Pope to U.S. bishops: reform of Catholic universities the ‘most urgent challenge’

ROME, May 11, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Against a backdrop of institutionalized opposition to Catholic teaching in much of American Catholic academia, Pope Benedict XVI has told visiting U.S. bishops that Catholic colleges need to return to being a bastion of orthodoxy against an increasingly hostile and aggressive secular world.

While improvements have been made, Pope Benedict said, “much remains to be done,” particularly in “such basic areas” as compliance with Canon 812 of the Code of Canon Law. That section mandates that theology professors at Catholic universities be faithful to the teaching of the Church.

Canon 218 says, “Those who are engaged in the sacred disciplines enjoy a lawful freedom of inquiry and of prudently expressing their opinions on matters in which they have expertise, while observing due respect for the magisterium of the Church.”

This lack of progress, the pope said, has created confusion by “instances of apparent dissidence” between academics and the bishops. “Such discord harms the Church’s witness and, as experience has shown, can easily be exploited to compromise her authority and her freedom.”

The issue of religious freedom is at the top of the American bishops’ agenda at the moment, in the midst of their fight against the Obama administration’s attempt to mandate coverage of artificial birth control by Catholic institutions. Even as the U.S. bishops have fought the Obama mandate, prominent Catholic organizations have expressed their support, undercutting the efforts of the bishops. Most recently Georgetown University, a Catholic Jesuit university, invited Kathleen Sebelius, who as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services was the architect of the birth control mandate, as a commencement speaker.

The pope called the need to reform Catholic academia the “most urgent internal challenge facing the Catholic community” in the U.S.

“Catholic identity, not least at the university level, entails much more than the teaching of religion or the mere presence of a chaplaincy on campus.

“All too often, it seems, Catholic schools and colleges have failed to challenge students to reappropriate their faith,” Benedict continued.

In the decades since the 1960s, most Catholic universities and colleges in the U.S., and around the world, have shifted their focus from being bastions of Catholic orthodoxy against the outside world’s secularism, to playing along with the zeitgeist, especially in areas of sexual morality. Most critics agree that this shift in Catholic academia was the source and engine of the more general shift in the same direction throughout the Church’s institutions and among the laity.

In recent years, this shift toward a secularist orientation has shown itself prominently in Catholic academia’s quiet, or even open support first for contraception use, then legal abortion, homosexual behaviour and most recently euthanasia.

The scramble of American Catholic academia away from Church teaching on sexual matters began to be seen in public in 1967 when Fr. Charles Curran, a former theological advisor or “peritus” at the Second Vatican Council, was re-instated at his tenured professorship at Catholic University of America (CUA) after having been sacked for opposing Catholic teaching on artificial contraception.

Curran, who was barred by the Vatican from teaching Catholic theology and now teaches at a Methodist university, became a herald of the new, updated and heavily secularized version of Catholicism when in 1968, he, together with 600 other theologians, authored an open letter formally dissenting from Pope Paul VI’s encyclical on contraception, Humanae Vitae.

This new, and increasingly popular version of Catholicism became highly fashionable, first at CUA, the American Catholic Church’s flagship educational institution, then throughout most of the Church’s most prominent colleges, seminaries and convents. From there, the idea of the “loyal dissenter” in the Catholic intellectual establishment spread out into the political world, leading finally to the advent of the “pro-choice” Catholic politicians who now represent the majority of Catholics in public life.

In the current, highly politicized climate since the reaction of the U.S. bishops against the Obama administration’s contraception mandate, some Catholic colleges are starting to pull back from full support for the secularist agenda.

In an address to Catholic academic loyalists at Franciscan University of Steubenville, Cardinal Newman Society (CNS) President Patrick J. Reilly said that a return to Catholic orthodoxy, far from being a retreat to the “Catholic ghetto,” would create a strong line of defense for religious liberty in the U.S.

“There is little question that the apparent hypocrisy of some Catholic colleges, charities, schools and other entities—which may dissent from church teachings, or may have watered down their religious identity in search of state and federal funds—reduces public sympathy for groups whose rights are threatened,” Reilly said.
 
“There is no question that the threats to Catholics’ religious liberty are wrong. But it is the failure of the Church to respond adequately to dissent, to clearly distinguish Catholic from secular identity, that endangers even the most faithful Catholic apostolates by feeding suspicion in a culture already suspicious of the Church,” he continued.

