Nuns deny radical feminism

THE largest organisation of US Catholic nuns has rejected a Vatican assessment that they had fallen under the sway of radical feminism and needed to hand control of their group over to a trio of bishops.

The Leadership Conference of Women Religious, whose members represent about 80 per cent of nuns in the United States, issued a sharp statement calling the Vatican’s rebuke unsubstantiated and ‘‘the result of a flawed process that lacked transparency’’.

The nuns said the Vatican’s report has ‘‘caused scandal and pain throughout the church community and created greater polarisation’’.

Tensions between US nuns and church authorities, both in Rome and in the United States, have been simmering for decades as nuns have taken an increasingly independent and outspoken role in politics and social outreach.

The Leadership Conference has aired frank discussions of issues that deeply discomfit the Vatican, from ministry to gays and lesbians to the patriarchy of church culture, and contraception.