LCWR president says forum 'like no other we've had' [CNAU]

[anp1215]

The LCWR is dying off, to put it bluntly. That's just the way it is. Their average age I believe is 74. Not a whole lot of new religious sisters interested in that baloney. I see God's hand in that. He does not bless disobedience.

[iloveangels]

Originally Posted by maltmom

Can someone explain to me why they are having talks with them. To me, Rome has spoken....the end.

Maltmom,

In order to understand this one, you have to put it into a Catholic perspective.

Throughout Catholic history, we occasionally get groups within the Church who try to set themselves up as alternate sources of authority and get very bossy with Rome. After a period of time, and a bunch of confusion, there is a confrontation, and the upstart groups get walloped by God. Oh he doesn't hit them with bolts of lightning or anything like that, but they die out in miserable obscurity one way or the other. It can take a while or be fast, God's choice....of course.

Basically it's happening again with a lot of people who think their version of 20-21st century modernity trumps the Church's version. This little current mess is just a page of another chapter of that same book.

Fun to watch, but miserable to live through. Pull up a seat and get some You might as well enjoy the show.

This is a quintessential part of being Catholic.

If this interests you, you might want to find something to read about the clashes of the past. Athanasius and Arian is a good one to start with. Santa Claus even plays a role. Really. The original Saint Nicolaus was a bishop from Turkey who was involved in that one.

[maltmom]

Originally Posted by iloveangels

Maltmom,

Throughout Catholic history, we occasionally get groups within the Church who try to set themselves up as alternate sources of authority and get very bossy with Rome. After a period of time, and a bunch of confusion, there is a confrontation, and the upstart groups get walloped by God. Oh he doesn't hit them with bolts of lightning or anything like that, but they die out in miserable obscurity one way or the other. It can take a while or be fast, God's choice....of course.

Basically it's happening again with a lot of people who think their version of 20-21st century modernity trumps the Church's version. This little mess is just a page of another chapter of that same book.

Fun to watch, but miserable to live through. Pull up a seat and get some You might as well enjoy the show.

This is a quintessential part of being Catholic.

If this interests you, you might want to find something to read about the clashes of the past. Athanasius and Arian is a good one to start with. Santa Claus even plays a role. Really. The original Saint Nicolaus was a bishop from Turkey who was involved in that one.

Thanks!!

I know there will always be groups that will pop up thinking they know more than the Church. I just don't know why the Vatican doesn't slap them down instead of "talking" to them. Now they are getting a lot of publicity.

[iloveangels]

Originally Posted by maltmom

Thanks!!

I know there will always be groups that will pop up thinking they know more than the Church. I just don't know why the Vatican doesn't slap them down instead of "talking" to them. Now they are getting a lot of publicity.

Yes, it takes a while. The Church is very gentle and tries to give everyone the benefit of the doubt because she has great faith that God will deal with it in the end, which He always does.

A good part of the publicity this is getting is just a reflection of how much the media despises the Holy See. That part is more like politics than religion, really. They'll get off this topic and go lambaste somebody else when they get sick of this.

You are right about one thing, though. It's important not to get too caught up in it or get fooled by it and stray away. The noise isn't really indicative of much. It goes on all the time.

[iloveangels]

The other thing about this is that this is really complicated structurally and phenomenologically. I mean, the real problem is a mixture of a lot of stuff, from sheer ignorance to failure of will to disobedience to you name it. And there are individuals and congregations that are accurately represented by the LCWR and individuals and congregations that aren't. It's a mess.

They're going to take some time to try to straighten some of it out. That's not a bad thing. At least they're ON IT now, and they are tackling the problem. That's good.

[maltmom]

Originally Posted by iloveangels

It's a mess..

Yes it is

[Elizabeth502]

I took the trouble to paste together some quotes from at least two articles on NCReporter, who can never say enough good things about the LCWR. My purpose is not to mock. My purpose is to understand what the heck they're saying. It's all very broad and vague & abstract, to me.

For example: Why wouldn't the Church stand behind "the integrity of their mission? Is the hierachy seriously challenging an authentic witness to the Gospel? It seems like their statement is pointless unless their mission is something other than what Catholicism represents.

Here goes. A prize for a convincing translation.