Reilly’s remarks are in line with Pope Benedict’s previous messages to visiting American bishops this year. Speaking to the bishops of Baltimore and Washington in January, the pope said, “The legitimate separation of Church and State cannot be taken to mean that the Church must be silent on certain issues, nor that the State may choose not to engage, or be engaged by, the voices of committed believers in determining the values which will shape the future of the nation.”

He noted that the founding American political “consensus” of political, social and religious liberty, “has eroded significantly in the face of powerful new cultural currents” that are “directly opposed to core moral teachings of the Judeo-Christian tradition” and “increasingly hostile to Christianity as such”.

Nancy Pelosi says Catholic faith ‘compels’ her to support gay marriage

On Thursday, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said that she supports gay marriage because her religion “compels” her to “be against discrimination of any kind.”

“My religion has, compels me–and I love it for it–to be against discrimination of any kind in our country, and I consider this a form of discrimination. I think it’s unconstitutional on top of that,” she said.

Pelosi professes to be a Catholic, causing Jim Hoft of the Gateway Pundit to ask:  “How can she call herself a Catholic when she repeatedly comes out against Church doctrine?”

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CNS News explains:

While opposing “unjust discrimination” against homosexuals, the Catechism of the Catholic Church says that homosexual acts are “contrary to the natural law” and can never be approved and that marriage is the sacramental union of a man and a woman.

“Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that ‘homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered,’” the Catechism adds. 

“They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.”

Pelosi said at her weekly press briefing that Obama’s latest stand on gay marriage, which is the position he held in 1996 before saying he opposed gay marriage in 2004, “made history” and called the announcement, “a great day for America.“

She expressed hope that Obama’s announcement would “bring people together” on the issue.

“It’s a matter of time, it’s all a matter of time,” she said. “On these issues, what is inevitable to some of us is inconceivable to others. What we want to do is shorten the difference between the inevitable and the inconceivable and I think the president went a long way in doing that yesterday,” indicating that same sex marriage will eventually become the law of the land.

She also told reporters that Obama’s support of gay marriage “is worth any political backlash against Democrats,” The Hill reported Thursday.  The former House Speaker went so far as to suggest the issue is more important than winning elections.

“We come here to do a job for the American people, not to hold a job,” she said, claiming that Obama’s announcement advanced “the cause of civil rights.”

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Tulsa Oratorio Chorus to perform Bach’s Mass in B Minor to end its season

No one decides to take up mountain climbing one day and heads off to Nepal to scale Mount Everest the next.

The same principle is true when it comes to performing what is one of the most monumental works of music in the choral repertoire: the Mass in B Minor by J.S. Bach.

“This piece is about as epic as choral music gets,” said Tim Sharp, artistic director for the Tulsa Oratorio Chorus, which will conclude its season Saturday with performance of the Mass in B Minor.

“Just the scale of the thing is impressive – 23 choral movements, not counting the vocal solos and the orchestral sections,” he said. “And it draws so much out of everyone involved. That’s why I devoted our entire season to Bach’s music, as a way of preparing for this work.”

The concert will feature the full Tulsa Oratorio Chorus, accompanied by the Tulsa Symphony Orchestra, organist William Buthod and harpsichordist Joan Hatley, along with five vocal soloists.

Two are local singers – tenor Kim Childs, professor of choral studies and voice at the University of Tulsa; and soprano Mallory Swain, a member of the TOC. The other soloists are bass Kevin Eckard, soprano Lynn Eustis and mezzo-soprano Shannon Unger.

Bach devoted much of his career to composing music for the Lutheran church, producing music to be performed for specific religious services.

But he also, as music critic Ted Libbey wrote, would create pieces “not for practical use, but as an example of what could be achieved within a given form.”

The Mass in B Minor is one of these works, one that uses the form of the Catholic Mass as the foundation of a universal statement of faith.

“This is my fourth time to conduct this piece, and I have to admit I think I’m finally getting a grasp on it,” Sharp said. “Bach reworked a number of his previous compositions to be parts of the Mass, and when you really delve into this piece, you get a sense of the architecture of what he is trying to do, the cyclical nature of how he’s building this story he wants this piece to tell.

“This is at once a gigantic statement of faith, and a catalog of the best things he’s ever done,” he said. “It makes you understand the genius that Bach was. There is no end to the meaning within the work.”

Sharp also plans to make use of the architecture of the Boston Avenue church itself to present this piece.

