Nuns reject Vatican criticism

A U.S. group says a report accusing it of promoting feminist themes was flawed.

A group of American nuns excoriated in a Vatican report for promoting what church officials called “radical feminist themes” on Friday said it rejected the report’s findings and called the process of assembling the report flawed.

In a statement, the board of directors for the Leadership Conference of Women Religious said the doctrinal assessment released in April by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith — the Roman Catholic Church’s enforcer of orthodoxy — was “based on unsubstantiated accusations and the result of a flawed process that lacked transparency.”

The Vatican assessment had accused the conference of deviating from church doctrine, citing among other things the group’s opposition to male-only ordination.

The Vatican also said that although the conference was vocal on social justice issues, it had failed to speak out enough on other concerns, such as church opposition to same-sex marriage and abortion. Network, a Catholic social justice lobby, was singled out for criticism.

“Network’s relationship with LCWR was mentioned as one of the problems despite the fact that Network was never asked to provide information about our mission or activities,” spokeswoman Stephanie Niedringhaus said. “This is just one of the many errors in the assessment and process by which it was put together.”

The conference’s president, Sister Pat Farrell, and its executive director, Sister Janet Mock, will meet in Rome on June 21with Cardinal William Levada, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and Seattle Archbishop J. Peter Sartain. Sartain has been assigned to oversee changes requested by the Vatican.

The nuns and Sartain, in separate statements, pledged to hold discussions in an atmosphere of openness, honesty and integrity.

The conference has more than 1,500 members representing more than 80% of the 57,000 Catholic women religious in the United States.