Posted in category "Women’s Ordination"
The Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), an association that icludes the leadership of most U.S. women’s congregations, is under investigation by the Vatican.
Cardinal Levada said the assessment of the LCWR will be conducted by the Bishop of Toledo, Ohio, Leonard P. Blair. Bishop Blair is a member of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Doctrine. 
The Vatican assessment became necessary, according to Levada, because at the 2001 meeting between LCWR and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which took place in Rome, the women were invited “to report on the initiatives taken or planned” to promote the reception of three areas of Vatican doctrinal concern: the 1994 apostolic letter Ordinatio sacerdotalis, the 2000 declaration Dominus Jesus from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and “the problem of homosexuality.”
Cardinal Levada informed conference leaders: “Given both the tenor and the doctrinal content of various addresses given at the annual assemblies of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious in the intervening years, this Dicastery can only conclude that the problems which had motivated its request in 2001 continue to be present.”
The National Catholic Reporter, an independent newspaper, said the Vatican ordered the probe because the sisters had not addressed issues raised by the Vatican in 2001 about their promotion of church teaching on homosexuality, salvation and the priesthood, which the Vatican said is reserved for men.
The ripples from a keynote by Sinsinawa Dominican Sister Laurie Brink at the 2007 LCWR assembly roused the Vatican machinery into action. 
In that keynote address, titled A Marginal Life: Pursuing Holiness in the 21st Century,” Sr. Laurie Brink urged leaders of Catholic religious orders to make clear, if painful choices about the future of religious life. She began with this assumption: “Old concepts of how to live the life are no longer valid.” The rest of the speech outlined four possible options or outcomes as a starting point for discussion.
- ”Death with dignity and grace” as opposed to becoming a “zombie congregation” that staggers on with no purpose. This option must be taken seriously, since the average age of the 67,000 sisters and nuns in the United States is 69. Many retreat ministries are closing, and large “mother houses” are struggling with finances, while some congregations no longer invite or accept new candidates.
- Brink noted that some orders have chosen to turn back the clock – thus winning the favor of Rome. “They are putting on the habit, or continuing to wear the habit with zest…Some would critique that they are the nostalgic portrait of a time now passed. But they are flourishing. Young adults are finding in these communities a living image of their romantic vision of religious life.”
- During this era of crisis and decline, some Catholic religious orders have chosen to enter a time of “sojourning” that involves “moving beyond the church, even beyond Jesus.” “Religious titles, institutional limitations, ecclesiastical authorities no longer fit this congregation, which in most respects is post-Christian,” added Brink, a former journalist who is a biblical studies professor at Chicago’s Catholic Theological Union.
For these women, the “Jesus narrative is not the only or the most important narrative…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.”
She described the Benedictine Women of Madison as having a commitment to “ecumenism” which led them “beyond the exclusivity of the Catholic Church into a new inclusivity, where all manner of God is welcomed. They are certainly religious women, but they are no longer women religious as it is defined by the Roman Catholic Church. They choose as a congregation to step outside the Church in order to step into a greater sense of holiness.”
- Finally, some women are fighting on, hoping to achieve reconciliation someday with a changed, egalitarian church hierarchy. “Theologians are denied academic freedom. Religious and laywomen feel scrutinized simply because of their biology. Gays and lesbians desire to participate as fully human, fully sexual Catholics within their parishes,” Brink said. Many Catholics also oppose the “ecclesial deafness that refuses to hear the call of the Spirit summoning not only celibate males, but married men and women to serve” as priests.
Read Brink’s 2007 address and the keynotes from the LCWR 2008, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003 and 2003 assemblies here.
The blog, Journey to a New Pentecost, provided a very crisp and thorough assessment of the LCWR investigation. You can read it here.
Brink’s comment about being “post-Christian,” and the sentence: “They are certainly religious women, but they are no longer women religious as it is defined by the Roman Catholic Church,” may have been the spark that ignited the gas can.
Amy Welborn, a Catholic blogger who writes on Beliefnet said: “If you are going to be post-Christian, then be post-Christian. I don’t say that with snark. It’s just reality. If you’ve moved on – move on. Step out from the protective mantle of identity that gives you cachet, that of ‘Catholic nun.’”
