Pope Francis made a number of bishops happy and a number of nuns sad recently.
The bishops could rejoice in the news that the Pope appointed a panel of eight bishops from around the world to overhaul the secretive and some say scheming Vatican Curia. America’s nuns and their many Catholic and non-Catholic admirers and followers are saddened because the Pope reaffirmed his predecessor’s reprimand of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious.
The Conference, an umbrella group, represents 80 percent of the nation’s 57,000 nuns—including the popular “Nuns on the Bus,” who toured the nation in June 2012. The small group of nuns stopped at food pantries, schools, homeless shelters, and health care facilities run by nuns to highlight the work they do. In effect they were protesting the Vatican’s criticism of them.
The protest apparently has had little effect. By Papal edict the Leadership Conference, will be subjected to a “program of reform,” a scary-sounding phrase with echoes of the Inquisition or the old Soviet Union.
But about the bishops:
It has been widely reported that bishops over the globe have complained of the curia’s intransigence and controversial decisions and for blocking access to the Pope. The curia, a powerful clique of clerical bureaucrats, has for decades—even centuries—run the affairs of the church. It was thought that the entrenched bureaucracy was too powerful to change.
Until now.
The new task force that will consult with Pope Francis includes Archbishop Sean O’Malley of Boston and archbishops from Chile, India, Germany, Congo, Australia, and Honduras. There is one holdover from the Curia, Cardinal Giuseppe Bertello, the Vatican city-state’s administrative president. The panel will hold its first meeting in October.
Reports in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the National Catholic Reporter state that the idea of such a taskforce was raised during the days before the election of the new Pope. But it apparently originated in the course of the Second Vatican Council that Pope John XXIII called for in 1959. The Council sessions ran from 1962 to 1965.
To the delight of Catholic “liberals” who applauded the changes encouraged by the Council, Pope Francis seems to agree with them.
In a National Catholic Reporter story dated April 16, Thomas C. Fox wrote that Pope Francis recently called the Council “a beautiful work of the Holy Spirit.” In a homily, the Pope admonished those who “…don’t want to change,” adding,” what’s more, there are those who wish to turn the clock back.” He called such people “stubborn.”
It is difficult to reconcile the spirit of understanding and kindness Pope Francis has so far projected with his stand regarding the nuns.
Repression of the nuns, whose writings, speeches, and decisions regarding conference speakers will be scrutinized and censored, clashes with the openness and free speech cherished by U.S. citizens.
The nuns have been scolded for their “feminism.” This apparently refers to their reported tolerance for the notion that the Church should consider the ordination of women.
Moreover in the most bizarre charge, the nuns were accused of focusing on caring for the sick, depraved, despised, and needy among us rather than challenging those who countenance abortion rights and gay marriage.
It’s hard to see those who do such good punished so harshly.
---Gus Gribbin
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