“In the first half, we’ll have the chorus in a traditional arrangement,” he said. “But the second half of the piece makes use of a double chorus, so we’ll shift a portion of the chorus into the church’s choir loft, to amplify what Bach wanted from the second half of this piece.”

Original Print Headline: Chorus to tackle epic Bach work to finish its season

New Catholic retreat center Terra Sancta dedicated

Benedictine Sister Therese Marie Furois walked the halls of her old monastery on Thursday and marveled at its transformation into Terra Sancta.

The nuns of St. Martin Monastery, who once called the sprawling 150,000-square building home, were back for a full day of prayer and public tours of the new Catholic retreat center and elementary school that began with a 9 a.m. Lakota blessing ceremony.

“There’s a lot of memories here. It’s a joyful day,” said Sister Florence McManamen. “It’s beautiful. They did a wonderful job.”

Thursday’s rededication events ended with a Catholic Mass attended by an estimated 500 people and con-celebrated by two bishops and priests of the diocese. Bishop Blase Cupich of the Diocese of Spokane launched Terra Sancta’s capital campaign back in 2007, when he served as head of the Rapid City diocese, with the purchase of the building and 200 acres from the Benedictine community. Cupich was replaced by Bishop Robert Gruss last year and he returned to Rapid City to see the nearly completed facility.

“It’s amazing what happens when people come together as a community and really get behind a project,” said Gruss. “I don’t know that we could have asked for a better result. It’s really quite beautiful.”

After nearly five years of planning and $16.7 million in construction costs, the Rev. Steve Biegler is thrilled with the end result, too.

“I may have been the lead, but this job was a team effort by a lot of very talented people,” Biegler said.

On Thursday, Biegler showed off some of the attention to detail that went into planning Terra Sancta.

Stone archways engraved with “Via Crucis” – the way of cross – lead into the Holy Cross Chapel, and its entryway boasts the New Jerusalem donor wall, designed to reflect that Terra Sancta donors are the “living stone” on which Christ built his church. The names of major donors are engraved above the names of numerous saints and others whose histories have significant ties to the Catholic Church in western South Dakota, Biegler said.

But the job isn’t quite finished yet. On Thursday, the front entrance to the renamed and reconfigured chapel still was in the final construction stages. A set of outdoor hiking trails, including a handicapped-accessible Stations of the Cross path, remain to be completed, Biegler said.

A new roof will be finished in the coming months, just in time for the 2012-13 school year to start at St. Elizabeth Seton Elementary School at Terra Sancta in August. The new school, for preschool through fifth-grade students, occupies the northern wing of the former monastery.

A retreat center, with family- and monastic-style rooms, is in the south half of the building and opens onto the Kateri Courtyard – named for the Native American woman Kateri Tekakwitha, who will be canonized as a Roman Catholic saint in October. On Thursday, Jhon Goes In Center of Pine Ridge stood in the center of the courtyard that had been smudged with sage and sang to his ancestors, asking the “Lakota angels” to bless Terra Sancta as the “holy ground” that its Latin name suggests.

“This idea of terra sancta is a metaphor that connects us to the reality that … all that we have comes from the earth,” Goes In Center said.

Bishop Gruss hopes Terra Sancta will provide an environment for people to grow in their love of the Lord, whether they are elementary school students or people from other denominations who utilize the retreat center.

“It’s a holy place for all holy people — and for people who want to become holy,” Gruss said with a smile.

Sister Carol Kovarik said the concept of holy ground may have different meanings to different people, but people have always found the sacred in this secluded spot on the northwest edge of Rapid City. They will find it at the newly renovated Terra Sancta, too, she said, as it continues the Benedictine mission of education and prayer that the religious community first brought to the Black Hills in 1889.

“The people helped to make this place holy … and there’s a lot of good people out here,” Kovarik said. “There’s a feeling of loss and a feeling of gain in all this.

“But anyone who has come here has always felt a sense of peace … and that will continue.”

Contact Mary Garrigan at 394-8424 or mary.garrigan@rapidcityjournal.com.

New Old Catholic nun is first in nation

OGDEN — When you meet Sister Rachael Therese Sophie Christian of the Blessed Mother, you find a patient person who is willing to love all people, regardless of where they come from.

It’s hard to imagine the loud, outspoken person she tells you she used to be and how she sometimes has fought within herself.