Here was a comment on America Magazine’s blog that summed things up for this conservative reader: “The Vatican investigation is long overdue. If you want to be a social worker then be a social worker–not a nun. A nun’s first allegiance is to the Church. I am quite tired of running into nuns who: look like aged hippies, push for women’s ordination, push for abortion, push homosexuality as an ok lifestyle and do this, supposedly, in the name of Christ.”
Sr. Jeannine Gramick, former co-director of New Ways Ministry, commented on the probable political reasons for the investigation: “It is difficult for me to believe that the CDF (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) has not already made a predetermined conclusion. This seems to be the Vatican’s modus operandi. An “investigation” process puts a veneer of fairness to the result. Consider the investigations of theologians like Charles Curran, Leonardo Boff, Roger Haight, etc. etc. No matter what the investigating party does to please them (or not please them) the outcome will be the same. For example, in the Vatican investigation of Fr. Robert Nugent and me, Bob agreed to make some “profession of faith” about the church’s teaching on homosexuality while I refused. The sanction for each of us was identical.”
“In this case, I expect the predetermined outcome to be a change in the canonical relationship of LCWR to the Vatican. The Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious (CMSWR), the traditional group of nuns formed in 1192 by Cardinal Hickey, was not to be the official group representing women religious to the Vatican. By 1195, they not only had canonical status but also were favored over LCWR (e.g., CMSWR had more delegates than LCWR at the synod on Religious Life.) The Vatican would like CMSWR to be the official representative of the leaders of US women’s communities. I think the Vatican is using this investigation to usurp LCWR’s role and replace them with CMSWR.”
I agree with Amy Welborn. I also tend to agree with Jeannine on the politics of the situation. LCWR gave the Vatican the opening it needed by Sr. Laurie Brinks candid–but public–remarks about the choices facing the communities of the LCWR and the options a few members have chosen to pursue. They were imprudent, considering how many enemies LCWR has in the Church.
However, in addition to ideological purity, there is also the issue of property and endowments. These aging communities are sitting on a lot of very valuable real estate. I think the church definitely has an interest in what happens to it when communities begin to fold and the property is sold off. What happens to the money? That may be easier to influence or manage if a more traditionalist group of sisters is involved.
There is another investigation underway running parallel to the investigation of the LCWR.
On March 10, 2009, the Vatican ordered an apostolic visitation of the institutions of the Legionaries of Christ following disclosures of sexual impropriety by the order’s late founder, Father Marcial Maciel Degollado. The letter was signed by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Sectetary of State. It was addressed to Father Alvaro Corcuera, director general of the Legionaries and its lay association, Regnum Christi.
In 2006 Pope Benedict XVI disciplined Fr. Maciel. He was banned from exercising his ministry in public and told to retire to a life of prayer and penitence, following allegations that he sexually abused about 30 boys and young men over a period of 30 years. The Vatican initially stonewalled the sexual abuse investigation for well over a decade.
The Legionaires of Christ were much admired by the late Pope John Paul II for its conservative views, strict loyalty to Vatican teaching, fund raising ability and success in attracting seminarians.
But it was not until Fr. Maciel’s death in 2008 that his secret life was revealed. In February 2009 the Legionaries admitted he kept a mistress and fathered a daughter who is now in her 20s.
The leadership of the order recently admitted that Maciel, a cult figure among Legionaires, led a “double life” after the discovery of his liaison with the mother of his daughter.
Several prominent Catholic commentators said publicly–and some Vatican officials said privately–that the situation called for an outside investigation into the Legionaries of Christ, in order to ascertain the truth, determine whether officials of the order covered up Father Maciel’s misconduct and judge whether Father Maciel’s teachings could still inspire the order.
Also at stake in the investigation is the significant estate Maciel left behind–which his daughter could have a claim to…
The probe could also uncover more cases of sexual abuse similar to those committed by Fr. Maciel.
“We have testimonies that there have been other Legionaires who followed Maciel’s example,” said Jose Barba, the legal representative of eight former Legionaries who started court proceedings against Marciel in 1998. “The ramifications of the problem exist throughout the Legionaires of Christ,” he added.
It will be interesting to compare the end result of each investigation. It will also be interesting to see if Fr. Maciel’s daughter pursues gaining an inheritence or is offered a settlement by the order. Children of priests and bishops laying claim to church property is one of the reasons priestly celibacy became a requirement years ago.
Fr. Roy Bourgeois, 69, a Maryknoll priest and nationally known peace activist, has been excommunicated for his participation at an ordination rite for women. 
