UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter
Jun. 18, 2012
By An NCR Editorial
It’s as bad as we thought it could get. Maybe worse. In an interview with NCR shortly after meeting with the leaders of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, Cardinal William Levada, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, confirmed our worst fears: that this Holy Office is hell-bent on bringing U.S. women religious to heel.
Franciscan Sr. Pat Farrell, president of the leadership conference, and St. Joseph Sr. Janet Mock, the group’s executive director, went to Rome at the request of the conference’s board to seek some understanding from Levada and Seattle Archbishop J. Peter Sartain, the apostolic delegate, about the April 18 Vatican order that the women’s group revise its statutes and programs. The Vatican order, which followed a nearly four-year investigation of the group, also appointed three bishops to oversee this reform: Sartain, Bishop Leonard Blair of Toledo, Ohio, and Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, Ill.
Farrell and Mock were hopeful going into the meeting, calling it a continuation of a conversation already begun. On the other side of the meeting, Levada wondered if he were engaged in a “dialogue of the deaf.” He’s not convinced that the women’s group is taking the Vatican’s concerns to heart.
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