But despite her seemingly quiet nature, Christian, 52, is breaking bold ground in the religious community.

Last Sunday, she became the first Old Catholic nun in the nation. The North American Old Catholic Church is a sect of 21 parishes in the United States. The church calls itself a progressive group that accepts people for who they are and wherever they are in their lives.

“In the North American world, I’m it,” she said of her new appointment.

But Christian said when she first went to Glory to God Church 13 years ago, she was fearful of God and fearful of the people around her, because she’d been hurt a lot.

The new nun has overcome great odds to get where she is.

Her struggles include frequent moves while she was young.

Her parents got divorced when she was 6 and she lived with a stepfather who, she said, was a source of hardship in her life.

And both of her parents died before she was 18.

With a passion for caring for the mentally disabled, Christian also has held difficult positions watching out for those who couldn’t watch out for themselves.

But through it all, Christian said, her belief that she would one day become a nun has held her up.

“This is something that has carried with me since I was 4,” she said.

Christian remembers playing with another girl at that age.

She recalls clearly the girl saying to her, “We’re going to do great things for God.”

Then Christian said the girl turned to her and said: “You’re going to be a nun.”

Christian turned to her friend and said: “You’re going to be a pastor.”

Suffering from a heart condition similar to what Christian said she has struggled with herself, the friend died the next day.

Christian said she recalls telling the parents of the deceased girl: “She’s OK. She’s with Jesus.”

The new nun said the amazing thing about both those conversations is that she was not being raised in a church.

And she didn’t go to church while she was growing up.

She said hurt feelings from her past led her down to her lowest point.

“I spent most of my life running from the church,” she said. “People tend to find God when they are at their lowest point.”

Christian recalls the conversation with a friend that led her to worship. The friend had simply asked her to go to church with her.

And on her first visit to Glory to God, Christian said, Rev. Jim Morgan chased her out into the yard of the chapel to praise the fact that the church was still standing after having had her attend.

And then, she said, Morgan called to tell her that she was missed at church when she stayed away for a few weeks.

And Morgan soon became her closest mentor.

The priest said he admires the work Christian has been willing to do with herself.

“She is probably one of the most brave and courageous women I have ever met,” Morgan said. “Most of us avoid facing growth in ourselves, but she has faced it square on.

“She has faced some of the most difficult emotional growth, and she has come out one of the strongest and most holy women I know. That’s because she had the tenacity to stick with it.”

Christian admits that the path to the present has been tumultuous, especially the last five years when she has been working toward her final vows.

“It’s been an internal struggle,” she said.

But since Sunday when she took her final vows, she said, she feels much different.

“My life went from being a chaotic mess, until it was the greatest peace I’ve ever known in my life.”

Of the Benedictine Order of Anacletians, Christian said her role will be for silence. Her order requires her not to engage in idle conversation, instead putting her focus on listening to the direction to which God is calling her.

“You spend your time focused on what God wants you to be,” she said. “I always have my heart on Jesus. He’s who saved my life.”

Already, she does much for the church.

She writes the opening prayers for the congregation and a column for the church website.

She leads Bible studies and has taught a number of classes for first communion and vacation Bible school.

But perhaps her biggest job is serving as an example.

“The rule of St. Benedict is to allow you to serve where you are in the world, being who you are and knowing what God has in store for you, so you can be a vessel for God,” said the Most Rev. Michael Seneco, presiding bishop of the North American Old Catholic Church. He noted that Christian is talented in that way.

Terry Mattingly: Pope Benedict lectures the professors

In his latest address to American bishops visiting Rome, Pope Benedict XVI stressed that Catholic educators should remain true to the faith — a reminder issued just in time for another tense season of commencement addresses.

No, the pope did not mention Georgetown University by name when discussing the Catholic campus culture wars.

Yes, he did mention the law requiring professors who teach Catholic theology to obtain a Canon 812 “mandatum” (“mandate”) document from their bishops to certify that they are truly Catholic theologians.

Many American bishops have cited a “growing recognition on the part of Catholic colleges and universities of the need to reaffirm their distinctive identity in fidelity to their founding ideals and the church’s mission. … Much remains to be done, especially in such basic areas as compliance with the mandate laid down in Canon 812 for those who teach theological disciplines,” said Benedict, who taught theology at the university level in Germany.

