No open discussion of Vatican demands at LCWR assembly
CWN – August 09, 2012
At the annual assembly of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), members have been asked not to speak to reporters about the issue on everyone’s mind: the LCWR response to a Vatican call for reform of the group.
Sister Patricia Farrell, the LCWR president, told members: “If in your own conscience you cannot understand or perceive confidentiality as anything other than total transparency, we ask you to think about not coming to the executive sessions, not in the interest of ever excluding anyone, but in creating the kind of environment we need to really discern with each other in freedom and openness.”
Reporters were, however, able to hear the keynote address by “futurist” Barbara Marx Hubbard, who told the women religious that the earth is on the edge of a new breakthrough in evolution. Ann Carey, covering the event for the National Catholic Register, had a quizzical comment on the keynote speech:
Hubbard is an engaging speaker, and she knew how to connect with her audience, though the futurist terminology she used left this journalist reaching for a dictionary to look up “noosphere,” “cosmo genesis,” synergistic convergence” and “Christification.”
Reporting for the New York Times, Laurie Goodstein found that many nuns were pleased with the support they had received from other Catholics in their conflict with Rome. But the Times report also conveyed the unusual nature of the gathering:
They sat in silence for a long stretch, sang songs about truth and mystery accompanied by a guitar and a choir, and heard a keynote address by a futurist who was escorted to the podium by seven liturgical dancers waving diaphanous scarves of pink and tangerine.
Additional sources for this story: See www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=15203
LCWR assembly: some sisters disagree with panelist over response to Vatican
CWN – August 10, 2012
At the second day of the annual assembly of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), the publisher of the National Catholic Reporter called upon the sisters present to “just say no” to Vatican concerns—leading to “audible groans” from some of the sisters.
Ann Carey of the National Catholic Register reported that Tom Fox, who was taking part in a panel discussion,
seemed to be taken aback by this reaction, and he scrambled to recover. “What I mean by that is that you are who you are, and you can’t say anything other than ‘Yes’ to who you are. You cannot,” Fox said. “So how that ‘Yes’ is made, or how you say ‘No’ to abuse and misunderstanding and misrepresentation is something left to determine.”
Fox had earlier told the sisters that “it is very, very important for you to know that you are the most prayerful, most experienced, most professional, most loved and most creative women to sit under one roof at any time in history.
“And you must understand the obligations and responsibilities that that entails. … You are speaking for the future, and you are speaking to give us hope.”
Additional sources for this story: Day 2 of the LCWR Assembly: Contemplating a Response to the Vatican (National Catholic Register) www.ncregister.com/blog/ann-carey/day-2-of-the-lcwr-assembly-contemplating-a-response-to-the-vatican
[Day 3:] Religious Sisters’ Conference Plans to Continue Vatican Dialogue
Sister Pat Farrell told participants in the LCWR assembly that talks with the Vatican will go on so long as the group is not made to change its goals.
by CATHOLIC NEWS AGENCY/ EWTN NEWS
08/10/2012
Sister Pat Farrell told participants in the Leadership Conference of Women Religious assembly that talks with the Vatican will go on so long as the group is not made to change its goals.
“The officers will proceed with these discussions as long as possible,” she told the conference’s annual assembly Aug. 10, “but will reconsider if LCWR is forced to compromise the integrity of its mission.”
Sr. Farrell’s remarks were made in response to the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith’s April 18 report following a four-year study which revealed “serious doctrinal problems” throughout the group.
“While acknowledging deep disappointment with the CDF report, the members proclaimed their intention to use this opportunity to explain to Church leaders LCWR’s mission, values and operating principles,” she told conference members at her Aug. 10 address in St. Louis.
The Vatican assessment noted that the group has regularly hosted presentations that demonstrated theological and doctrinal errors, as well as a “prevalence of certain radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith.”
In response to its findings, the Vatican placed Archbishop J. Peter Sartain of Seattle in charge of carrying out a reform of the group.
The conference originally stated April 19 that it “was stunned” to hear about the Vatican’s assessment, saying that it already “follows canonically-approved statutes,” but that it would take time to prepare a thorough response.
“The assembly instructed the LCWR officers to conduct their conversation with Archbishop Sartain from a stance of deep prayer that values mutual prayer, careful listening and open dialogue,” Sr. Farrell said following a series of private talks that were held with members during the annual assembly.
In her presidential address to the conference, entitled “Navigating the Shifts,” Sr. Farrell told the assembly that it would be a “mistake to make too much of the doctrinal assessment.”
“We cannot allow it to consume an inordinate amount of our time and energy or to distract us from our mission,” she told the sisters.
However, she said, “I think it would also be a mistake to make too little of the doctrinal assessment.”
Either way, Sr. Farrell said she hopes that the conference can “go forward” in a manner “that contributes to the good of religious life everywhere and to the healing of the Church we so love.”
This year’s annual meeting hosted futurist author and “conscious evolution” promoter, Barbara Marx Hubbard, who praised the “evolutionary leadership” of the LCWR calling them the “best seedbed” for “evolving the Church.”
In light of Hubbard’s talk, Sr. Farrell said “it is easy to see this LCWR moment as a microcosm of a world in flux.”
“The cosmic breaking down and breaking through we are experiencing gives us a broader context,” she said.
Sr. Farrell believes the reason “many institutions, traditions and structures seem to wither” is that “the philosophical underpinnings of the way we hold reality really no longer hold.”
“The human family is not served by individualism, patriarchy, a scarcity mentality or competition,” she explained.
Moreover, the LCWR president asserted that the world is “outgrowing the dualistic constructs” of “good/bad” and “domination/submission.”
“Breaking through in their place are equality, communion, collaboration, synchronicity, expansiveness, abundance, wholeness, mutuality, intuitive knowing and love,” she said.
Archbishop Sartain is expected to meet with the conference’s national board on Aug. 11 for a discussion that is expected to last two hours.
Read more: www.ncregister.com/daily-news/religious-sisters-conference-plans-to-continue-vatican-dialogue/#ixzz23EPpnlVP