal. Do you forgive the church? Häring went from person to person and looked them in the eye with this question. The Mass could not continue until they wrestled with their anger and allowed the Spirit to move them to a different place. Forgiving does not mean condoning harmful actions, or ceasing to criticize and resist them. But it does mean tapping into a wellspring of compassion that encompasses the hurt and sucks the venom out, so we can go forward making a positive contribution, without hatred. This is the work of the Spirit, reconciling at the deepest level, so that community coheres and witnesses in a gracefilled way.’

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Particularly deplorable is the CDF’s bullying complaint that the sisters are not doing enough to promote the CDF’s own controverted teachings on homosexuality:

http://fathergeofffarrow.blogspot.com/2009/04/thank-you-sister.html

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-12026.html

I may have jumped the gun in speaking initially of a witch hunt, but given the personnel it is hard not to opt for that paradigm:  

http://bilgrimage.blogspot.com/2009/04/romes-witch-hunt-against-american-nuns.html 

Evagrius remarks: ‘It’s another attempt to stifle, not dissent, but exploration or, as the nuns state, sojourning.’

Who are these men, to judge these women?

Comments

[evagrius]

Perhaps the remarks by Laurie Brinks O.P. could have been better stated but they do point to the need for a new "theological language".

See the remarks by Raimundo Panikkar;

http://www.odemagazine.com/doc/print/12/if_you_don_t_believe_in_yourself_you_can_t_believe_in_god

http://www.share-international.org/archives/religion/rl_cfnew-innocence.htm

[Spirit of Vatican II]

"Let us not reduce and limit Christ to Jesus" -- I think this plea of Panikkar makes sense theologically. Working it out with due reverence for tradition is a delicate task. The open discussion of such theological horizons is impeded by the "nervous nellie" antics of the CDF, and when their personnel (mostly men, or perhaps exclusively men, of a somewhat misogynistic disposition too, I'd imagine) get working on women who are theologically vulnerable, a grisly witch-hunt seems likely to ensue.

[evagrius]

I think that's why the situation is so dangerous.

It's one thing to "tangle" with someone as theologically and philosophically astute as Panikkar and another when "tangling" with those not so astute though well intentioned and quite intelligent.

It's another attempt to stifle, not dissent, but exploration or, as the nuns state, sojourning.

[Christopher]

Fr. O'Leary,

Could you read through my latest post on "The Wisdom Jesus" by Cynthia Bourgeault. She's making the rounds both in Episcopal and Roman Catholic circles. I find it very disturbing.

[Christopher]

I think, for example, her use of Pannikar is warrant for a "nervous nellie":

1.“Abba, Father” expresses his intense sense of “filiation” (i.e., “sonship”). But
inclusively, rather than exclusively. Panikkar effectively demolishes Jesus’s
ONLY, exclusive status (the rest of us are merely “children by adoption”) as an
example of Roman, legalistic cultural embeddedness and encourages to us to
experience our solidarity with him in our common experience of being children.
He also lodges another potshot at the incapacity of our Western monotheistic
metaphysic to comprehend Jesus’ meaning here: “Within a monotheistic context
we cannot be God’s real children.” (p. 98).
2.“The Father and I are One.”

[evagrius]

Perhaps the "problem" is that we are in a "post-Western" situation rather than a "post-Christian" situation.

[Spirit of Vatican II]

Annoyingly, one blogger sees me as a New Ager who totally agrees with Sr Laurie Brinks, ignoring the fact that I italicize the phrases I disagree with or at least find misleading. See http://s10.zetaboards.com/Catholic_CyberForum/topic/7216488/2/

To "go beyond Jesus" has a valid meaning -- to find the divine Logos in all of creation and the great religions as well as in the Gospels -- but of course such a going beyond is a rediscovery of Jesus in the widest perspective of his identity as the Logos entering human history.

[Rat-biter]

"It is well represented today by the confused and immature columnist Damian Thompson..."

## He's not responsible for the comments people make on his articles, and he is thought-provoking,or certainly can be; though I prefer a less defensive style of Catholicism.