Asked what she hopes to receive in dialogue with Sartain, Farrell said LCWR wants “to be recognized and be understood as equal in the church.” (Equal in what respect?)

“And really we do want to come to the point of having an environment … for the entire Catholic church to search for truth together, to talk about issues that are very complicated. And there is not the environment right now.”

The organization which represents the majority of U.S. Catholic sisters said Friday afternoon it would continue discussions with church officials regarding a Vatican-ordered takeover, but “will reconsider” if it “is forced to compromise the integrity of its mission.”

LCWR national board is expected to meet with Sartain in St. Louis Sunday for about two hours. The focus of that meeting “will be on beginning to process with him and see how that unfolds,” Farrell said at a press conference. The LCWR expect “open and honest dialogue” with Sartain that “may lead not only to increasing understanding between the church leadership and women religious, but also to creating more possibilities for the laity and, particularly for women, to have a voice in the church,” the statement said. (I could have sworn that we women have a voice now.)

“Religious life, as it is lived by the women religious who comprise LCWR, is an authentic expression of this life that must not be compromised,” it said.

Taking the stage to a standing ovation, Farrell said that "some larger movement in the church ... has landed on LCWR." {Sounds like alien life! What does this mean?)

A key question facing LCWR, she said, is, "What would a prophetic response to the doctrinal assessment look like?"
"I think it would be humble, but not submissive," she continued. "Rooted in a solid sense of ourselves, but not self-righteous; truthful, but gentle and absolutely fearless.
"It would ask probing questions. Are we being invited to some appropriate pruning and are we open to it? Is this doctrinal process an expression of concern or an attempt to control?
"Concern is based in love and invites unity. Control through fear and intimidation would be an abuse of power.

"Does the institutional legitimacy of canonical recognition empower us to live prophetically? Does it allow us the freedom to question with informed consciences? Does it really welcome feedback in a church that claims to honor the sensus fildeum?"
Farrell also said it would be a "mistake" to make "too much" of the mandate.
"We cannot allow it to consume us," she said. "It is not the first time that a form of religious life has collided with the church, nor will it be the last."

"The doctrinal assessment suggests that we are not currently living in an ideal ecclesial world," Farrell continued. (What would an "ideal ecclesial world look like?)

[Elizabeth502]

OK, so I get part of the prize because I think I've translated a couple of the quotes.

Farrell also said it would be a "mistake" to make "too much" of the mandate. "We cannot allow it to consume us," she said. "It is not the first time that a form of religious life has collided with the church, nor will it be the last."

This means: We'll wear habits again, and live in community, after the Second Coming.

"The doctrinal assessment suggests that we are not currently living in an ideal ecclesial world," Farrell continued.

Ideal ecclesial world means that we get to decide if we want to speak with you, because we don't submit to orders.

(How am I doing so far?)

[iloveangels]

Originally Posted by Elizabeth502

OK, so I get part of the prize because I think I've translated a couple of the quotes.

Farrell also said it would be a "mistake" to make "too much" of the mandate. "We cannot allow it to consume us," she said. "It is not the first time that a form of religious life has collided with the church, nor will it be the last."

This means: We'll wear habits again, and live in community, after the Second Coming.

"The doctrinal assessment suggests that we are not currently living in an ideal ecclesial world," Farrell continued.

Ideal ecclesial world means that we get to decide if we want to speak with you, because we don't submit to orders.

(How am I doing so far?)

You picked out the money quote, Elizabeth502.

Taking the stage to a standing ovation, Farrell said that "some larger movement in the church ... has landed on LCWR."

That's a very good summation of what that speaker, speaking as the president of the LCWR, thinks this is about. I was struck by the directness of it when I read it. I know exactly what she's getting at. She's just completely wrong about it from a Christian Catholic point of view.

Do you like analogies? Here's one about the new theory about lightbulbs.

https://www.msu.edu/user/dynicrai/physics/dark.htm

Notice:
Speaking English, check.
Seems logical, check.
Supported by an authority, check.
A naive person could get turned around in it and stuck, check.
Is it what's really going on? NOoooo. Just the opposite in fact, is the case.

