Vatican says US nuns must promote church teachings

FILE - In this June 2, 2012, file photo, Pope Benedict XVI is greeted by nuns during a meeting with priests and religious at the Duomo gothic cathedral, in Milan, Italy. Benedict has been trying to restore Catholic traditions he believes were lost 50 years ago in the modernizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council. As he presses for a more conservative Catholicism, the pope has been vigilant about ensuring that groups and individuals that operate in the name of the church are adhering to core Catholic teaching. The Vatican orthodoxy watchdog, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, concluded in April that the Leadership Conference of Women Religious had strayed far from authentic doctrine and gave three American bishops the authority to overhaul the organization. The board for the nuns? group responded by calling the Vatican?s investigation flawed and its conclusions unsubstantiated. Top executives of the sisters? organization are bringing their concerns to a meeting Tuesday, June 12, in Rome with Vatican officials. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno, File)

FILE - In this June 2, 2012, file photo, Pope Benedict XVI is greeted by nuns during a meeting with priests and religious at the Duomo gothic cathedral, in Milan, Italy. Benedict has been trying to restore Catholic traditions he believes were lost 50 years ago in the modernizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council. As he presses for a more conservative Catholicism, the pope has been vigilant about ensuring that groups and individuals that operate in the name of the church are adhering to core Catholic teaching. The Vatican orthodoxy watchdog, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, concluded in April that the Leadership Conference of Women Religious had strayed far from authentic doctrine and gave three American bishops the authority to overhaul the organization. The board for the nuns? group responded by calling the Vatican?s investigation flawed and its conclusions unsubstantiated. Top executives of the sisters? organization are bringing their concerns to a meeting Tuesday, June 12, in Rome with Vatican officials. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno, File)

FILE - In this April 10, 2012, file photo, sisters sit in church during Mass at St. Joseph Convent in Biddeford, Maine. Good Shepherd Sisters of Quebec has just six convents in Maine and Massachusetts with fewer than 60 sisters and it?s been more than 20 years since a new member has joined. America?s religious sisters are far from the height of their influence. Their numbers have plummeted from about 180,000 in 1965 to 56,000 last year, according to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate. Their average age is now above 70. Many orders go for years without any new candidates. (AP Photo/Pat Wellenbach, File)

Pope Benedict XVI delivers his blessing during the opening day of Rome's dioceses ecclesiastic meeting at St. John at the Lateran Basilica in Rome, Monday, June 11, 2012. Benedict has been trying to restore Catholic traditions he believes were lost 50 years ago in the modernizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council. As he presses for a more conservative Catholicism, the pope has been vigilant about ensuring that groups and individuals that operate in the name of the church are adhering to core Catholic teaching. The Vatican orthodoxy watchdog, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, concluded in April that the Leadership Conference of Women Religious had strayed far from authentic doctrine and gave three American bishops the authority to overhaul the organization. The board for the nuns? group responded by calling the Vatican?s investigation flawed and its conclusions unsubstantiated. Top executives of the sisters? organization are bringing their concerns to a meeting Tuesday, June 12, in Rome with Vatican officials. (AP Photo/Riccardo De Luca)

VATICAN CITY (AP) ? The Vatican insisted after a high level meeting Tuesday that American nuns must faithfully promote age-old church teachings, after the women were accused by Rome of flouting core doctrine and taking an overly liberal "feminist" bent.

Sister Pat Farrell and Sister Janet Mock, respectively president and executive director of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) met with the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal William Levada and the American bishop tasked by the Vatican to overhaul the group which represents about 80 percent of American sisters.

Farrell and Mock came to Rome to present their concerns about the Vatican's April decision to reform the LCWR from the ground up. Levada's office had determined that the LCWR had strayed too far from church doctrine and was imposing certain "radical feminist themes" that were incompatible with Catholicism.

The LCWR had termed the Vatican assessment flawed and unsubstantiated, and said Tuesday that Farrell and Mock had brought those concerns directly to Levada and Archbishop Peter Sartain, who, along with two other bishops, will overhaul the group, rewrite its statutes and review its plans and programs.

"It was an open meeting and we were able to directly express our concerns to Cardinal Levada and Archbishop Sartain," Farrell said in a statement. Stopped by reporters outside Levada's office, Farrell said she was "grateful for the opportunity for open dialogue" and said she and Mock would now report back to the LCWR board "to decide how to proceed from here."

The Vatican said the meeting was conducted in an atmosphere of "openness and cordiality." But in its own statement, it stressed that the LCWR must promote church unity by stressing core church teachings.

It noted that the LCWR was created by the Vatican in 1956 and remains under its direction. The purpose of the Vatican's assessment, it said, "is to assist the LCWR in this important mission by promoting a vision of ecclesial communion founded on faith in Jesus Christ and the teachings of the church as faithfully taught through the ages under the guidance of the Magisterium."

The Vatican's crackdown on the nuns has prompted a remarkable outpouring of support from ordinary Catholics and clergy alike, who have touted the good work the sisters do in education, health care and tending to the poor. Mock told reporters such support has been "very affirming" for the sisters.

The dispute with the American sisters goes back decades.

Theological conservatives have long complained that in the years since the revolutionizing reforms of the 1960s Second Vatican Council, American sisters' congregations have become secular and political, while abandoning traditional prayer life and faith. The nuns insisted prayer and Christ were central to their work.

In 1992, the Vatican created another umbrella group of women's religious orders for sisters with a more traditional approach to religious life and church authority. That group, the Conference of Major Superiors of Women Religious, is significantly smaller than the LCWR. But a recent study found these smaller, more traditional religious orders are having greater success attracting new candidates.

Then, under the tradition-minded Pope Benedict XVI, the conflict reached a turning point.

Around 2008, the Vatican announced the doctrinal review of the LCWR and also launched an investigation of all U.S. women's congregations. That inquiry looked at quality of life, the response to dissent and "the soundness of doctrine held and taught" by the women. Results of the wider inquiry have not been released.

But for the next five years, the LCWR will effectively be under Vatican receivership.

____

Rachel Zoll contributed from New York.

Follow Nicole Winfield at www.twitter.com/nwinfield

Associated Press

bobby valentine marian hossa philip humber red sox yankees white sox chuck colson