Destined for the Rise and the Fall of Many in Israel

Pope Francis meets with Sisters
from the LCWR: they came to
the Vatican, I understand, on a
Bus.  

Well Pope Francis called the dogs of war off the American nuns and that marks another watershed day in the history of the American Church as it is a clear sign that the JPII/Benedict XVI old guard is finished, at least for the length of this papacy.  There had been a mounting tension between the American Religious Women and the Holy See dating back to 1979 when Sister Teresa Kane publically addressed Pope John Paul on behalf of U.S. nuns and asked him to consider admitting women “to all the ministries of the Church.” This opened the question of ordaining women, a question John Paul was quick to put the kibosh on and which angered him and his Curia that it was even mentioned.  Pope John Paul had very definite ideas on the place of women in the Church and in particular on how religious women should conduct themselves.  While his understanding of the role of women in the Church actually marked a step—or several steps—beyond what up to then had been Church practice, it hardly fit our current cultural conviction that men and women are equal and should have equal access to responsibility in our world today.  (I choose the word “responsibility” as it is more consistent with gospel values than the word “power,” but I certainly mean power when I speak of responsibility in this context.) 

The changes in religious life, and especially the life of religious women, has been remarkable in the decades after Vatican II.  In following the Vatican II mandate to return to the charisms of their founders, many religious women have renounced the monastic practices that were imposed on them in the late 18^th and in the 19^th centuries, adopting modern dress, moving out of large convents and the quasi-monastic life required in that sort of environment, taking more personal responsibility for their finances, and revamping authority structures to be more collaborative than directive.  They live now not as semi-monastics but as consecrated lay women living according to the evangelical counsels and devoting themselves to the works of the Church.  Of course there are still monastic and contemplative communities, generally enclosed (cloistered) but that vocation is essentially different than that of Religious Sisters in Apostolic communities.  The monastic life too has, in most places, undergone some external change, but remains essentially focused on prayer and the common life.  If anything, the changes in Religious Life after Vatican II have permitted the Apostolic and the Contemplative vocations to more clearly differentiate themselves from each other and permitted women to make the appropriate choice according to the graces given to each person. 

Of course the changes in Religious Life have also empowered women to take responsibility for their own life and mission and this has been deeply troubling to those who favor the misogynist hierchical power structures for which the Catholic Church was once so famous.  The last thing burned-out or incompetent male clerics need is to have self-confident religious women around.  And let’s face it, if there is anything the experience of the Vatican troubling the American Sisters has shown us is that the rank and file Catholics still love the nuns while the good folk in the pews are more reserved in their affection and respect for the clergy.  In 1995 the Vatican Congregation for Institutes of the Consecrated Life and Societies of the Apostolic Life (once known as the Congregation for Religious) divided out the more “traditional” religious communities of women from the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (originally known as Conference of Major Superiors of Women) and established for the more compliant nuns The Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious.  This left two distinct groupings of American Sisters.  About 80% of American Sisters belong to the Leadership Conference of Women Religious. 

