Dec 5, 2000

It was reported in the December issue of the Western Kentucky Catholic that leaders of two local religious communities, the Ursulines and the Glenmarys in Owensboro, recently attended the annual assembly of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious.  The 2000 assembly was attended by "sisters" Rose Marita O'Bryan, Suzanne Sims, and Christine Beckett.  The theme for this year's assembly that took place on August 17-21 was "Risk the Sacred Journey".  LCWR president "sister" Nancy Sylvester addressed the assembly.  The article in the WKC, quoting from Sylvester's address, describes Sylvester's view of the expression of religious life as "situated in, critical of, and expressive of the culture and values of the United States."  She refers to religious women as "moral agents" whose expression of religious life is at an "empasse" with the "official Church".

Activities of the assembly that were reported included;

• Three "resolutions" adopted by this assembly.  They were reported in the WKC as vowing to work for:
  1. legislation that will help people move out of poverty as the welfare reform act comes up for reauthorization in 2002;
  2. better conditions for laborers in maquiladora factories along the U.S.-Mexican border;
  3. support of a "global peace force" to assist in resolution of local and regional conflicts.
• A declaration of support of the ministry of Franciscan Sister Maryagnes Curran in her ministry to the people of Pajarito Mesa.
• Transferring leadership of the LCWR:  Mary Mollison took office as president of the LCWR with Kathleen Pruitt being elected vice president.

According to statements on their own web site, the LCWR is "...a canonically approved membership organization which exists as a support system and corporate voice for leaders of institutes of women religious (Catholic sisters) in the United States" whose purpose is to "promote an understanding of the religious life of Catholic sisters in the United States through its service to religious leaders."

The LCWR was "canonically approved" in 1956.  An excerpt from a review of the LCWR web site by Trinity Communications says that "a review of their history and focus shows major changes over the years with extreme radicalization coinciding with the rise of feminism and the post Vatican II confusion".  Among issues the conference seems most concerned with today are the closing of the School of the Americas, supporting the "oppressed" and "marginalized" in our society ("patriarchal" society, that is) - particularly if third world countries or American Indians are involved, promotion of the "gay and lesbian" ministry, and calling for the ordination of women in the Catholic Church.

A little internet search for the "Leadership Conference of Women Religious" revealed over 800 web pages mentioning the conference.  A sampling of comments and reports on the LCWR include:

• 1974: Leadership Conference of Women Religious resolves that all ministries in the Church should be open to women and men as the Spirit calls them; and that women should have active participation in all decision-making bodies in the Roman Catholic Church.
• During the 1979 papal visit to the United States, Sr. Teresa Kane, then president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), in a call for the women's ordination, urged the pope to include “half of humankind” in “all the ministries of the church.”
• (Taken from) 1998 Call to Action Conference Agenda:

  "A Vision for the 21st Century Church: An End to Idolatry

  Theresa Kane, RSM, analyzes the concept and history of idolatry, so significant for issues of community and sacrament in the Church.  Through present-day idolatry, women are excluded from full sacramental life and from adult decision-making.  This prevents the fullness of Church as sacrament and community.  Kane has been in leadership positions for the Sisters of Mercy for two decades.  She has been president of the congregation, and president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious..."

  This is apostate radical feminism.  The only sacrament women are excluded from are "holy orders"; ordination.

• According to a web site called "www.catholiclesbians.org" Theresa Kane gave the Keynote Address at the 1982 Conference for Catholic Lesbians.  You can read it here.

Why does our diocesan newspaper never report on the "other" women's religious conference?

In the 1992 Spring NCCB Meeting Cardinal James Hickey of Washington reported that the Pope had approved a second conference of religious women in the United States to represent those who believe that the Leadership Conference of Women Religious is too liberal (LCWR).  This second conference is called the Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious (CMSWR) and it, too, is a canonically approved organization.  The Vatican Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life definitively approved the CMSWR's statutes on October 26, 1995.

Here is an excerpt from a report by the ZENIT News Agency in Rome;

During their interventions at the Synod, American Sisters Mary Bernard Nettle, LSP and Mary Waskowiak, RSM provided a clear illustration of the differences that separate their organizations: the newly created Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious (CMSWR) and the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) respectively.

Both nuns are attending the Synod as auditors, each as presidents of her organization of women religious.

