Bishop Leonard Blair responds to the anti-Catholic hatred oozing out of the MSM and seeping into their coverage of the CDF's assessment of the LCWR's theological goofiness:
Reality check: The LCWR, CDF and the doctrinal assessment
When you are in a position of leadership or authority, it is a great
cross sometimes to know firsthand the actual facts of a situation and
then have to listen to all the distortions and misrepresentation of the
facts that are made in the public domain.
Having conducted the
doctrinal assessment of the entity known as the Leadership Conference of
Women Religious (LCWR), I can only marvel at what is now being said,
both within and outside the Church, regarding the process and the recent
steps taken by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) to
remedy significant and longstanding doctrinal problems connected with
the activities and programs of the LCWR.
The biggest distortion of all is the claim that the CDF and the
bishops are attacking or criticizing the life and work of our Catholic
sisters in the United States. One report on the CBS evening news
showcased the work of a Mercy Sister who is a medical doctor in order to
compare her to the attack that she and sisters like her are supposedly
being subjected to by authoritarian bishops. The report concludes with a
statement that the bishops impose the rules of the Church but the
sisters carry on the work of the Church.
Unless the sister in question is espousing and/or promoting positions
contrary to Catholic teaching—and there was no reason given to think
that she is—then the Holy See’s doctrinal concerns are not directed at
her or at the thousands of religious sisters in our country like her to
whom we all owe a debt of gratitude for all that they do in witness to
the Gospel.
What the CDF is concerned about, as I indicated, is the particular
organization known as the LCWR. Its function, responsibilities and
statutes were all originally approved by the Holy See, to which it
remains accountable. While it is true that the member communities of the
LCWR represent most of the religious sisters in the United States, that
does not mean that criticism of the LCWR is aimed at all the member
religious communities, much less all sisters. [And I would among the first to howl if I thought for a second that the CDF was characterizing ALL religious sisters with their assessment.]
The word “investigation” is often used to describe the work that I
carried out on behalf of the CDF. “Investigation” suggests an attempt to
uncover things that might not be known. In reality, what the CDF
commissioned was a doctrinal “assessment,” an appraisal of materials
which are readily available to anyone who cares to read them on the LCWR
website and in other LCWR published resources. The assessment was
carried out in dialogue with the LCWR leadership, both in writing and
face-to-face, over several months. [NB. contrary to the claims of the LCWR that the "process" lacked transparency. . .]
The fundamental question posed to the LCWR leadership as part of the
assessment was simply this: What are the Church’s pastors to make of the
fact that the LCWR constantly provides a one-sided platform—without
challenge or any opposing view—to speakers who take a negative and
critical position vis-a-vis Church doctrine and discipline and the
Church’s teaching office?
Let me cite just a few of the causes for concern.
In her LCWR keynote address in 1997, Sr. Sandra Schneiders, IHM
proposed that the decisive issue for women religious is the issue of
faith: “It can no longer be taken for granted that the members [of a
given congregation] share the same faith.”
Ten years later, in an LCWR keynote speech, Sr. Laurie Brink, O.P.
spoke of “four different general ‘directions’ in which religious
congregations seem to be moving.” She said that “not one of the four is
better or worse than the others.” One of the directions described is
“sojourning,” which she says “involves moving beyond the Church, even
beyond Jesus. A sojourning congregation is no longer ecclesiastical. It
has grown beyond the bounds of institutional religion.” This kind of
congregation “in most respects is Post-Christian.” She concludes by
characterizing as “a choice of integrity, insight and courage” the
decision to “step outside the Church” already made by one group of women
religious. [An ecclesial condition most people understand to be Protestant, i.e. no long Roman Catholic]
Fr. Michael H. Crosby, OFMCap, a keynote speaker at the joint
LCWR-CMSM assembly in 2004, lamented the fact that “we still have to
worship a God that the Vatican says ‘wills that women not be ordained.’