“The importance of this canonical norm as a tangible expression of ecclesial communion and solidarity in the church’s educational apostolate becomes all the more evident when we consider the confusion created by instances of apparent dissidence between some representatives of Catholic institutions and the church’s pastoral leadership: such discord harms the church’s witness and, as experience has shown, can easily be exploited to compromise her authority and her freedom.”

Benedict’s remarks to the bishops of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming came during the fourth of five Vatican visits by Americans reporting on life in their dioceses. His January address, to the bishops of Washington, D.C., Baltimore and the U.S. Armed Services, made news with its focus on threats to religious liberty. It came shortly before Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said the Obama administration would not withdraw its rules requiring the majority of religious institutions to cover all Food and Drug Administration-approved forms of contraception in health-insurance plans offered to employees, as well as to students.

Now, the pope has emphasized the need for Catholic educators to remain faithful in the same time frame as Georgetown University’s announcement that one featured speaker during its commencement rites will be none other than Sebelius — a liberal Catholic who last year warned abortion-rights activists that “we are in a war” to protect women from conservatives.

Conservative Catholics protested — see GeorgetownScandal.com — claiming that the Jesuit school’s invitation represented yet another violation of the 2004 U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops policy stating: “Catholic institutions should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles. They should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions.” The University of Notre Dame ignited a 2009 firestorm by granting President Barack Obama an honorary doctor of laws degree.

While it’s easy to focus on this new commencement controversy, Benedict’s address represents another skirmish in more than two decades of conflict between Rome and liberal Catholics entrenched on many college and university campuses. At the heart of the conflict is a 1990 “apostolic constitution” on education issued by Pope John Paul II titled “Ex Corde Ecclesiae” (“From the Heart of the Church”).

That document contains numerous statements that trouble American academics, including this one: “Catholic teaching and discipline are to influence all university activities, while the freedom of conscience of each person is to be fully respected. Any official action or commitment of the university is to be in accord with its Catholic identity.”

“That captures pretty much everything,” noted Patrick J. Reilly, president of the conservative Cardinal Newman Society.

Thus, in his address to the visiting American bishops, the pope stressed that Catholic universities are supposed to be helping the church defend its teachings, in an age in which they are constantly under attack.

The goal, said Benedict, is for Catholic schools to provide a “bulwark against the alienation and fragmentation which occurs when the use of reason is detached from the pursuit of truth and virtue. …

“Catholic institutions have a specific role to play in helping to overcome the crisis of universities today. Firmly grounded in this vision of the intrinsic interplay of faith, reason and the pursuit of human excellence, every Christian intellectual and all the church’s educational institutions must be convinced, and desirous of convincing others, that no aspect of reality remains alien to, or untouched by, the mystery of the redemption and the Risen Lord’s dominion over all creation.”

Cardinal Nicholas Cheong Jin-suk to retire as archbishop of Seoul

SEOUL, May 10 (Yonhap) — Cardinal Nicholas Cheong Jin-suk, the archbishop of Seoul, will retire from the top post of the Seoul Archdiocese next month, South Korean Catholic sources said.

   The sources said the Vatican will announce the new archbishop of Seoul at noon Thursday (Vatican time), adding that Bishop Andrew Yeom Soo-jung is likely to be named as the successor to the cardinal.

Cheong submitted his resignation in 2006 when he was 75 years old, the retirement age for archbishops. Vatican’s action on the resignation letter will be made with the appointment of a new archbishop.

   Cheong has served as the archbishop of Seoul for 14 years since May 1998, when he was appointed to the post following the late Cardinal Kim Sou-hwan (1922-2009).

   The Seoul Archdiocese plans to hold an inaugural ceremony for the new archbishop on June 25. Cheong will fulfill his duties as archbishop until that time.

   kts@yna.co.kr
(END)

Nancy Pelosi: My Catholic faith ‘compels me’ to support gay marriage

“My religion compels me–and I love it for it–to be against discrimination of any kind in our country, and I consider [the ban on gay marriage] a form of discrimination. I think it’s unconstitutional on top of that. So I think that yesterday was a great day for America because the president in a very personal, as well as presidential way, made history, and hopefully this will bring people together on the issue.”

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of Calif., holds her weekly news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, May 10, 2012.
(J. Scott Applewhite – AP)

May 10, 2012: House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on why she supports gay marriage.

Read more in the Faith 2012 Quote Archives.