Bourgeois ran afoul of Vatican doctrine by participating in the August 9, 2008 ceremony in Lexington, Kentucky, to ordain Janice Sevre-Duszynska, a member of Roman Catholic Womenpriests. Sevre-Duszynska is the 35th woman to be ordained.
Vatican spokesman Fr. Frederico Lombardi said Bourgeois’ excommunication would be automatic, in other words, a latae sententiae excommunication, effective when the offense is committed. In other words, the person excommunicates himself or herself.
Excommunication is the most severe penalty under church law, cutting off a Catholic from receiving or administering the sacraments.
Fr. Bourgeois said he was following his conscience in his participation at the ordination rite, though it was clearly against the church’s teaching on women’s ordination.
“Conscience is very sacred,” Bourgeois said in his November 7, 2008 letter to Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith. “Conscience gives us a sense of right and wrong and urges us to do the right thing…Conscience is what compels women in our Church to say they cannot be silent and deny their call from God to the priesthood..And after much prayer, reflection and discernment, it is my conscience that compels me to do the right thing. I cannot recant my belief and public statements that support the ordination of women in our Church.”
James Martin, SJ, a writer and associate editor of America Magazine, noted in its document Dignitatis Humane, the Second Vatican Council wrote: “On his part, man perceives and acknowledges the imperatives of the divine law through the mediation of conscience. In all his activity man is bound to follow his conscience in order that he may come to God, the end and purpose of life. It follows that he is not to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his conscience. Nor, on the other hand, is he to be restrained from acting in accordance with this conscience, especially in matters religious.”
Martin added that the Catechism of the Catholic Church, quoting from Vatican II’s Gaudium et Spes notes, “Conscience is man’s most secret core, and his sanctuary. There he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths.”
Fr. Bourgeois was impelled to follow his conscience. He must have known by participating in the ceremony–particularly in the laying on of hands, one of the main symbols of ordination in the Catholic church–his actions would have some serious consequences.
But why did the Vatican feel compelled to enforce canon law and excommunicate him within three months of the event?
In comparison, I do not know of s single instance where a Catholic priest, bishop or other religious has been publicly excommunicated for the sexual abuse or rape of a minor.
Does that mean it’s more of a scandal for a man in good conscience to participate in the laying on of hands in a women’s ordination ceremony; than a man to lay hands on a child for his sexual gratification?
Is something off here?
I belong to a parish I adore. My pastor is a good man. I have a tremendous respect for him: his kindness, warmth and integrity. He makes everyone feel welcome and at home. You are happy to come to church every week.
The people of the community fit the same mold. It is a place where you strive, because you feel happy and loved, to live the values of the faith and try to do right every day.
But a situation came along this year to beckon me to live my faith in a prophetic way.
I recently made a commitment to be part of a community lead by a Roman Catholic Womanpriest. I am a little scared, but also very resolute in my commitment to my priest, her ministry and the community she is undertaking to bring to life. It is an honor for me to be part of this group.
The dual feelings of joy and apprehension are not new. It is worship on the shadow’s edge; gathering in discretion, hoping not to invite persecution at the hands of religious authorities, but understanding it is always a possibility.
The last time I experienced faith on the margins was in the early ’80s, when Dignity groups were tossed out of church facilities. Instead of going away quietly, gay Catholics found new moorings in liberal protestant churches and nondenominational facilities. Forced out of the gay ghetto, Dignity and CCL members expanded relationships with other reform and renewal-minded Catholics. There are now several hundred “gay-friendly”Roman Catholic parishes with supportive family and friends, and discreet, but out, gay and lesbian parishioners.
The priest of my new community was ordained in Boston on July 20, 2008. “The organization calling itself Roman Catholic Womanpriests is not recognized as an entity of the Catholic Church,” said Cardinal Sean O’Malley, Archbishop of Boston. “Catholics who attempt to confer a sacred order on a woman, and the women who attempt to receive a sacred order, are by their own actions separating themselves from the Church.” 
The Womenpriests organization says their ordinations are legitimate because Catholic bishops in good standing ordained their first members to become female priests and bishops. That means the women being ordained can claim apostolic succession, or direct descent from Jesus’ apostles.
“Why is Rome so upset about us? Because they know the ordinations are valid,” said Bridget Mary Meehan, the spokeswoman for Roman Catholic Womenpriests.