The LCWR’s problems began in earnest early in the pontificate of Pope Benedict XVI when the Congregation of Institutes of the Consecrated Life and Societies of the Apostolic Life announced a “visitation” of American Sisters belonging to the LCWR affiliated communities.  This was supposedly “for their own good” to see why they weren’t getting the vocations they had once garnered in the 1960 vocational heyday.  The problem obviously was that most of the good sisters weren’t properly veiled and they were living in apartments and had drivers’ licenses—oh, and minds of their own, and used them.  A moving factor behind the original investigation was that nemesis of change, our own beloved Cardinal Burke who, at the time, was a member of the Congregation of Institutes of the Consecrated Life and Societies of the Apostolic Life.  (I am getting tired of typing and retyping that title—from here on out CICLSAL.)   Mother Mary Clare Millea, a Canon Lawyer and the Superior General of the Congregation of the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (a community belonging to the Conference of Major Superiors of Women) was put in charge of the visitation.  This—it was thought—would be like putting Ted Cruz in charge of investigating Hillary Clinton’s campaign.  But guess what—it became clear that under the microscope of Mother Mary Clare, the Sisters of the LCWR looked just fine!!!  That wouldn’t do.  So stage II kicked in and Cardinal William Levada, an American who at the time was Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (at one time known as “The Holy Roman Inquisition” and the most powerful of the Roman dicasteries) announced that the CDF was going to do a doctrinal investigation of the LCWR because they good Sisters were writing a lot of heresy and spreading false doctrines in their various ministries.  As if they had not learned with Galileo—some people just never learn.  Levada is not Torquemada and was only the front man for a cabal of the truly evil: Cardinal Burke (again!), Cardinal Law (the disgraced Archbishop of Boston whose intransience about a fictional princely immunity kicked off the sex-abuse scandal in the American Church), Archbishop Lori of Baltimore (a slimy sycophant of a prelate if there ever was one—you don’t want to know how he got where he got) and their bankrolling stooge, Carl Anderson, Grand Poobah of the Knights of Columbus whose generosity to Vatican causes with other people’s money has given him great influence in the hallowed halls of the pre-Francisco Reform Vatican Bank.  (Just mentioning these boys makes me want to take a shower.)  Well, the pyre was well on its way to being completed when Pope Benedict surprised the world with his retirement and within a month many things had begun to change.  Within a few months of his election, Pope Francis was addressing the Religious from Latin America and he said, in obvious reference to the North American nuns:

They will make mistakes, they will make a blunder [meter la pata], this will pass! Perhaps even a letter of the Congregation for the Doctrine (of the Faith) will arrive for you, telling you that you said such or such thing... But do not worry. Explain whatever you have to explain, but move forward... Open the doors, do something there where life calls for it. I would rather have a Church that makes mistakes for doing something than one that gets sick for being closed up...

Clear enough? One would think.  But just because Petrus locutus est doesn’t mean Roma locuta est, as is becoming increasingly clear in so many ways with top Cardinals publicly disagreeing with a reigning pontiff—something that hasn’t happened in a century and a half.  Ten months later, Cardinal Gerhard Müller, current Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, made it clear that the heat was still on the good Sisters.  And then this past Thursday, suddenly, the Vatican said, in tones reminiscent of Gilda Radner’s Emily Litella on SNL, “never mind.”  There, gone. Poof.  Just like that.  Oh yes, there’s a new sheriff in town—or to put it more biblically for Law, Lori, Burke, Anderson and co: there came a Pharaoh who knew not Joseph. 

As if that wasn’t enough news for one day, on Friday Cardinal Francis George, Archbishop emeritus of Chicago, passed to his eternal reward.  May God be good to him.  I will do a posting on his someday soon.  He was not a bad man, he certainly was not princely (or princessly) as some other prelates chose to be, but he represented that return to hierarchal autocracy that we witnessed during the reigns of John Paul II and Benedict XVI.  It will be interesting to see that now that Chicago no longer has a living Cardinal, if the new Archbishop, Blase Cupich, will be given a red hat in the next consistory.  Of course, Archbishop of Philadelphia, Charles Chaput’s predecessor, Cardinal Rigali turns 80 next Tuesday, freeing up another possible red hat.  Cupich and Chaput are cut from very different cloth.  Chaput, despite his Capuchin/Franciscan background is more of the sort of silk popular in Benedict’s papacy; Cupich, a diocesan priest, is more of the Franciscan homespun.  Yes, it’s true: the Religious take the vow of poverty and the diocesan priests live it.  I have seen it all before.  For the best food and wines, the friars and monks will guide the way. But I digress.  The Red Hat contest is further complicated by the fact that Francis will be the guest of Chaput in September for the World Meeting of Families.  Under the two previous popes, such hospitality was usually acknowledged by a cardinal’s hat for the hosting prelate.  But Francis is quite unpredictable.  Nevertheless, it would be perceived as a snub for Cupich to get the hat and Chaput not, after Chaput had organized the September event.  In the meantime, poor Bill Lori is still sporting a green galero on his coat of arms. I am going to be surprised if that changes in this papacy.  And disappointed.  

