"Vatican Decree Calls Attention to Place of Women Religious" by Olga Bonfiglio/Huffington Post

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/olga-bonfiglio/vatican-decree-calls-attention-to-place-of-women-religious_b_1516232.html


"While Pope John Paul II's relationship with American nuns appeared to be a reining in of what he considered the more exuberant experiments and freedoms they embraced after the Vatican II reforms (1962-65), Pope Benedict XVI's recent decree, the "Doctrinal Assessment of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious" is drop-dead shocking.
After a three-year study, the Vatican recently charged that the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) has been too tolerant in its views about homosexuality, too silent in opposing abortion and contraception and too amenable to "radical feminist themes" that are regarded as incompatible with Church teaching, including women's ordination. The LCWR represents 80 percent of the 57,000 nuns in the United States.

Actually, such reprimands are nothing new in Church history, said Dr. Margaret Thompson, professor of history, political science and women's studies at Syracuse University. Every time women religious attempt to break new ground or re-dedicate themselves to new needs among the People of God, the Church questions them.

Since Vatican II, no one knew the cost of change more intimately than Anita Caspary of the Immaculate Heart Community of Los Angeles, Calif. As Mother General (1963-70) and president (1970-73) she led her sisters through the Vatican II reforms with careful deliberation. Nevertheless, in that process she experienced the wrath and power of hierarchical politics and the forced relinquishment of her community's canonical status.

According to Caspary's account in her book "Witness to Integrity: The Crisis of the Immaculate Heart Community of California" (2003), James Francis McIntyre, the Cardinal Archbishop of Los Angeles, did not accept the renewal of Vatican II and came into conflict with the IH Community over its decisions to change the habit, form new structures of convent governance and re-design daily devotional practices.

"Slowly we came to realize that what we claimed for ourselves -- the right to make decisions affecting our personal lives -- we could not surrender," Caspary stated in her book.
 Caspary died in October 2011 at the age of 95; however, in my 2004 telephone interview with her, she stressed that the conflict with Cardinal McIntryre occurred within the cultural context of the history of women at the time. 

"Women were always secondary among priests, governors, and men in general," she said. "The dependency of women religious on the hierarchy wasn't a choice, it was prescribed. And we didn't believe in it..." 

Bridget Mary's Reflection:
Amen, Sister Anita! The subordination of women to the hierarchy in the Catholic Church should end now. Nuns today should follow in the footsteps of the courageous Immaculate Heart Community. We need  gutsy nuns, like Sister Anita Caspary, to  challenge the hierarchy today and to stand publically for justice for women in the church including for women priests!
Bridget Mary Meehan, ARCWP
www.arcwp.org
sofiabmm@aol.com