Street roots., August 17, 2012, Page 4, Image 4

Street roots
Aug. 17, 2012
FERVOR, from page 3
sisters, not disciplining them, for carrying
out the reforms of Vatican II to modernize
and focus on social justice, caring for the
poor and marginalized,” says Mary Ann
Dickey, president of One Spirit-One Call.
“We hope that the differences between the
sisters and the Vatican can be resolved
through dialogue. So far the Vatican has
been more interested in handing down
edicts than in dialogue.”
The mandated reforms of the organization
include revising its statutes, the scope of
the mission, and all plans and programs
including General Assemblies and
publications to ensure compliance with the
Vatican. (All speakers, for example, will be
subject to the approval by the bishops.)
The assessment called into question
LCWR’s relationship with Network, one of
two affiliations the bishops’ singled out, the
other being The Resource Center for
Religious Institutes, which provides the
nuns counsel on canonical and civil law.
One major sticking point running
throughout the assessment is LCWR’s tacit,
if not explicit acceptance of the ordination
of women as priests, a practice alive and
well in the Pacific Northwest and beyond.
What does this mean for the work of
women religious in the Pacific Northwest?
Perhaps not what the bishops’ intended.
“The Vatican, when they issue this
doctrinal assessment, has grossly
underestimated the power of women
religious across this country,” Fitzgerald
says.
mong the problems named in the report
is the LCWR’s affiliation with Network,
the group’s lobbying arm that is not
connected to the Vatican. It was Network
that came out strongly in favor of President
Obama’s Affordable Care Act and helped
garner support among the Catholic
community for the health care reform bill,
despite strong opposition to the Act by the
nation’s leading Catholic body politic, the
United States Conference of Catholic
Bishops, or USCCB.
It was also Network that organized this
July’s Nuns on the Bus event, a multi-state
tour by women religious in protest of the
budget by Republican Congressman Paul
Ryan. The nuns were speaking out against
the Ryan budget because, they said, of the
harm if would cause to people already
suffering from poverty. The tour, which hit
mostly Midwest states from mid June to
early July, was denounced by the USCCB,
who organized the alternative “Fortnight of
Freedom” calling for the religious freedom
they said was under threat by Obama’s
health care reform efforts that included
insurance for contraception.
The showdown between the nuns and the
bishops has Network Executive Director
Simone Campbell, who is also a nun, both
angry and a little incredulous.
“While I laugh at its absurdity, it is
serious, and it is indicative of the attitudes
across the country,” says Campbell, “It
perpetuates the idea that only certain issues
are worthy of our advocacy, and those are
principally around abortion, and that that’s
the totality of a justice argument, even
though the Catholic documents say clearly
that’s not the case. And the other piece
that’s so worrisome for me is that I know
we were named in the Vatican document
because of our stance on national health
care reform. I wrote the letter that the
Catholic sisters signed in support of the
Affordable Care Act. And it was a position
different from the bishops’. And the bishops
seemed to be saying not only do they speak
for faith, but they also speak for politics.
And in a democratic culture, that’s wrong.
In the monarchy, they can get away with it,
but not in a democratic culture.”
Campbell sums up the reason behind the
backlash against the nuns because, she says,
the nuns won.
“It’s got nothing to do with faith - it’s all
about power,” Campbell adds. “If their side
A
Cardinal WilliamLevada, the form er Archbishop fo r the Archdiocese o f Portland, gestures during a news conference at the Vatican in 2009. He
was the prefect o f the Congregation fo r the Doctrine o f Faith, the Vatican’s watchdog on Catholic doctrine, during it’s investigation o f the
Leadership Conference o f Women Religious. He stepped down from the post in July.
had been successful in stopping the
Affordable Care Act, this never would have
happened.”
Fitzgerald notes the difference in
perspective.
“(Women religious) look at that issue of
life in its fullest,” Fitzgerald says. “Whereas
the institution looks at it in the most limited
lens and quite frankly, the most political
lens.”
Unlike the LCWR, Network isn’t under
the Vatican’s authority. And the work being
done on these issues will continue,
regardless of any pressure from overseas,
Campbell says. Likewise, one of the options
for the LCWR is to recreate itself
independent of Rome, as a non-canonical
organization.