The American Nuns: Collateral Damage in a War of Prelates

The Grand Inquisitor (from the

opera, Don Carlo)

Well Francis finally scored some points with the Katholic Krazies—the American nuns are back on the hotseat.  The only problem is that it isn’t Francis turning up the voltage, but Cardinal Müller, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. 

Everyone had presumed that with Francis’ remarks to the Conference of Latin American Religious (CLARR) last June the Pope had given a clear signal that the Holy See was backing off the harassment of the American Religious Women.  Francis said, rather pointedly:

They will make mistakes, they will make a blunder, this will pass! Perhaps even a letter of the Congregation for the Doctrine (of the Faith) will arrive for you, telling you that you said such or such thing... But do not worry. Explain whatever you have to explain, but move forward... Open the doors, do something there where life calls for it. I would rather have a Church that makes mistakes for doing something than one that gets sick for being closed up...

“Perhaps even a letter form the CDF will arrive for you…but do not worry…move forward.”  Pretty clear message.  So what was this latest fuss about when Cardinal Müller called the LCWR leadership on the carpet last week?  Does this indicate a change in Vatican policy, a renewal of the campaign against the nuns?

By no means.  The nuns are collateral damage to the infighting going on the Roman Curia at this time.  Cardinal Kasper spoke up almost immediately saying that the problem was the conflict between the “more narrow” view of some Vatican officials and the more open policies that the Holy Father is trying to establish in the Church.  It cannot be presumed, of course, that either Cardinal speaks for the Holy Father, but of the two Kasper is certainly the closer collaborator.  Pope Francis has used Cardinal Kasper as a trial balloon for a more open approach to divorced and remarried Catholics and the Cardinal has gotten quite a bit of grief for it from his peers in the Sacred College as well as from various bishops around the world—not to mention the Katholic Krazies and their blogs.  Yet it is clear that, at least in regards to the pastoral care of the divorced and remarried, Kasper speaks for the Pope.  Müller, on the other hand, is part of the camp that is fighting Pope Francis in his efforts to reform the Roman Curia.  Müller is a Benedict XVI appointment as head of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith.  Francis gave Müller the Cardinal’s hat—the CDF Prefect is always a Cardinal and Benedict had not had a chance to name any Cardinals after appointing Müller to the post—but has not paid him much attention since.  Cardinals Burke and Law, both out of favor and sidelined in this papacy, had been the original evil geniuses on the attack on the nuns and when the Congregation for the Institutes of the Consecrated Life and  Societies of the Apostolic Life gave the American nuns a clean bill of health two years ago, Law and Burke pushed the American Cardinal Levada, then head of the CDF, to take up the fight.  Levada did but then retired before the hatchet job was done. Müller took over the CDF and originally didn’t press matters, but despite Francis’ remarks to CLARR renewed the battle in part of the Francis/anti-Francis infighting going on in Rome as the Pope tries to clear out that rats’ nest of pezzi-grossi monsignori and reform the Curia.  So Müller rapped the nuns on the knuckles (we call that karma) for inviting Sister Elizabeth Johnson to receive their annual leadership prize.   Doctor Johnson has angered, nay  infuriated, the Katholic Krazies because her feminist hermeneutic has raised questions that threaten the dominant patriarchy that is woven through not only the Church but our very culture.  Without denying the heritage passed on in the Scriptures or the Patristic Tradition, she has tried to move beyond the frozen confines of dogma to explore the Mystery of God from new perspectives that attempt to transcend the limitations of a culture and tradition that was shaped and articulated by the male mind.  One may or may not like her approach, but one can’t be afraid of what is behind the doors her questions seek to open and explore.  In my own field of history, feminist scholars have made us take a further—and deeper—look at how we understand certain personalities, movements, and events and this hermeneutic has brought out new and more complex understandings of our past.  We do not need to be afraid of new perspectives and the questions they raise about God and God’s plan for us.  If the questions are not sound, our exploration will eventually dismiss them; if they are sound they will lead us to healthy change.  But faith does not permit us to stand frozen, afraid to go further lest our eyes be opened to new and deeper realities and our lives and the structures of our institutions have to change.

