In the final stage of the apostolic visitation of U.S. women’s religious communities, the Vatican congregation overseeing the study not only is facing mountains of paper, but must try to rebuild a relationship of trust with the women, said the congregation’s secretary.
U.S.-born Archbishop Joseph W. Tobin, secretary of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, said, “I believe a visitation has to have a dialogical aspect, but the way this was structured at the beginning didn’t really favor that.”
“It’s like Fox News, they keep people coming back because they keep them afraid,” Archbishop Tobin said.
Well, I’m inspired by archbishop Tobin, ready to hear everything he has to say.
Like this:
Archbishop Tobin said reconciliation is needed within and among communities, including between those represented by the Leadership Conference of Women Religious and the Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious, which stereotypically are seen, respectively, as very progressive and very conservative.
They are seen that way because they are, respectively, modernist dissenters and very faithful. That’s certainly what he meant to say.
Enough sarcasm: this visitation was undertaken because of heretic nuns who have abandoned community, Christian prayer, and Catholic belief. Some are functional pagans. My favorite are the Benedictine Sisters of Perpetual Adoration, who have abandoned their primary function, which was to adore Christ in the Sacrament. Check out their “ashram style” monastery, which is now closed.
http://benedictinesisters.org/monastery/sand/tribute.php
So here’s the outcome: the faithful communities will continue to trust the Church, the heretics won’t. This archbishop doesn’t seem to want to face that fact, or, perhaps, he wants to sidestep it and go back to business as usual.
I think most of the hierarchy thinks that the LCWR orders will disappear in a few years, so why raise a ruckus. They’re certainly shrinking fast enough…
It would seem to me that the headline is backwards – women religious need to regain the trust of the Vatican.
#2 –
There are times I would agree with you, but in this case, the problem is so extreme, widespread, and deep-seated as to be truly “systemic”. Moreover, many of the LCWR women are in catechetical positions, which means they are leading souls astray, not just with false doctrine, but with the appearance of teaching with the Church’s authority – they are nuns after all.
Charles52,
I looked at the link you provided. The text also made reference
to bishop Rembert Weakland. If memory serves correctly, the
bishop himself was involved in some scandalous behavior. Not
surprising that he could endorse such catechetical deviancy among
women religious.
#3, that was exactly my first thought