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James Martin, S.J.May 09, 2012

(Links fixed).  Here are two profiles (both sympathetic) of two church leaders whose approach to dialogue and authority will be key factors in the ongoing Vatican review of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious.  The first is a short piece in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel on Florence Deacon, OSF, the president-elect of the LCWR.  The second, a longer piece by John L. Allen, Jr., in the National Catholic Reporter, is a profile of Bishop J. Peter Sartain, bishop of Seattle, who has been charged by the Vatican to be the "apostolic delegate" to the LCWR as it begins its reform. 

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Thomas Farrell
13 years 2 months ago
The NCR article is by Dan Morris-Young, not by John Allen.
JR Cosgrove
13 years 2 months ago
I have not really followed this dispute in detail but have a question that is probably tangential.  Yesterday I came across an article about a group of nuns some time about 20 years ago who left their order and formed a new association of women but one that was not under any Church authority.  In other words they were still Catholic women but were independent of any Church authority and determined what they did with their lives.


Sounds like an ok thing to me but I had just never heard of it before.  I could see where lay men or women could decide to form some association in order to do good works and promote Catholic values.  Is this common?  Would something like the Knights of Columbus be like this or other organizations that one often associates with Catholic charities?
ed gleason
13 years 1 month ago
Hey Jim... there is always pics of the bishop. in every church rectory, school and cemetery office.
Bill Taylor
13 years 1 month ago
The first sisters to set themselves free from Rome and the mercies of their ordinary were the Immaculate Heart Sisters of Los Angeles, who got in a fight suring the Seventies with their cardinal.  Macintyre(?) over their modern religious habits.  One of the finest minds the eleventh century ever produced, his priests used to say.  I read an article some time ago which said the sisters are doing fine, thank you. 
Amy Ho-Ohn
13 years 1 month ago
Anybody who has worked in a huge hierarchical organization (I was in the Army) knows the problem of a commander who has ordered something genuinely stupid. The solution is to dither and obfuscate and temporize, to make an ostentatious show of enthusiastically carrying out your orders, to diligently ask a lot of questions about the details, as if you think it's essential to get every point exactly right, and to surreptitiously show him all the reasons it was an atrociously bad idea. This gives the him a chance to gradually realize how asinine his plan was. If it's done right, he loses interest, allows the thing to fall off the agenda, declares it was never really a priority and lets a little window-dressing pass for a completed mission.

LCWR seems to know how to pull this trick off. Sounds like maybe Sartain does too.
Jim McCrea
13 years 2 months ago
Why is there a picture of Sartain, but not Deacon?
Jim McCrea
13 years 1 month ago
JM SJ:  I am sure you know that where there is a will, there is a way.
kimberly borom
13 years ago
  A smaller number of sisters are affiliated with CMSWR which is not being censured.  Their median age is around 30,  they wear their habits and their numbers are growing rapidly.
CMSWR stands for Catholic Major Superiors of Women Religious.   Here's their site: CMSWR.org

The median age of the LCWR sister is 70 and their orders are not growing.  I suspect that there are many nuns and sisters true to Church teaching who are trapped in LCWR affiliated orders who have gone of the deep end and who are relieved that this is happening.
kimberly borom
13 years ago
Correction:  CMSWR stands for Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious

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