“I’m a person of faith, and I believe the
Holy Spirit is alive and well and making
mischief,” Campbell says. “What needs to
get out, will get out. I’m only a piece of this
puzzle.”
o better understand that puzzle you
have to look back to the 1960s, a time
when attitudes about women’s rights,
sexuality and social justice changed
dramatically. The changes were not lost on
Pope John XXIII, who convened the Second
Vatican Council, or Vatican II, in 1962 to
examine the Church’s role in this new
world. In summary, Vatican II was the
Church’s answer to the social liberation
happening all around it: “opening the
windows and letting in fresh air,” as Pope
John put it. Meanwhile, with the changing
times, women no longer needed the
church’s money, influence or authority to do
the work they felt called to do. The habit
became optional, and apparently for some,
so did the institution. The Vatican says it
was the resulting new-age radicalism that
has driven women away from sisterhood.
When Vatican II adjourned in 1965, there
were 180,000 nuns in the United States.
Today there is less than a third that number,
and most of those are over the age of 60.
Archbishop Sartain and the bishops
working with him to reform the organization
have said the assessment isn’t a critique of
the work of the individual nuns, but of the
T
organization of their leaders. However, in
addition to the Vatican’s doctrinal
assessment of the LCWR, the Vatican
authorized a second, even broader review,
called an apostalic visition, of individual
orders and their policies. That concluded in
January, with the results yet to be released
by the Vatican.
Mary Jo Tully is the chancellor of the
Archdiocese of Portland, and the first
laywomen to hold that position. She played
down the impact of the doctrinal assessment
on the work of the nuns or any role the
archdiocese would play in what she
emphatically described as renewed dialogue
between the LCWR and the Vatican.
“I cannot believe that it will change what
the sisters do in this archdiocese,” Tully
said. “And I cannot think that we would want
it to.”
Still, the LCWR is the major, Vatican-
founded, collaborative model to develop
leadership among women in the church and
the larger society. In addition to concerns
over its lobbying arm, Network, and deciding
speakers at LCWR events, the bishops have
suspended use of the organization’s Systems
Thinking Handbook. The handbook is
described as a roadmap for creating
systemic change and has been withdrawn
from circulation pending further review by
the bishops.
When Fr. Jim Galluzzo of Portland heard
about the assessment, he channeled his
anger through his artwork. He painted a
series of images focusing on women’s role
in the church, and intends to sell them to
raise money for the LCWR. Galluzzo says
his education from nuns changed the way he
sees people. Like Simone Campbell with
Network, he agrees with the political nature
of the chasm between the bishops’
assessment and the work of the nuns.
“The sisters supported the health care
act,” Galluzzo says “They came out again on
the side of the poor and people not covered,
and that was in conflict of the hierarchy who
were not in favor of health care because
they felt it was a religious issue.”
Galluzzo believes this is where the nuns
actually have the moral authority: “Because
they deal with the people,” Galluzzo says.
“Who are the first people who opened
AIDS housing? Look at the people working
down on Burnside, working down at the
legal clinic at St. Andrews, working in the
soup kitchens,” Galluzzo says. “The problem
with the Vatican is they are out of touch.
They’re not working with the people.
They’ve never gone to a grocery store. They
don’t know the price of milk. They’re taken
care of.”
Father Ron Raab is the associate pastor
for Saint Andre Bessette Church. Formerly
known as The Downtown Chapel, St. Andre
Bessette is where the intersection of the
Catholic Church and homelessness is most
pronounced and among the most profound
in Portland.
Raab is the author of numerous books
reflecting on faith and social justice,
including his latest book, “The Work of our
Hands.” Raab’s opinion is that regardless of
the pressures from Rome, or the Vatican’s
effort to roll back the modern Catholic
model of social justice, the work will move
forward.
“I think that the church itself, like
everyone else, is afraid of poverty. People
are afraid because they are afraid of losing
everything. Poverty is such a threat to
people,” Raab says.
That fear, says Raab, is what’s leading to
the effort to rein in the work of the nuns
back to Catholic dogma. The reality of
poverty, however, doesn’t fit into a simple
mold.
“I think that the Vatican and the larger
church, the church in the U.S., they just
don’t get poverty and the issues behind real
people’s lives. And for some reason or
another, especially in the United States,
we’ve taken this pro-life thing to mean only
one thing, when all these issues of life are
happening.”
For Raab, one of the first lessons is to
stop blaming people for poverty.
“I think that’s one of the biggest
problems that we have because we blame
people for their mental illness, for their
generational poverty, for having been
abused. So people in general think that
those things can be fixed, and they cannot
be fixed. So when you look at the issues in
their lives, they’re not fixable, especially
when we think their lives should be
See FERVOR, page 5