[iloveangels]

To be more explicit about what I'm saying:

The emphasis on postmodern religious talk in the US is on experience. We have been taught to be observationists, which means that we believe that only what we can observe is true. (With a few romantic type exceptions which we believe are magical, more or less, and treat as if they were, socially and culturally.) This is thoroughly accepted in American life. Even religiously, we get told to dwell on observations and experiences, right? And we often do.

Well, the Christian faith is only partly about experiences. Its genesis and inspiration is really not experiential on a do-it-yourself everyday basis. It's a matter of Revelation--the revelation of God in scripture and tradition--which is driven not so much by our manufacturing God from our experiences, but by our receiving Him by a mutual relationship, at his direction and initiative.

Remember all that stuff about the Catholic faith not be EITHER and not being OR, it's BOTH? Yes, well if you take out Revelation (meaning scripture and tradition), you don't have BOTH anymore. You have OR.

For this reason, your experiences alone can't be your religion, if you want to be right about religion.

Now the example: Either account of the lightbulb thing--conventional or darksucker version--is little in itself. They're only accounts of how things are, they're not how things really ARE. But there is a way in which things ARE that transcends any account. But we have to give accounts to understand. Fine. And one of the accounts is far more like that way things ARE than the other, so one wins. The conventional account is the far better account of the two.

In the same way, the account the sisters are giving is a spurious account, like the darksucker account. It's a completely observational account, an OR account. But it's not a BOTH account. It's wrong. It doesn't bear up under scrutiny in the same way that the darksucker account doesn't bear up under scrutiny. It's not an adequate account of the way things really ARE.

You have to understand the history of women's congregations to understand how this evolved among them. Most of them, contrary to public assumption, are not theologians or philosophers. Most of them are very sweet well-meaning ex-penmanship teachers. Maiden aunts in habits. And they've been angry and they've been in an echo chamber for years, cut off from the rest of the world. They need prayers and correction.

[iloveangels]

So, now, the "money quote."
Taking the stage to a standing ovation, Farrell said that "some larger movement in the church ... has landed on LCWR."

This speaker is saying that she has some experience (some larger movement in the Church), and she is saying that that in itself is the totality of the account. Her assertion is that that account is the account that trumps everything else. That she has something to tell the whole church that they don't already know, somehow. That she is being, to use the buzzword "prophetic."

But...that's an OR account. It's only her experience, no matter how deeply she feels it. It's only her interpretation of her experience, shared with others maybe, but still. That's all it is.

It's presumptuous really, very presumptuous. And wrong.

The Church is BOTH, not EITHER and not OR. God speaks to people but at HIS initiative, and THROUGH media of HIS choosing, which has always been Scripture and Tradition (the Church) and Salvation History. That's the way it still is. This is what is missing in Sister's account.

You know, she can't possibly supplant, replace or refashion the Catholic Christian faith by virtue of her own experiential account. The very idea of it is ludicrous. But she apparently hasn't realized that.

[NB: Playing around with some psychological methods and games like transactional analysis, Rogerian "therapy for normals", consensus theory, and such things can do this to you. It can create an echo chamber effect that's very powerful. You want to be careful of that stuff.]

[iloveangels]

From my experiences in the 60s and 70s with this kind of stuff, the best thing they can do for these sisters is get rid of cultic influences. They should not put them back in habits yet, or sequestered together, not at all. Such things will only make things much worse at this point because it will concentrate and solidify the effect.

Split them up, forbid-and prevent-their consensus practices. Get rid of some of their more psychological methods and practices, and require them to read scripture and talk about it. It doesn't matter what they wear in the short term as long as it's morally decent. Put them on in normal settings and forbid them to speak of these things except with an experienced listener who understands what's going on, air them out and deprogram them. Isolate them and take the pressure they are exerting on themselves internally off. Seriously.

[Jason Firestone]

Originally Posted by ccmnxc

Just asking, did they take vows of obedience to God or to the Catholic Church.

Neither. It is assumed they accept legitimate authority, in the church, and obviously God. The vow of obedience is to one's religious superiors.

