I don't think so.

I earnestly hope not; but the humans, they are generally pretty disappointing.

Investigating them for what?

Getting too uppity.

Pretty much. It's supposedly a neutral study on the current state of the daily lives of individual women religious and of their communities in the US, in order to better address the needs of the communities, but nobody believes that

Okay, so I understand that it's not literally because nuns are getting too "uppity," but I'm still unclear as to what's *really* being investigated, since no one believes the "neutral study" cover story.

Are they acting independently of the Church? Advocating heresy?

My literal brain isn't really getting at the meaning, here.

It sounds to me that women religious are continuing to work with the poor and ill and needy, to spend their energy pursuing relief in those areas, and not withdrawing from giving visible support to agencies or organizations which also aid and support women who don't hew to the Vatican's draconian rules for women.

Geez, was that clear at all? Nuns are helping the poor, sick, and needy, particularly women, and spending their time and resources on those causes, *rather than* spending their time, resources, and energy on being vocal and public about the Vatican's positions on abortion, birth control, and the woman's place in the home and society.

At least, that's what I got from it.

It's not just your literal brain, it's really anyone's guess, but most likely it's that they are still living as if Vatican II meant anything. The NCR website loads incredibly slowly from my work computer, but I'll see if I can dredge up a couple of articles that give some kind of background. Back in a minute.

Didn't the nuns also come down on the side of pro-ACA because better health care coverage is good? ('Cause I remember being all Go Nuns, Go! when I read about it.) So it's not just a *rather than* issue, it's about siding with groups that address the needs of the poor, women, etc, even when those groups and agencies promote policies and agendas that go against the Church views on abortion, contraception, and same sex marriage.

Here's the NCR's most recent article on the most recent development; at the bottom of the article are links to the last couple of years' worth of articles on the investigation.

eta: Key quote (in the article, it includes links to the original documents):

The Vatican congregation's doctrinal assessment of LCWR started shortly after the Vatican's Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life announced a separate apostolic visitation of U.S. women religious orders. The results of that study were submitted to Rome in January.

In his letter Wednesday, Levada writes that Sartain's appointment is "aimed at fostering a patient and collaborative renewal of this conference of major superiors in order to provide a stronger doctrinal foundation for its many laudable initiatives and activities."

The document from the congregation re-emphasizes the reason for the doctrinal assessment, writing that Levada told LCWR leadership in 2008 that the congregation had three major areas of concern with the group:

•The content of speakers' addresses at the annual LCWR assemblies;

•"Corporate dissent" in the congregation regarding the church's sexual teachings; and

•"A prevalence of certain radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith" present in some of the organizations programs and presentations.

Thanks, JZ.

"A prevalence of certain radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith" present in some of the organizations programs and presentations.

I assume they mean using birth control (to prevent pregnancy) and/or condoms specifically to prevent the transmission of HIV.

Wow. I, personally, have no interest in returning to the Catholic faith, but that really makes my heart hurt for my nuns (I do the newsletter for the Ursulines who run my high school). They're pretty much fiercely devoted to social justice in the scariest parts of the city, and they do so much good. What a fucking kick in the teeth to them.

Nuns rock.

edit: I've always thought the Mormon church could really use a system like convents. There are a lot of women who want to do good but who are only told that their place in the world is to marry and breed. And they keep trying to find a husband, then settle desperately for whatever will stand still long enough and shows an interest.

Do you think that there's any understanding that the world has moved on from them? My understanding, based completely on anecdata, is that it's the women who take the kids to church, sunday school, plan all of those things.

Once you've gotten in their faces and made it very clear that you don't want them, your church will just die off without them. Is this way overly simplistic?

Hmm. I take back the birth control thing. This is from the first article about it, in 2009:

The Vatican assessment has become necessary, according to Levada, because at the 2001 meeting between the women’s leadership conference and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which took place in Rome, the women were invited “to report on the initiatives taken or planned” to promote the reception of three areas of Vatican doctrinal concern: the 1994 apostolic letter Ordinatio sacerdotalis, the 2000 declaration Dominus Jesus from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and “the problem of homosexuality.”

Ordinatio sacerdotalis, Latin for “On the Ordination to the Priesthood,” was a Vatican document that reasserted that Catholic ordination to the priesthood is reserved for men alone and that the church “has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women.”

Dominus Jesus was a declaration that, in part, insisted that non-Catholic Christians are “in a gravely deficient situation in comparison with those who, in the church, have the fullness of the means of salvation” and that non-Catholic Christian communities suffer “defects.” It was viewed at the time by some Catholic theologians and leaders of other religions as a major setback in interreligious dialogue.

In a 1986 letter written by then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict, to the world’s bishops, he wrote: “Although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not a sin, it is a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil; and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder.”

Regarding the investigation of the women’s leadership conference, Levada informed conference leaders: “Given both the tenor and the doctrinal content of various addresses given at the annual assemblies of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious in the intervening years, this Dicastery can only conclude that the problems which had motivated its request in 2001 continue to be present.”

So from that, I assume that women religious (1) talk about the ordination of women, (2) do *not* brand Protestants as apostates who should be burned at the stake, and (3) are cool with Teh Gayz.

Well, then. That's pretty damn evil, AMIRITE? I mean, that's WAY worse than priests -- remember, only men can be ordained because they're spiritually perfect -- sexually abusing thousands of children.

Good to know Rome has its priorities in order.