“Using the computer or the smartphone, being up to date on what is happening and recognizing the language that others use is a big help for dialogue with those who come to see us or ask for help.”
The moment was more “Kumbaya” than “Come to Jesus” on Tuesday (Dec. 16) as the Vatican released the much-anticipated results of an investigation of women’s religious communities in the U.S., the first of two controversial investigations of American nuns by the Roman Curia.
Catholic nuns in the U.S. have been thumbing their nose at Rome’s demands to toe the doctrinal line and they need to obey or face serious consequences, the Vatican’s enforcer of orthodoxy said in a surprisingly tough talk to women representing most American sisters.
Pope Francis on Wednesday (May 8) told leaders of women’s orders from around the world to be “fertile” spiritual mothers in the Catholic Church, not “spinsters.”
The Argentine pontiff addressed some 800 leaders of female religious orders who are in Rome for the meeting of the International Union of Superiors General.
American nuns facing a Vatican takeover of their leadership organization on Friday (Aug. 10) rejected Rome’s plans to recast the group in a more conservative mold, but declined – for now – to respond with an ultimatum that could have created an unprecedented schism between the sisters and the hierarchy.
A long-simmering conflict between the Vatican and American nuns erupted again on Monday (June 4) when the Vatican's doctrinal office issued a scathing critique of a popular book on sexual ethics by Sister Margaret A. Farley, one of the first Catholics to teach at Yale Divinity School.