From the New York Times:
The Vatican has appointed an American bishop to rein in the largest and most influential group of Catholic nuns in the United States, saying that an investigation found that the group had “serious doctrinal problems.”
The Vatican’s assessment, issued on Wednesday, said that members of the group, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, had challenged church teaching on homosexuality and the male-only priesthood, and promoted “radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith.”The sisters were also reprimanded for making public statements that “disagree with or challenge the bishops, who are the church’s authentic teachers of faith and morals.” During the debate over the health care overhaul in 2010, American bishops came out in opposition to the health plan, but dozens of sisters, many of whom belong to the Leadership Conference, signed a statement supporting it — support that provided crucial cover for the Obama administration in the battle over health care.
[...]
“I’m stunned,” said Sister Simone Campbell, executive director of Network, a Catholic social justice lobby founded by sisters. Her group was also cited in the Vatican document, along with the Leadership Conference, for focusing its work too much on poverty and economic injustice, while keeping “silent” on abortion and same-sex marriage.
Mind you, this is just after it was revealed that the Bishops themselves took a stand against the Ryan budget on the grounds that it harmed the poor (perhaps trying to redeem themselves from charges that they're being too partisan):
“Major reductions at this time of economic turmoil and rising poverty will hurt hungry, poor and vulnerable people in our nation and around the world,” the Rev. Stephen Blaire, bishop of Stockton, Calif., and the Rev. Richard E. Pates, bishop of Des Moines, wrote for the conference. “A just spending bill cannot rely on disproportionate cuts in essential services to the poor and vulnerable persons; it requires shared sacrifice by all.”
I think Sarah Posner at Religion Dispatches is right in her analysis on this:
As I've argued before (and argued again today in a taped interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network's David Brody, which should air soon), politicians should not be seeking the approval of any religious body for their legislative proposals. I fully understand the impulse of progressive Catholics who believe in their church's long history of social justice advocacy who want to push back against it being hijacked by the likes of Paul Ryan, and I certainly understand anyone wanting to make an argument against his budget on any moral grounds.
No one is denying Rosa DeLauro or Paul Ryan the ability to claim that their faith guides them through the budget process. And Catholics surely are going to engage in robust arguments about whether Ryan's cold-hearted, small government justifications do or do not align with Catholic teaching. But if one doesn't want the Bishops' imprimatur on the contraceptive coverage, if one thinks that the Bishops' demand that public policy conform to their religious edicts is a violation of the Establishment Clause, then their approval of the budget should be irrelevant. I know it's all politics and optics, a fight over who, of the Catholic House members, is truer to the social justice tradition? And I know that DeLauro and others are pushing the Bishops to bring the same outrage to bear on the budget that they have to the contraception wars.
But consider: child sexual assault cases against the church continue to be tried; the Bishops order a crackdown on nuns already under investigation for, among other things, disagreeing with the Bishops and promoting "certain radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith;" an individual Bishop compares the president of the United States to Hitler and Stalin; all while an increasing number of Catholics are saying, "no, thank you" to the Bishops' "religious freedom" jeremiad. Yet, in spite of all this, in the war over the Catholic meaning of the budget, their moral authority has taken center stage.
It's one thing to say that a religious tradition informs your public policy choices, but wielding the Bishops' putative authority as a sword puts you in the position of being cut by it. I might agree with the Bishops' reasoning on one issue or another, and choose to reference them on the strength of their arguments. But that's a very different thing than saying "my policy is right because the Bishops say so," which seems to be what both anti-contraceptive Republicans and anti-oligarchy Democrats are attempting to do here.
As I've said before and continue to say, the Bishops can no longer expect to be heeded when the make arguments on the basis of their moral authority, because they have none. None. None. Which is why the most hilarious part of this whole account was this line from the NYT piece: "The sisters were also reprimanded for making public statements that “disagree with or challenge the bishops, who are the church’s authentic teachers of faith and morals.” If this is true (and it's not), then woe betide the whole of the Church.
(h/t Crooks & Liars)
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