Peggy Thompson is a scholar of the history of women religious in the United States. She was asked to give a homily at her parish church offering an over view of a thorny situation in our Church and to plumb the depths of scripture for application to this process of discernment. Many are aware of the controversy but few understand what has happened. Peggy has done a great service by synthesizing what has happened and stating the current situation. It is worth reading. Reprinted here with permission.
When Father Jim
asked me to speak this weekend, I was both excited and nervous. I was excited
because it’s been a long time since I’ve spoken here, and nervous because he
asked me to address some of the controversy that has erupted recently between
the Vatican and the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (or “LCWR”), a
large organization that represents most of the Catholic sisters in the United
States. The Syracuse Franciscans are part of LCWR; so are the Sisters of St.
Joseph of Carondelet and most of the
other sisters who minister in Syracuse. I’m not nervous because I am afraid to
talk about this subject—though some people are—but because it’s a subject so
important to me, and something I feel so strongly about, that I was afraid I
couldn’t do the topic justice.
Briefly, let me try to explain what the controversy is
all about. In December 2008, two
separate offices in the Vatican initiated investigations into women’s religious
life in the US. The first—and the one
that originally seemed to arouse the most attention and suspicion, was called a
Visitation, and—as the name suggests, involved visits to large numbers of
sisters’ communities by delegates (mostly other sisters) who took special oaths
of fidelity to the Vatican and then made secret reports about their
findings. It was the oaths and the
secrecy that caused a lot of concern, but this investigation ended up (at least
so far as we know now—but who knows?) kind of fizzling out.
Meanwhile, the second one—conducted by the
“Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith” (what used to be called the “Inquisition”)—didn’t
get a lot of attention at all. Its focus
was not on rank-and-file sisters but, rather,
on the organization to which their leaders belonged, and which was
suspected of theological radicalism, mainly because of what some speakers at
its assemblies had said, or because of some “working papers” that had been
published for the benefit of their members.
For three years, not only did this investigation receive
almost no attention but, according to LCWR’s officers (who met regularly with
various Vatican officials, who assured them there was no need to be concerned),
the sense was that it, like the Visitation, was not going to amount to
much. Then, last April, without any
warning and very shortly after another apparently uneventful meeting between
LCWR’s officers and the relevant Vatican prelates, an edict was issued. Stated simply, LCWR was judged to reflect a
number of theological irregularities, including too much emphasis on social
justice, and not enough emphasis on matters such as opposition to abortion and
same-sex marriage. Also, speakers at
LCWR assemblies, and LCWR leaders themselves, were found guilty of harboring so-called “radical feminist ideas” (ideas which were never defined). So three bishops were appointed to oversee
the “reform” of LCWR. As of now, it is
unclear what will happen. LCWR had its annual meeting in August, at which time
those present said they would continue to dialogue with the Vatican and the 3
bishops, but might reconsider their cooperation if they were asked to compromise
anything essential to what they are all about.
Whew! This is a
story that, as of now, does not have an end.
Some observers think the timing too neatly coincided with the 2012 US
election (keep in mind that all of this applies only to sisters in the US), in
part because LCWR—as well as other organizations wholly or largely led by
sisters, such as the NETWORK social justice lobby and the Catholic Health
Association—had supported the Affordable Care Act, while the US Bishops had
not. It’s not my intention here to go
into more detail about this, except to say that while it is a mess that seems
confined to sisters at the moment, in fact it affects all of us, and that is
what I want to reflect on in the rest of my remarks today.
First, most of us know and love and have benefitted from
the friendship, example, and ministry of countless Catholic sisters. Whether
it’s Sister Pat and Sister Eileen in our parish—and others, such as Sister
Margaret when she was with us and the many sister-teachers at St. Lucy’s
School, as well as thousands of other schools around the country including our
own Diocese, not to mention those at St. Joseph’s Hospital going back to the
soon-to-be-canonized Mother Marianne Cope—most of us regard the sisters as OUR sisters, who
dedicate their lives to prayer and ministry and radical representation and
incarnation of Jesus’s Gospel. Indeed,
in the months since the April edict from Rome, literally tens of thousands of
American Catholics have expressed their support for their sisters. We have done so here through special prayer
vigils, the signing of petitions, and welcoming our own diocesan “Nuns on the
Bus” just a couple of weeks ago. When
Sister Simone Campbell, director of NETWORK, spoke the other night at the
Democratic National Convention, her strong call for social justice and
reconciliation was greeted with applause in the hall and almost universal
praise and gratitude from those commenting in the media and among the general
public. I think those who called for the investigation and those in charge of
it have been astonished by the widespread enthusiasm that American
Catholics—and not just Catholics—have expressed in so many ways.
Second, many people wonder: why the sisters? After a
decade in which the sexual abuse scandal has rocked the church not just in the
US but in so many parts of the world, and during which financial mismanagement
(and worse) by too many prelates has made repeated headlines, why is it the
sisters who are threatened with discipline, external supervision, and censure? This is not a question I can answer—but it’s
certainly one that has been asked a lot.
Third, we know from experience, and through the
examples of so many of those whose pictures line the walls of this parish, that
an attack on one of us is an attack on us all.