That god is literally ‘unbelievable.’ It is a false god; it cannot be
worshiped. And the prophet must speak truth to that power and be willing
to accept the consequence of calling for justice, stopping the violence
and bringing about the reign of God.” [NB. this self-anointed Franciscan prophet believes that he and his ideological allies are responsible for bringing about the reign of God. Heh. And here I thought God Himself was gonna get around to doing that.]
The LCWR’s Systems Thinking Handbook describes a hypothetical case in
which sisters differ over whether the Eucharist should be at the center
of a special community celebration. The problem is that some of the
sisters object to “priest-led liturgies.” The scenario, it seems, is not
simply fictitious, for some LCWR speakers also mention the difficulty
of finding ways to worship together as a faith community. According to
the Systems Thinking Handbook this difficulty is rooted in differences
at the level of belief, but also different mental models—the “Western
mind” and the “Organic mental model.” These, rather than Church
doctrine, are offered as tools for the resolution of the case.
LCWR speakers also explore themes like global spirituality, the new
cosmology, earth-justice and eco-feminism in ways that are frequently
ambiguous, dubious or even erroneous with respect to Christian faith. [IOW, the real goal of these speakers is to lead the sisters out of the Church and into mythology, cf. 1 Tim 1.3-5].
And while the LCWR upholds Catholic social teaching in some areas, it is
notably silent when it comes to two of the major moral challenges of
our time: the right to life of the unborn, and the God-given meaning of
marriage between one man and one woman. [The reason they are silent on these two issues is obvious: they have adopted a basically secular-leftist worldview that promotes social liberation through the nearly unfettered coercive power of gov't, i.e. cultural Marxism].
Are these examples indicative of the thinking of all religious
sisters in the United States whose communities are members of the LCWR?
Certainly not. [I doubt that even a tenth of the U.S. sisters buy their junk].
Serious questions of faith undoubtedly arise among some women
religious, as the LCWR maintains. However, is it the role of a
pontifically recognized leadership group to criticize and undermine
faith in church teaching by what is said and unsaid, or rather to work
to create greater understanding and acceptance of what the Church
believes and teaches?
Those who do not hold the teachings of the Catholic Church, or
Catholics who dissent from those teachings, are quick to attack the CDF
and bishops for taking the LCWR to task. However, a person who holds the
reasonable view that a Catholic is someone who subscribes to the
teachings of the Catholic Church will recognize that the Catholic
Bishops have a legitimate cause for doctrinal concern about the
activities of the LCWR, as evidenced by a number of its speakers and
some of its resource documents.
A key question posed by the doctrinal assessment had to do with
moving forward in a positive way. Would the LCWR at least acknowledge
the CDF’s doctrinal concerns and be willing to take steps to remedy the
situation? The response thus far is exemplified by the LCWR
leadership’s choice of a New Age Futurist to address its 2012 assembly,
and their decision to give an award this year to Sr. Sandra Schneiders,
who has expressed the view that the hierarchical structure of the church
represents an institutionalized form of patriarchal domination that
cannot be reconciled with the Gospel. [No doubt she will tell us in her acceptance speech that Jesus would want the sisters to support abortion--b/c rabbis in his time weren't really all that worried about killing children; that he would support same-sex "marriage" b/c as a rabbi well-versed in the Mosaic Law he understood that gender identity is a social construct; and that he urge them to refer to his father as "Mother" b/c he did so many times while preaching around 1st century Palestine].
This situation is now a source of controversy and misunderstanding,
as well as misrepresentation. I am confident, however, that if the
serious concerns of the CDF are accurately represented and discussed
among all the sisters of our country, there will indeed be an opening to
a new and positive relationship between women religious and the
Church’s pastors in doctrinal matters, as there already is in so many
other areas where mutual respect and cooperation abound. [This is my prayer! Also note, that if the CDF were the power-hungry, testosterone-poisoned institution that the LCWR claims, there would be no meetings, no discussion, no nothing. Just a fancy parchment signed by the Holy Father and hand-delivered, informing the Good Sisters that their organization is now defunct.]
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