The organization has not released the name of the bishops it says ordained the first women priests and consecrated the first women bishops, saying they would face sanction by the Vatican, but says it will release the names once the male bishops die.
The Boston ordination ceremony was presided over by Dana Reynolds of California and Ida Raming of Germany.
“We know only too well in how many ways Vatican church leaders refuse to acknowledge the equality in Christ that God has established between men and women, and how they constantly try to reimpose the precedence of men over women, which is unchristian,” Bishop Raming said. “We give witness to the whole world that it is not male gender which is the prerequisite for a valid ordination, but faith and baptism, the foundation of our dignity and equality.”
“I’m feeling such joy, I could rise up,” said one of the newly ordained priests, Judith A.B. Lee, said in an interview after the ceremony. She pointed out that she was wearing a cross from Dignity, an organization of gay Catholics. “I am a priest for the poor and for those who live at the margins, and we deserve the full sacraments of the church,” she said.
I like my current pastor, Fr. Tom, very much. I appreciate his style: his earnestness, sincerity, and good humor set the tone for the parish. He gracefully navigates the shoals of small-town life. He impressed me when he spoke up against anti-Catholic bias when our creche was vandalized.
Fr. Tom makes everyone welcome–North Fork natives, retirees, weekenders, immigrants, visiting family members and returnees. He is a good priest and a good man. We could ask for none better.
As much as I appreciate and respect Fr. Tom, and would be happy to have him as my pastor for the rest of my life, I would also miss not being able to experience the Eucharist with a woman priest.
So I decided to seek one out.
I will be attending a home church with a Roman Catholic Womenpriest presiding at Mass later this fall. She was ordained in Boston this summer. I have no idea what kind of emotions I will feel, but I suspect they will include pride, wholeness, a degree of fear, and a feeling of connection with the women of early Christianity. 
I will also have an out-pouring of gratitude. First, to all the women who felt the call to ordination and stuck it out in the Catholic Church, not leaving for MCC, or the Episcopalians, another denomination or ending up as an aching or sour agnostic. For people like Sr. Louise Lears and Maryknoll priest Fr. Roy Bourgeois who put their principles on the line and paid the price; and finally for the founders and leadership of Women’s Ordination Conference, who breathed life into the dearest hope of women. Thank you all.
All the women that have been ordained as priests in the Roman Catholic Church were excommunicated this week, along with the bishops who ordained them. The general decree “On the Delict of Attempted Sacred Ordination of a Woman” was published on May 30, 2008 on the front page of L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper. It states that the decree “comes into force immediately.”
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, headed by an American, Cardinal William Levada, 71, has decisively decreed the ordination of women is invalid, and affirms that “he who shall have attempted to confirm holy orders on a woman, as well as the woman who may have attempted to receive Holy Orders, incurs a ‘latae sententiae’ excommunication,’ that is, an automatic excommunication.
In an interview with Vatican Radio, Archbishop Angelo Amato said the reason for the text is the existence of instances of the ordination of women in some regions of the world. The decree underlines that the ordination of women to the priesthood is invalid or null, and that “only baptized men can be ordained validly.”
The Church reaffirms this exclusively for a “unique fundamental reason,” the archbishop explained. “The Church does not feel authorized to change the will of its founder, Jesus Christ.”
In 1994, Pope John Paul II issued the apostolic letter, On Reserving Priestly Ordination to Men Alone,” in which he stated that the priesthood “has in the Catholic Church from the beginning always been reserved to men alone.” He added, “I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgement is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful.”
“I think the reason they’re doing this,” said Rev. Tom Reese of the Woodstock Theological Center of Georgetown University, “is that they’ve realized there is more and more support among Catholics for ordaining women.”
The news just depresses me. The Church can change its stance on slavery, the environment, Jews, the position of the earth and the sun, indigenous people, the welfare of working people and other issues, but won’t budge on priesthood. I’m not sure how they can argue the same rationale, and change some things but not others.
When I hear news like that, faith has to sustain my relationship with my church since logic and emotion cannot.
The week brought more bad news on excommunications with the decision by the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith confirming a December 15, 2005 declaration from the St. Louis archbishop that the board of directors of the St. Stanislaus Kostka Corporation and the priest they hired are excommunicated. The priest involved is Father Marek Bozek.