[nordskoven]

The struggle within convents post-Vatican II was virtually unseen. One sister reported having had to resort to Canon law protections to preserve her freedom to be an orthodox Catholic and avoid psychological reprogramming right out of Communist Russia. Draconian measures were used to silence sisters who wanted to preserve their conservative sensus fidei/sense of the faith LCWR prez Sr. Pat Farrell says is being denied her and her cohorts. The already marginalized faithful nuns were given a one-two punch by their own orders and diocesan bureaucrats in chanceries riddled with modernism.

Support from the laity was undermined by parish women having their own female-oriented groups dissolved, like various sodality ministries. Lay women interested in "ministry" were instead given slick, pre-packaged diocesan workshops on how "Jesus was compassionate like a woman and described Himself as a mother hen longing to gather the scattered chicks so women should be priests, too."

The same heterodox sisters who prayed the "Our, Mother" and approvingly hissed the word "priestess" found themselves up against an increasingly female-resistant power base that would, for example, hire a young man for a parish liturgical director where a competent nun was in line for the job. The nun would be shipped to Timbuktu to do something outside her training for reasons she couldn't fathom. This paralleled the earlier post-Vatican II diaspora of orthodox priests getting posted to the outbacks.

This was the sorting out by the Bella Dodd types. Even heterodox nuns were being shut out of opportunities to serve and became increasingly restive, frustrated, baffled. This is the substrate of discontent fueling anti-Church emotions. Unknown to certain heterodox sisters, the final sort was to subtly select nuns who would act as sexual enablers, whether as psychological professionals supportively holding the hands of sexual deviants, or teachers and professors softening the Church's pro-life stance on abortion, sterilization, in vitro fertilization, homosexuality and birth control. These sexual enabler nuns were moved into that network of privilege, and got the traction denied other heterodox nuns, receiving high status, high paying positions and getting a firm hold over budgets, just like those heterodox chancery bureaucrats.

Sisters who became sexual enablers, linking of sex and death by supporting abortion, created the ultimate perversion. Enter Barbara Marx Hubbard. So twisted and arcane has the heterodox death-dealing sexual enabler-type thinking grown that the genocidal Luciferian, Barbara Marx Hubbard, was welcomed as the keynote speaker at the 2012 LCWR conference. Satan is the "Father of Lies and Murder." Gotta give the devil his due. The Bella Dodd types created a straw man of a female-hating, women-and-children-last "patriarchal" power structure and got their planned rebellion enjoyed from the confines of their decorator digs.

As for the laity, three billion dollars to underwrite gag orders in the name of reparation to victims of clerical sexual abuse without any substantial movement to demand scrupulous accountability and correction is but a measure of deadly passivity, watching life like watching a movie, people neither hot nor cold and vomited out of Christ's mouth. One wonders if the LCWR's 80% representation of Catholic nuns parallels the proportion of heterodoxy in the laity, a laity awash in birth control hormones.

Most High God, Abba, we humbly beg Your forgiveness. As Your children, children of the Woman, with Christ as our Brother, inflame our hearts with love for the divine Way, Truth and Life. If we merit Your chastisement, make it at Your hand and not that of the Father of Lies and Murder and his minions. Make us faithful and true. Rescue us all, the women and children You empowered and authorized to conquer Lucifer and his minions, and bring swift victory under the banner of the Immaculate Heart united with the Sacred Heart, Woman & Seed. Fill us with the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the Virgin's divine Spouse, and receive our eternal thanks and praise in Heaven. AMEN

[iloveangels]

What has happened inside the convents has gone on largely un-noticed by the laity. There are two very good well-documented accounts in book form:

a) Sisters in Crisis: The Tragic Unraveling of Women's Religious Communities, by Ann Carey, published by Our Sunday Visitor. [This is the same Ann Carey that has written extensive articles on this year's LCWR conference and been quoted many times on CAF and elsewhere. She's very knowledgeable on this subject. She's careful and fair but she knows and tells the truth about this.]

b) Ungodly Rage, by Donna Steichen, published by Ignatius Press. This one is also very well-documented, the product of extensive interviews and documented sources, and it's a standard work on this topic.

These should be standard reading for Catholic laypeople to understand what's going on. Cheap used copies of both of these are readily available on the net.

We have to stop pretending nothing has happened. We have to look at the situation as it is, not as we remember it as little children, or as we wish it were.