In any event, I don’t think this kerfuffle Cardinal Müller has gotten into with the LCWR is about faith.  The good sisters still hold great credibility among the American public—Catholic and non-Catholic.  The moral integrity squandered by the bishops these last thirty years is still borne by the seventy and eighty year olds who once taught us arithmetic and geography and spelling.  If they are asking questions about why women can’t be ordained, we will begin asking questions about why women can’t be ordained.  And God forbid that women ever be ordained, because once women are priests the old boys network will crumble into dust and the rules that have permitted these second-stringers to attain their miters and the perks that go along with the job will be forever changed.

And I think that is what the old guard in the Curia is fighting for—not to advance the Gospel of Jesus Christ but to protect the structures of power which give them their pride of place in the Institutional Church.  The Gospel and its mission is secondary to them.  To refer to Dulles’ Models of the Church, they represent the tenaciousness of the Institution hanging on when so many of us want to move to the kerygmatic and servant models.  Elizabeth Johnson is simply the Joan of Arc in this drama.  The LCWR are the collateral damage of war between men.  And there are too many prelates who want to be the Grand Inquisitor.  

Is Francis Backing the Vatican Off the LCWR?

Everyone is somewhat abuzz over Pope Francis’ admission last week in a talk to the Conference of Latin American Religious (CLARR) that there is “gay lobby” among Vatican officials.  DUH! Yah think so, Paul Revere?  But there is something else that needs attention in his remarks.   
 They will make mistakes, they will make a blunder [meter la pata], this will pass! Perhaps even a letter of the Congregation for the Doctrine (of the Faith) will arrive for you, telling you that you said such or such thing... But do not worry. Explain whatever you have to explain, but move forward... Open the doors, do something there where life calls for it. I would rather have a Church that makes mistakes for doing something than one that gets sick for being closed up...
Perhaps even a letter of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith will arrive for you….but do not worry….move forward….do something there where life calls for it. 
Now in the days before Francis the Gamechanger, this would be popespeak to tell the American ladies of LCWR not to sweat their run with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the faith.  I am not sure that it isn’t still Popespeak; it is just that Francis is, as I have said, a gamechanger and has often spoken far more bluntly than his predecessors.  You know, bluntly like Jesus in the Gospels rather than with hidden messages like the Scribes and the Pharisees.  Nevertheless, I think this is a hopeful sign to the good Sisters and a flag to Archbishop Müller to ratchet down the witchhunt.  Frankly I am not surprised, Francis, as a religious himself—and one from a once persecuted Society—and as a Latin American, is not as threatened by women who not only can think but are articulate.  Let’s hope this is the dawn of a new day where the intellectual ice-jam introduced by John Paul II and maintained by Pope Benedict sees the spring thaw of which Vatican II was the harbinger.  Like Francis, I too, “I would rather have a Church that makes mistakes for doing something than one that gets sick for being closed up...”

The Nuns' Story Plays On

I was at a funeral the other morning where I heard a story that explained why the deceased was not the most devout of Catholics.  When the 87 year-old deceased was in the first grade at the Polish Parish in Jersey City (80 years ago) the nun slapped her twin brother across the face for some offence.  The seven-year old twin then slapped the nun across the face.  He was expelled for this.  (He’s lucky, when I was his age I had always had thought you were struck dead for something like that.)  The pastor called in his parents.   They were poor folk, immigrants from Poland.  The step-father (the father had died some years before) was a barkeep; the mother stayed at home with her four children but took in laundry to make a few dollars.  The pastor said that for a healthy contribution he would let bygones be bygones, all would be forgotten and the boy could return to school.  The mother reached into her pocketbook, pulled out a roll of bills, put them on the desk in front of the pastor.  Then she stood up, looked him in the eye, and said “Thank you, but public school will be just fine for my children.” She turned and walked out, leaving the money on the desk.  The pastor kept the money.   I had thought, hoped perhaps, that this paternalistic Church where Father was always right and the people were expected to put up with injustices at the whim of the clergy—and be grateful for the opportunity to put up with it—was finished with the Second Vatican Council.  Apparently not.  

