The Vatican and U.S. women religious

By Richard McBrien

Created Jul 06, 2009

I did not intend to comment on the Vatican's decision late last year to conduct a visitation of religious communities of women in the United States because I expected such a study, to be done under the auspices of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, to come up more or less empty-handed as did the Vatican's earlier study of U.S. seminaries and theologates.

I may, of course, hear from some seminary quarters itemizing a few of the negative results of that previous study. I would welcome such input and would want to assure the sources in advance of complete confidentiality.

I experienced a change-of-mind about the study of women religious in the United States, however, when I learned earlier this year that the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has initiated a doctrinal investigation of the Leadership of Conference of Women Reli-gious, referred to as the LCWR, the largest of its kind in North America.

In light of previous statements made about religious life by the cardinal-prefect of the Vatican congregation, Cardinal Franc Rodé, one has reason to wonder how objective and dispassionate the visitation of religious communities of women in the United States will be.

[Read the rest of Fr. McBrien's weekly column, here.]