More On Faith and gay marriage:

Obama: Christ inspired my support of same-sex marriage

Jim Daly: Why I support traditional marriage

Randy Roberts Potts: In North Carolina after Amendment One, ‘Let the wild rumpus start’

Obama’s pastor: “I’ve had better days”

US priests reportedly behind Vatican crackdown on nuns

Alberto Pizzoli / AFP – Getty Images file

Cardinal Bernard Francis Law prays during the Eucharistic celebration with the new cardinals on November 21, 2010 at St. Peter’s basilica at The Vatican.

A Vatican crackdown launched last month on the largest leadership organization for U.S. nuns reportedly was spurred on by American Catholic officials worried the nuns aren’t vocal enough on conservative social issues.

On April 18, after a three-year investigation, the Vatican’s doctrine watchdog appointed Archbishop J. Peter Sartain of Seattle to oversee the nuns’ organization and reform its programs to adhere more closely to “the teachings and discipline of the Church.” 

The issues raised by the Vatican include the nuns’ lack of outspokenness on issues such as gay marriage, abortion and contraception. Another concern is related to the conferences organized by the group featuring “a prevalence of certain radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith.”

In a statement, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, an umbrella organization representing 57,000 nuns in the U.S., said it had been “taken by surprise by the gravity of the mandate.”

The Vatican’s initiative was triggered by U.S. Archbishop William E. Lori’s petition to investigate the nuns, according to the National Catholic Reporter and the British Catholic weekly The Tablet. Lori was recently appointed by the pope to lead the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

According to those same reports, Cardinal Bernard F. Law — disgraced former archbishop of Boston — was “the person in Rome most forcefully supporting Bishop Lori’s proposal.” After media reports revealed he had permitted priests accused of sexually molesting children to continue serving, Law resigned in 2002. Pope John Paul II appointed Law as archpriest of the Papal Basilica of St. Mary Major in Rome in 2004, but he resigned from this position in November 2011 when he turned 80, the age most cardinals retire. 

Stephen J. Boitano / NBC via Getty Images file

Archbishop William Lori

Other American churchmen in Rome, including Cardinal Raymond Burke and Cardinal James Stafford, reportedly backed the investigation, according to the Religion News Service. The probe was led by former archbishop of San Francisco Cardinal William Levada, who has served on the Vatican’s doctrine congregation since 2005.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops would not comment on the role of U.S. priests in the investigation into the nuns.

The Americans in Rome wouldn’t have had the authority to start the investigation themselves, but they could lobby the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith — the Vatican’s doctrine watchdog — for it, religion journalist and Vatican expert David Gibson told msnbc.com. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was the head of this congregation before he was elected pope in 2005.

Gibson, a Religion News Service correspondent, said the crackdown shows that concerns about poverty and economic inequality are taking a backseat in the church.

“There’s so much riding on the gay marriage battle, and on abortion rights, and on contraception that [bishops] want everybody in the church to be doubling down on those issues and not being distracted by social justice,” Gibson told msnbc.com.

Bishops have been playing defense for years in the wake of the church’s sexual abuse crisis, and Gibson said they’ve been looking for issues on which they can reassert their moral authority.

“These issues are ones they think they can do that on, so they really want to show that… they’re calling the shots,” he added.

The statement issued by the Vatican read that “while there has been a great deal of work on the part of LCWR promoting issues of social justice in harmony with the church’s social doctrine, it is silent on the right to life from conception to natural death.”

While church leadership traditionally focuses on matters of doctrine, nuns have long been the public face of the church in the United States. They run the schools and hospitals and are concerned with performing the gospel rather than just preaching it from the pulpit, Gibson said.

American Catholics are showing their support for the nuns, organizing vigils all over the country to advocate for the end of the crackdown. The Nun Justice Project is one organization standing with the nuns against what they call “a prime example of how the hierarchy in the Roman Catholic Church misuses its power to diminish the voice of women.”

An online petition started by Nun Justice had garnered more than 41,000 signatures at the time this story was written. Sister Annmarie Sanders, director of communications for the LCWR, told msnbc.com the organization finds the public support “heartening.”

The LCWR will meet starting May 29 to begin its discussion of the Vatican’s  doctrinal assessment and the implementation plan put forth by the Holy See. The Vatican has the power to remove the official recognition of the LCWR.

{“contentId”:”11597887″,”totalVotes”:”19492″}

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Results with 216 short comments

Just like Conservatives, Crack down on your women, Shria Law anyone?