However it evolved and ended up, the dispute began with the issues of accountability of money and property. The laity wanted a voice in decision-making. The priest stood up for his parishioners and supported them in their concerns with the Archdiocese.
It doesn’t appear to me the Archdiocese of St. Louis made a good faith attempt to sit down with the parish leadership and try to work things out. Instead, there was a leaden response, then emotions and rhetoric got out of control, the Archdiocese responded with threats, and the worst happened – a separation, a “schism.”
I feel for all my fellow Catholics who were excommunicated this week. I will remember them every week by receiving communion for them.
I also feel for whatever pain was in the hearts of Cardinal Levada and Archbishop Burke. I hope that pain stays with them, to eventually inspire some future reflection and compassion. I will remember them in my prayers as well.
On March 12, 2008, St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke declared two women who live in the archdiocese and another who lives in Germany, excommunicated. Burke also excommunicated Patricia Fresen, the bishop who led Hudson’s and McGrath’s ordinations. Fresen is a former Dominican nun from South Africa who now lives in Germany. All three women are members of the Womenpriests movement. 
The area women, Rose Marie Hudson, 68 ,of Festus, and Elsie Hainz McGrath, 69, of St. Louis, were ordained as priests in November 2007. They currently co-pastor a faith community and hold a worship service for about 35 people Sunday evenings at the first Unitarian Church of St. Louis.
Bridget Mary Meehan, a spokesperson for Womenpriests, said Burke is not authorized to excommunicate Fresen because she lives outside the Diocese of St. Louis. Monsignor John Shamleffer, the archdiocese’s chief canon lawyer, said Burke is within his right to respond to disobedience within his geographic jurisdiction, regardless of Fresen’s residence outside the U.S. “Excommunication is not meant to be a penalty,” he said, but a “wakeup call” aimed at helping the women “see the error of their ways and return to full communion with the church.”
A total of 10 women priests have been excommunicated since ordinations began in 2002. The original “Danube Seven” were excommunicated within weeks of their ordination on the Danube River in Germany. Meehan indicated there are 53 women candidates for priesthood, deacons and priests in North America and elsewhere around the world.
In a statement on March 13, Hudson and McGrath said that they “and all Roman Catholic Womenpriests, reject the penalties of excommunication, interdict, and any other punitive actions from church officials. We are loyal daughters of the church, and we stand in the prophetic tradition of holy disobedience to an unjust man-made law that disciminates against women.”
They cited the words of Pope Benedict XVI, who, as Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, wrote that Catholics must obey their own conscience, “if necessary even against the requirement of ecclesiastical authority.”
Salon reported the Womenpriest movement “is the most flamboyant and incendiary challenge to the Roman Catholic Church’s unrelenting discrimination against women.” “They are asking, Is Sexism a sin? How does the Church reconcile its teaching that women and men are created in God’s image, that once baptized, there is ‘no male or female’ and ‘all are one in Christ Jesus,’ with its contention that women cannot represent the ultimate sacred or hold ultimate power through ordination because they are, literally, the wrong ’substance’?”
It is interesting to note that while Pope Benedict has strongly hinted his support for the excommunication of politicians that support abortion, he has said nothing about excommunicating women priests.
Fr. Marek Bozek of St. Stanislaus Parish, St. Louis, Missouri, attended the ordination of two women in November 2007 with the Roman Catholic Womenpriest movement. 600 other Catholic laity, clery and women religious also attended.
In a letter to Call to Action, Fr. Bozek explained why he attended the ordination ceremony: “I only have one answer – I could not tolerate the abuse of my sisters any longer. I could not remain indifferent to the injustice being done to all those women graced by with the priestly vocation.”
Archbishop Burke called Fr. Bozek to a disciplinary hearing on February 5, 2008. During that meeting the Archbishop did not agree to the reconcilliation offer that Fr. Borzek proposed. Another meeting has been scheduled for March 5.
Information on the meeting between Fr. Bozek and Archbishop Burke is featured on the Archdiocese of St. Louis home page. It includes a videotaped statement by the Archbishop and a FAQ. Read the prequel here.
Fr. Bozek is a brave and caring pastor, and an idealistic young priest. We don’t want to lose him. As an authority on Canon law, Archbishop Burke may be able to find a little wiggle room to craft a peaceful resolution. I hope he’s more of a Brehon than a stubborn Irish cleric.
