Vatican Crackdown:: Vatican II At Heart Of Dispute Between American Nuns And Catholic Church

[cbayer]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/07/vatican-crackdown-second-vatican-council_n_1749337.html?utm_hp_ref=religion

By Kim Lawton
Posted: 08/07/2012 9:13 am Updated: 08/07/2012 9:13 am


On the left, Pope Benedict XVI and on the right, Pope Paul VI


AMITYVILLE, N.Y. (RNS) Fifty years after Pope John XXIII convened the Second Vatican Council to modernize the Roman Catholic Church, the legacy of that watershed summit that revolutionized Catholic life is at the core of a dispute between the Vatican and American nuns.

In April, the Vatican accused the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), the umbrella group that represents the majority of American nuns, of "doctrinal confusion." As LCWR leaders meet this week (Aug. 7-11) to plot their response to the Vatican, many of the sisters say they are just following the spirit of Vatican II.

"This is not just about the Vatican versus the nuns. This really is about the future of how we interpret the message of the Second Vatican Council," Sister Maureen Fiedler told the PBS program "Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly."

Fiedler, a member of the Colorado-based Sisters of Loretto, hosts the weekly radio program "Interfaith Voices" from Washington. She entered religious life 50 years ago, just before Vatican II got underway, and said the spirit of the three-year Vatican summit had a profound impact on how she viewed her calling.

more at link

[DURHAM D]

1. Love The Uppity Nuns !

[janlyn]

2. Dying Church

Way to go to the nuns for having the foresight to realize if the church doesn't change with the times it becomes obsolete..

[cbayer]

3. I wouldn't count on that. It has survived much worse.

[pinto]

4. Good background piece. Vatican II changed much of Catholicism, especially among Catholic nuns.

from the piece -

Fiedler, a member of the Colorado-based Sisters of Loretto, hosts the weekly radio program "Interfaith Voices" from Washington. She entered religious life 50 years ago, just before Vatican II got underway, and said the spirit of the three-year Vatican summit had a profound impact on how she viewed her calling.

Fiedler became involved in a series of social justice causes, including a 37-day fast in support of the Equal Rights Amendment, and rallies in support of women's ordination.

"It simply made sense to try to alleviate the suffering of the poor, to end wars, to overcome discrimination," she said. "That, for me, was Christianity."

****************

"It called us to go back and look at our foundresses and the spirit in which they started the communities. And when you look at those women who were foundresses, none of them are pussycats, I'm here to tell you," Fiedler said. "They were strong women who did things and started ministries that were in many ways unheard of in their own day."

[cbayer]

5. I remember (vaguely) Vatican II.

I live in a neighborhood with lots of Catholics. Most of them seemed very happy with the changes.

And I was glad for no more mandatory fish sticks in the school cafeteria on Fridays!

[pinto]

6. LOL, fishstick Fridays...fortunately, my school added huge peanut butter cookies to lunch on Friday.

One other standard in most homes in my neighborhood were 2 portraits - JFK and John XXIII. Both were viewed as positive changes for the time.

[Goblinmonger]

12. Actually, funny thing about no meat on Fridays that most Catholics disregard

is that you actually DO have to give up meat on Fridays still. But, if you don't want to, you can give something else up instead. Most people just heard the "you don't have to give up meat on Fridays." Our Friday meals at the seminary were always fish based. Once a month they were beans and rice as a way to help us understand 3rd-world issues.

[Dorian Gray]

15. Wait?

We don't have to give up meat on Fridays? What the hell have I been doing for the last 41 years?

[skepticscott]

7. Poor deluded nuns

They really and truly think they get a say in how Vatican II is interpreted. You almost hate to break the news to them.

[Dorian Gray]

16. Maybe

but they truly are trying to change the church from the inside, out. They talk the talk and walk the walk. Kudos to them.

I've worked with a few nuns in my work. They're generally pragmatists. They run the charities I deal with. They know the realities of working with disadvantaged youth. They know that premarital sex happens. That birth control is utilized. That abortion are procured. They don't judge. They are (generally) loving and work toward a better future for their kids and families.

A much different face than the Catholic School nuns of 30+ years ago.

[skepticscott]

18. Given that nuns have changed so much

according to you, but the RCC has changed so little in the last 30 years, how would you say that "change from within" thingie is working? Is the Church any closer to approving of women as priests? To accepting artificial birth control as not a sin? To regarding homosexuality as something other than an abomination before god?

Doing good and recognizing that the rules of the hierarchy they serve are silly doesn't sound much like change to me.

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

17. As well they should

The Vatican pretends that all interpretation comes from it. This is bad history, bad ecclesiology and bad theology. According to Lumen Gentium, all Catholics are supposed to have input to interpretation.

[edhopper]

8. Vatican II is to the current

Church leaders what the ACA is to Republicans. They will not stop until they have revoked it.

[cbayer]

9. Good luck getting those nuns back into habits and convents.

Not going to happen, imo.

[edhopper]

10. Didn't say they'd succeed

just saying what their mentality is.

[cbayer]

11. It's their rigidity that is going to hurt them in the end, I believe.

But i know that their power is immense.

They are walking a tightrope here.

[Goblinmonger]

13. My mom was a very conservative, devout Catholic

and I know MANY like here still around. If the Pope came down and said these nuns were being unreasonable, I guarantee you that she (and others like her) would come down on the side of the Pope who is God's emissary on earth.

[dimbear]

14. Catholic history has a pattern, one step forward ten steps back, for centuries.

It's not very encouraging, and it's no wonder Catholics in general don't know their history.