It may be the Vatican’s job, but it appears the LCWR has a stronger foothold than the church heirachy that reported them! Go, Sisters!

The priests need to fight abortion so they have more children to molest? Maybe they need to clean up their own house first?

Do as I say, not as I do is not a sustainable position for the church. I’m putting my money on the ladies, and social justice.

The Catholic Church is full of men trying to retain power over women who no longer wish to be submissive. Go Nuns!

Wasn’t the church the defender of the poor?

Women are and always have been second class direct in the Catholic Church. Now they are called on to be more “active.” Doesn’t make sense

One of the many reasons I am no longer
a practicing Catholic. Pedophiles ok,
hungry women and children not important!

The priest are just mad cuz it is getting more difficult to bugger little boys.

Funny how the Church will crack down on Nun’s who are concerned with social justice, but turn a blind eye to Ryan questioning Bishopauthori

The Catholic church is slipping deeper and deeper into the dark ages.

The child molesting hierarchy of the church realizes that women won’t make excuses for their rapist priests.

Typical Catholic church in action. Throughout history it has always been about power and money,and the preservation of both.

it almost sounds like the church wants nuns to engage in priestly duties just sayin’
also, this will drive more ppl from religion yay!

They are just deverting attention from the real problem…..

This shows how out of touch the Church is. Jesus never said not to use codoms, but he DID say to help the poor!!

Hate to shock the Catholic Church , but let me inform you – women are here to stay – so get used to the idea!

The church would rather the world were stuck in the 13th century, plain and simple. STUPID DESTRUCTIVE CULT!

A bunch of old men in robes and funny hats who have lost touch with their humanity.

That priests initiated this isn’t surprising. How better to remove the focus from their own transgressions against kids.

Ironic it is not the nuns who raping little boys …

Just proves how far out of touch the catholic church is with the reality that is is 2012.

Oh, God, your followers have completely lost their way!

The focus should be on Social Justice but they should not go outside the church doctrines.

Celebrating faith in sign language at Catholic DeaFest

News –

Latest News

Written by Kate Slosar

Kate Slosar, far right, stands with Deaf Ministry pastoral workers from five New Jersey dioceses at Catholic DeaFest at St. John Neumann Conference Center in Piscataway on Saturday, March 24.

Two years ago, at the New Jersey Deaf Pastoral Workers meeting, we wanted a way to connect our Deaf and Hard of Hearing Communities across the State of New Jersey. We came up with the idea of hosting a Catholic DeaFest and letting people come and celebrate their faith.

On Saturday, March 24, our second annual event took place at St. John Neumann Conference Center in Piscataway. This event was sponsored by five Deaf Ministries Offices/dioceses in the State of New Jersey.

We had at least 215 participants who came from all over the state of New Jersey and some from the New York and Philadelphia areas. It was wonderful, and our communities became alive and hungry for information.

Deaf Catholics are often “alone” in their home parishes or in their community and the Catholic DeaFest is a way for us to celebrate our Catholic faith together as one community.

Often Deaf people will gather together at their social events and not realize that they made friends with other Deaf Catholics in a public place.

When a Deaf person goes to the Catholic DeaFest, they are surprised that their friends are also Catholics. It serves like a “coming home” event for our Deaf Catholic Community.

Our keynote speaker, Jean Cox, International Catholic Deaf Association US-Section President, talked about our community gifts and how we can help the church by sharing our talents and gifts.

Cox had four volunteers come up on the stage. She told one person to act like “Arm,” another person to act like “Leg,” another person to act like “Hand” and another person to act like “Feet.” Cox asked the volunteers, can you move alone?

The volunteers responded, “No, I cannot without the other part.”

Cox made the point that we cannot do things alone but with Christ we can do it in a community.

Later in the afternoon, we had two workshops presented by Clara Smit, an attorney, on “Your Rights.”

Msgr. Joe Curry from Diocese of Metuchen and I had a question-and-answer session that gave participants the opportunity to ask a priest and lay minister questions about their faith journey.

Bob Yuhas, a Deaf participant from the Diocese of Trenton, was asked to do a reading at our closing Mass in ASL. Bob has a talent that he can share with other members of the Catholic Church, Deaf or hearing.

We closed the day with a Mass.

Gathering together in Jesus’ name is what we did that day. This enabled us to discuss our faith in ASL.

Kate Slosar is co-director, Ministry With the Deaf, Diocese of Camden.