     I made a mistake in my entry yesterday about the nuns.  I should have caught it but I was working off news reports and took them at their word.  My bad.  This latest blast from Rome had nothing to do with the Vatican Investigation and Mother Mary Clare Millea’s report.  I had said, and correctly so, that this reaction from Rome had been written before the report of the Apostolic Visitation was even submitted.  It turns out that it wasn’t a reaction from the report on the Visitation at all.  If it were it would have come from Cardinal Braz de Aviz, the Prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of the Consecrated Life and Societies of the Apostolic Life, but it came from Cardinal Levada and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.  On what then did Cardinal Levada base his decree?   The CDF had for several years been gathering information about the Leadership Conference of Women Religious—speakers at their programs, materials distributed at their programs,  programs of worship services, etc.  They were frightened.  The sisters were opting for prayer services led by Sister-members rather than formal liturgies conducted by priest-visitors.  Theologians were speaking to them of wider visions of Church than the Institutional and hierarchical structures.  Topics that Rome did not want brought up—topics such as women’s ordination or morality of same-sex relationships were being discussed.  The Sisters were formulating ideas and opinions for themselves, independently of hierarchical leadership.  This was a threat to patriarchy.  Or rather, that women are educated and intelligent and capable of discussing complex theological issues without the conversation being guided by men whose qualification is a pectoral cross, is a threat to patriarchy. 

      I have to admit, I had not thought of the Church as an overly patriarchal organization until yesterday and I am troubled by it.  This isn’t to say that I was naïve or closed my eyes to things. Patriarchal, of course the Church is patriarchal.  Hell, everything in our culture is patriarchal to some extent.  It is how western society is structured.  I point out to my students, monasteries of nuns are governed by an Abbess.  An Abbess is not a mother, she is a female father.  Abbess is the feminine form of the “Abba,” the father.  This isn’t unique to the Church.   Isabella (of Ferdinand and Isabella fame) was King of Castile—a female King.  In fact, Elizabeth II in England is legally male.  In her role as monarch, in her Body Political, she exercises male prerogatives.  (Read Ernest Kantorowicz’s book The King’s Two Bodies to understand the difference between the Body Politic and the Body Personal.  This applies in the history of law not only to monarchs but other officials—including Bishops—who have a public persona attached to an office and a personal persona of their own identity.  It is where we get the idea that one must respect the office even if one does not respect the man.  Oopps, there again—see how patriarchy is just built into our way of thinking). 

       Well, pardon that digression but as I was saying I had not thought of the Church as being exceptionally patriarchal, that is more patriarchal than most other institutions in our society, until I read Cardinal Levada’s decree on the LCWR.  Wow.  Why can’t he just sit down with the ladies and iron this out—dialogue wise.  Oh, I forgot, dialogue presumes and equality of partners and there is no equality of partners here.  And so we are back to the basic models of pastors who can bully their flocks and think their flocks should be grateful to them for the abuse.  Maybe LCWR should just go over, plunk a roll of bills on the Cardinal’s desk and announce to him that they really don’t need his CDF and walk out with their pride—and integrity—intact.    

      In the end Cardinal Levada’s response reminds me of the play A Man for All Seasons.  When ol’ Henry VIII can’t find the evidence to convict Thomas More, he brings in a ringer to give false testimony to justify the Saint’s beheading. And when Mother Mary Clare came back with her report that despite a few problems, the American Sisters were in pretty good shape, Levada had to trump up some charges to justify lowering the ax.  But at the end of the day, I just wonder why the boys in Rome are so frightened of 55,000 female American septuagenarians.  It must have something to do with their relationships with their mothers—but then, hey, isn’t that what celibacy is all about?   Dear God, can’t You give us some healthy people—even if they are men—for leadership?  At least until we are ready to trust women with leadership?  Well things are backing up.  I still want to do one more entry on the American Sisters and the historical context of this current conflict, and I just heard that the Bishop of Peoria made an ass of himself in the pulpit comparing the President to Hitler and Stalin.  Dear Lord, slow down the making of history so we can go back to the sixteenth century when the Cardinals were too busy poisoning one another to worry about the nuns.