[caption id="attachment_71444" align="alignright" width="250" caption="Archbishop Sartain. "]
The last group of people you might expect the Vatican to criticize is nuns. But in an announcement earlier this month it did just that. An investigation into the Leadership Conference of Women Religious - a body representing more than 80 percent of the 57,000 Catholic sisters in America - found "serious doctrinal problems" in their activities and teachings.
The pope has appointed Archbishop Peter Sartain and two bishops, Leonard Blair and Thomas John Paprocki, to review the nuns' programs and statutes - a study of the sisters' activities that will last for up to five years.
The report, which is posted on the website of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, cited a prevalence of "certain radical feminist themes" at the assemblies of the LCWR.
It complained that the LCWR showed an absence of support for the church's teachings on women's ordination and homosexuality. And it noted: "while there has been a great deal of work on the part of LCWR promoting issues of social justice in harmony with the Church's social doctrine,
it is silent on the right to life from conception to natural death, a question that is part of the lively public debate about abortion and euthanasia in the United States."
Many in the Catholic Church have been shocked by the Vatican's announcement. The LCWR, the main subject of the report's scrutiny, posted
a statement online saying that its members were "stunned" by the conclusion of the assessment and "taken by surprise by the gravity of the mandate."
A national Catholic social justice Lobby called "Network" was also singled out for criticism. Sister Mary Ellen Lacy, an Irish-American nun who works for Network, said the Vatican's announcement had left her confused.
"There's been some vast misunderstanding that would cause them to say that what we do is not important," Sr. Lacy said, speaking to the Irish Echo over the phone from Washington.
Network describes itself as "a progressive voice within the Catholic community." Its aims are to reduce the gap between rich and poor and to
dismantle policies rooted in racism, greed and violence. It deals with issues of healthcare, environment and economic justice and it also lobbies for comprehensive immigration reform.
Sr. Lacy described poverty in the U.S. as "an epidemic, a pandemic" and said there are two ways of viewing a situation: from a distance in Rome, or when you're sitting right beside someone who tells you that they can't pay their rent or that their kids haven't eaten that day.
Nuns have maintained an appropriate position on the issue of abortion, Sr. Lacy said, but they are also concerned with what happens to those who are born in difficult circumstances and need care.
"The right to life cannot stop at birth. The right to life is a spectrum. It carries from the moment of birth to death," she explained.
Many religious sisters in America are Irish, or have Irish ancestry.
"From the earliest days of immigration, religious women left their towns and villages in Ireland and came to the U.S., dedicating their lives to teaching, nursing and the poor," Brendan Fay, a filmmaker and activist who has researched and presented on the stories and history of Irish religious women, said.
"Religious women and nuns have always been the human face of the Catholic church for most people."
But not everyone sees it this way. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Elizabeth Scalia was less critical of the Vatican's actions.
Suggesting that Rome had detected signs of spiritual distress amongst American nuns she argued that it was only trying to remedy them. And in the Catholic World Report, Ann Carey put forward a stronger view: The LCWR was given a doctrinal warning in 2001 to correct problems. When no progress was made, the Vatican announced that it would undertake a doctrinal assessment, Carey said, adding: "Eleven years passed between the first warning and the issuance of the ... directive." Thus, she concluded, the organization should not be surprised by the recent reprimand.
Still, at press time, more than 17,000 people had signed an online petition in support of the sisters, stating that the Vatican move "is a prime example of how the hierarchy in the Roman Catholic Church misuses its power to diminish the voice of women."
In his New York Times column on Sunday, meanwhile, Nicholas Kristof praised the sisters he had encountered in his world travels who worked at hospitals and schools in defiance of warlords, pimps and bandits. His story was entitled, "We Are All Nuns."
The LCWR will meet at the end of May to decide on its response to the Vatican's pronouncement. For now, the future of this issue, whether it will lead to dialog or to action, is unclear. But the controversy only seems to have highlighted the work of America's nuns, and their abilities. As Dr. Marian Ronan, an Irish- American Catholic scholar, told the Irish Echo: "They are some of the smartest women in the country. I don't know what they'll do, but I can't imagine they're just going to put up with it."