Today it is the Sisters; who will it be tomorrow? We have to stand in
solidarity with those who are under attack, both because we want people to
stand with us if WE are attacked but, more importantly, because—as many of us
learned from both the formal lessons and the selfless examples of the
sisters—it is the right thing to do. As Pastor Martin Niemuller famously said,
when the Nazis overran his native Germany:
First they came for the socialists, and I didn't speak
out because I wasn't a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't
speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak out
because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for me, and there was no one left to
speak for me.
So often these days, we hear the
phrase, “What would Jesus do?” It seems
particularly relevant under these circumstances. Jesus stood firmly with those who were
marginalized, abused, assaulted both verbally and physically, and those
condemned by the contemporary powers-that-be.
If we read the Sermon on the Mount, we see not only what was at the core
of Jesus’s life and ministry, but what is central to what the sisters are being
condemned for doing—BY THE POWERS THAT BE IN THEIR OWN ARENA. Indeed, two of the Beatitudes seem
particularly important for us to remember today, and should give comfort to the
sisters of LCWR: “Blessed are those persecuted for holiness’ sake; the reign of
God is theirs.” And, even more powerfully:
“Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of
slander against you because of me. Be glad and rejoice, for your reward is
great in heaven.”
A homily, of course, is supposed to reflect upon the
Scriptures for today, and I haven’t really done that yet, have I? So, if you’ll give me just a couple of more
minutes, let me correct that—but in a somewhat indirect way. Last week’s Gospel, from Chapter 7 of Mark,
excited me, because I knew what came next in that chapter, and it seemed just
PERFECT for what Father Jim asked me to discuss today. But then, when I looked
at THIS week’s Gospel, I saw that the story of the Syro-Phoenician woman—known
as the Canaanite woman when the same story is told in Matthew’s Gospel—was
curiously (or not-so-curiously) skipped over. Let me read the version from Matthew, and
you’ll see what I mean:
Jesus left the place where he was and withdrew to the
district of Tyre and Sidon. It happened
that a Canaanite woman living in that locality presented herself, crying out to
him: “Lord, Son of David, have pity on me! My daughter is terribly troubled by
a demon.” He gave her no word of
response. His disciples came up and
began to entreat him, “Get rid of her. She keeps shouting after us.” “My mission is only to the lost sheep of the
house of Israel,” Jesus replied. She
came forward then and did him homage with the plea, “Help me, Lord!” But he answered, “It is not right to take the
food of sons and daughters and throw it to the dogs.” “Please, Lord,” she insisted, “even the dogs
eat the leavings that fall from their masters’ tables.” Jesus then said in reply, “Woman, you have
great faith! Your wish will come to
pass.” That very moment her daughter got
better.
The Syro-Phoenician or Canaanite
woman—who, by rights, we should have celebrated in today’s Gospel reading—is an alien and a woman: a marginalized,
anonymous and seemingly powerless figure--and yet she dares to approach Jesus
for help. The disciples—institutional
ancestors, we are told, of the hierarchy of today—beg Jesus to tell her to shut
up and go away. He ignores her, and then
calls her a dog. And this beautiful woman, so marginal a figure that we are not
even told her name, persists. She pleads
not for herself, but for her daughter.
And ultimately Jesus sees the light.
He calls her a "woman of great faith," and rids her daughter
of the demon. The woman disappears; we never hear of her again. But she remains the only person in scripture
who does one extraordinary thing: she is the only one who changes Jesus' mind.
This, it seems to me, is a revolutionary
incident. And, as for its omission from
the Gospels we hear at Sunday Mass, who can blame the hierarchy from trying to
keep us from hearing it? For if the bishops can see themselves in
"apostolic succession" to the disciples, then maybe we should see the
woman in this Gospel account as one of us—or, more specifically, as the
“mother” of today’s religious Sisters—and OUR sisters! Marked by faith, fearlessness in faith, persistence,
and compassion, her determination changed not only Jesus's mind but salvation
history. She tells those of us with
nothing that we have nothing to lose, so we may as well take risks and confront
religious authority, even God.
But
she also holds out hope, not only for the sisters of LCWR, but for us all. If even JESUS could change his mind, she
holds out the possibility that truly radical change is both possible and
legitimate. Her prayer, after all, was
answered; her daughter was healed. And
so the women of LCWR and we, also her daughters and sons, can pray TO her and
WITH her—for persistence, for dialogue, for healing, and in anticipation of ongoing
reconciliation, and transformation for us all.
Sr. Theresa Kane is
currently teaching at Mercy College in Dobbs Ferry, NY. She resides at Marian
Woods, an assisted living facility for women religious. In 1978 she was
appointed to deliver words of welcome to Pope John Paul II at the Basilica of
the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. At the time she was serving as
president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR).The event
received world-wide media coverage. In her remarks she raised the topic of
issues pertinent to women including reference to consideration of access by
women to all of the ministerial roles in the Church including ordained
priesthood. Her remarks were startling and brought on a storm of response on
all sides of the issue. Below appear my notes of her remarks at the ACWR meeting.