Sister Waskowiak, from the LCWR, began her intervention by recalling that the organization she heads was created 41 years ago and "comprises 94 precent of the 83,400 women religious in the United States." She called for a more prominent place for women in the ecclesial structure, demanding an "appropriate mechanism to separate jurisdiction from ordination so that the non-ordained, particularly women, may participate in decision-making processes" within Church areas relevant to them. Further embellishing her desire for a diffusion of ecclesial authority, she also suggested the creation of a inter-American organization composed of bishops, religious, and lay people dedicated to "implementing the desires of the Synod."

In her turn, Sister Nettle, head of the CMSWR, representing some 60 women's congregations, highlighted the need for each order to remain faithful to its own charism, and concentrated on describing one of her congregations, the Little Sisters of the Poor. She reminded the assembly that the "elderly must be protected from suicide and euthanasia," and that "accompanying the elderly on their journey towards the kingdom means leading them to pray for themselves and others, affording them the benefits of the Sacraments, and with their families, assisting them in their dying."

Sister Nettle, with her more strongly traditional exposition of the role of religious life, won significantly warmer applause from the assembly of bishops.

According to the Vatican's Congregation for the Religious, the United States is the only country in America with two official women religious organizations. The Pontifical approval of the CMSWR-- a response to the special crisis facing women's religious orders in the United States-- was granted by the Vatican four years ago. Although it now represents about 7 percent of women's religious institutes, the CMSWR is growing rapidly, unlike the LCWR; the congregations belonging to the CMSWR account for about 35 percent of the total of new religious vocations in the US.

There is more to the address that the then-president Sylvester delivered to the assembly where three of our own "sisters" were in attendance.  Somehow, this part didn't quite make it into the WKC article.  While reflecting on "where we are on our sacred journey" and citing the Second Vatican Council as being their call (I don't remember where dissent from Church authority is mentioned in any Vatican II document), she criticizes the traditional consecrated religious life (cloisters) as "static" communities that are expected to uphold and obey the magisterium of the Church - the worldview of a "patriarchal clerical culture" and one with which they "beg to differ".  While respecting "loyal dissent" she expounds on the suffering by those who follow their own conscience and find themselves in conflict with the Vatican.  She laments the unwillingness of the Church hierarchy to "dialogue" with them on issues that concern them (ie; women's ordination, gay and lesbian lifestyles, celibacy, etc., etc.).  In fact, although the reflection starts out with the usual noble social justice issues it quickly degrades into a litany of complaints against Church authority... which, according to the transcript, comprises most of Sylvester's address.

She mentions frustration at not being able to choose ministries in sensitive areas for fear that someone might "report to Rome what I am saying or doing".  If she's afraid that Rome will find out what she's doing then she must be doing something wrong.

She praises their new understanding of God provided to them by "liberation theology".  Calling themselves "the most well educated group of women in the Catholic Church at that time", she recalls the post-Vatican II revelation of women scholars that exposed the patriarchal, male-dominated society of the Church where women had no say in matters and how that "new perspective" led them to a "new awareness" and "invited us to a radical rethinking about the goodness of creation, our bodies and sexuality".

Like reading the names of the dead she lists those "valued women religious" who are "casualties" in their war with Rome.  Some are women whose apostasy simply went over the edge and the Church finally said "enough is enough!".  More "casualties" included the approval of a "second leadership conference of women religious" (because the first one turned into a group of radical liberal feminists), official declarations by the Vatican on women's ordination, the "theologians and scholars who have lost their jobs and have been prevented from speaking in public forums over the years" (this means those heretics that were teaching errors in our seminaries and Catholic schools that the Church finally fired), and of course, the good "sister" Jeannine Gramick - the official martyr of their cause.

Meanwhile in Owensboro

These Ursulines and Glenmary "sisters" in Owensboro are members of the same diocesan "Council of Religious" that invited the notorious Edwina Gateley to our diocese to give a presentation.  These people are poisoning our Catholic faith and misleading countless people who fail to read past the first few lines of their seemingly benevolent mission statements and see what these "sisters" are really up to.  A few visits to soup kitchens and death row and everybody gets their warm fuzzy feeling and thinks these "sisters" are just doing the work of God.  Well, it's work they're doing alright... but it's for the ruler of a much warmer climate.

"When are we, Religious women, going to wake up to the harm we are doing to the Church by the way we live and act and dress today?  Before you try to take on the duties of the sacred priesthood, dear sisters, I would sincerely suggest that you clean up your own houses."
~Sr. Mary Jeanetter Cerney, S.D.M., Ph.D., Columbus, OH (quoted from Our Sunday Visitor)