Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Reality check: The LCWR, CDF and the Doctrinal Assessment by Bishop Leonard Blair: Do they have the right to receive the Eucharist ?

When you are in a position of leadership or authority, it is a great cross sometimes to know firsthand the actual facts of a situation and then have to listen to all the distortions and misrepresentation of the facts that are made in the public domain.
 
Having conducted the doctrinal assessment of the entity known as the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), I can only marvel at what is now being said, both within and outside the Church, regarding the process and the recent steps taken by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) to remedy significant and longstanding doctrinal problems connected with the activities and programs of the LCWR.
 
The biggest distortion of all is the claim that the CDF and the bishops are attacking or criticizing the life and work of our Catholic sisters in the United States. One report on the CBS evening news showcased the work of a Mercy Sister who is a medical doctor in order to compare her to the attack that she and sisters like her are supposedly being subjected to by authoritarian bishops. The report concludes with a statement that the bishops impose the rules of the Church but the sisters carry on the work of the Church.
 
Unless the sister in question is espousing and/or promoting positions contrary to Catholic teaching—and there was no reason given to think that she is—then the Holy See’s doctrinal concerns are not directed at her or at the thousands of religious sisters in our country like her to whom we all owe a debt of gratitude for all that they do in witness to the Gospel.
 
What the CDF is concerned about, as I indicated, is the particular organization known as the LCWR. Its function, responsibilities and statutes were all originally approved by the Holy See, to which it remains accountable. While it is true that the member communities of the LCWR represent most of the religious sisters in the United States, that does not mean that criticism of the LCWR is aimed at all the member religious communities, much less all sisters.
 
The word “investigation” is often used to describe the work that I carried out on behalf of the CDF. “Investigation” suggests an attempt to uncover things that might not be known. In reality, what the CDF commissioned was a doctrinal “assessment,” an appraisal of materials which are readily available to anyone who cares to read them on the LCWR website and in other LCWR published resources. The assessment was carried out in dialogue with the LCWR leadership, both in writing and face-to-face, over several months.
 
The fundamental question posed to the LCWR leadership as part of the assessment was simply this: What are the Church’s pastors to make of the fact that the LCWR constantly provides a one-sided platform—without challenge or any opposing view—to speakers who take a negative and critical position vis-a-vis Church doctrine and discipline and the Church’s teaching office?
 
Let me cite just a few of the causes for concern.
 
In her LCWR keynote address in 1997, Sr. Sandra Schneiders, IHM proposed that the decisive issue for women religious is the issue of faith: “It can no longer be taken for granted that the members [of a given congregation] share the same faith.”
 
Ten years later, in an LCWR keynote speech, Sr. Laurie Brink, O.P. spoke of “four different general ‘directions’ in which religious congregations seem to be moving.” She said that “not one of the four is better or worse than the others.” One of the directions described is “sojourning,” which she says “involves moving beyond the Church, even beyond Jesus. A sojourning congregation is no longer ecclesiastical. It has grown beyond the bounds of institutional religion.” This kind of congregation “in most respects is Post-Christian.” She concludes by characterizing as “a choice of integrity, insight and courage” the decision to “step outside the Church” already made by one group of women religious.
 
Fr. Michael H. Crosby, OFMCap, a keynote speaker at the joint LCWR-CMSM assembly in 2004, lamented the fact that “we still have to worship a God that the Vatican says ‘wills that women not be ordained.’ That god is literally ‘unbelievable.’ It is a false god; it cannot be worshiped. And the prophet must speak truth to that power and be willing to accept the consequence of calling for justice, stopping the violence and bringing about the reign of God.”
 
The LCWR’s Systems Thinking Handbook describes a hypothetical case in which sisters differ over whether the Eucharist should be at the center of a special community celebration. The problem is that some of the sisters object to “priest-led liturgies.” The scenario, it seems, is not simply fictitious, for some LCWR speakers also mention the difficulty of finding ways to worship together as a faith community. According to the Systems Thinking Handbook this difficulty is rooted in differences at the level of belief, but also different mental models—the “Western mind” and the “Organic mental model.” These, rather than Church doctrine, are offered as tools for the resolution of the case.
 
LCWR speakers also explore themes like global spirituality, the new cosmology, earth-justice and eco-feminism in ways that are frequently ambiguous, dubious or even erroneous with respect to Christian faith. And while the LCWR upholds Catholic social teaching in some areas, it is notably silent when it comes to two of the major moral challenges of our time: the right to life of the unborn, and the God-given meaning of marriage between one man and one woman.
 
Are these examples indicative of the thinking of all religious sisters in the United States whose communities are members of the LCWR? Certainly not.
 
Serious questions of faith undoubtedly arise among some women religious, as the LCWR maintains. However, is it the role of a pontifically recognized leadership group to criticize and undermine faith in church teaching by what is said and unsaid, or rather to work to create greater understanding and acceptance of what the Church believes and teaches?

Those who do not hold the teachings of the Catholic Church, or Catholics who dissent from those teachings, are quick to attack the CDF and bishops for taking the LCWR to task. However, a person who holds the reasonable view that a Catholic is someone who subscribes to the teachings of the Catholic Church will recognize that the Catholic Bishops have a legitimate cause for doctrinal concern about the activities of the LCWR, as evidenced by a number of its speakers and some of its resource documents.
 
A key question posed by the doctrinal assessment had to do with moving forward in a positive way. Would the LCWR at least acknowledge the CDF’s doctrinal concerns and be willing to take steps to remedy the situation? The response thus far is exemplified by the LCWR leadership’s choice of a New Age Futurist to address its 2012 assembly, and their decision to give an award this year to Sr. Sandra Schneiders, who has expressed the view that the hierarchical structure of the church represents an institutionalized form of patriarchal domination that cannot be reconciled with the Gospel.

This situation is now a source of controversy and misunderstanding, as well as misrepresentation. I am confident, however, that if the serious concerns of the CDF are accurately represented and discussed among all the sisters of our country, there will indeed be an opening to a new and positive relationship between women religious and the Church’s pastors in doctrinal matters, as there already is in so many other areas where mutual respect and cooperation abound.
 
Most Reverend Leonard P. Blair
Bishop of Toledo
June 8, 2012
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Photos adapted from Nuns Justice Project.

CARDINAL WILLIAM LEVADA ALLOWS SR.MARGARET FARLEY TO RECEIVE THE EUCHARIST

He has to allow Cardinal Koch and Cardinal Ladaria to offer Holy Mass or receive the Eucharist- the issue is doctrine.They deny the dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus and assume that there are explicitly known exceptions.

Just like Sr. Margaret Farley(1) and the LCWR Sisters the Vatican cardinals reject the Nicene Creed ‘I believe in one baptism for the forgiveness of sin’, Vatican Council II (AG 7) and  the dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus. These are mortal sins of Faith.

When we say there is a Hell it is not to frighten the leftists but to acknowledge a reality. There are people there screaming continuously at the frightful sight and there is a fire which burns and it is non-stop. There is no time to eat, relax or read. There is no time there it is eternal.

It is to this place where the majority of people are oriented to at the time of death. Since at the Particular Judgment they will see their souls blackened with mortal sin and the demons will be there appealing to God’s Justice and demanding the possession of that soul to be damned.

The Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) sisters will be confused at this time immediately after death on earth and find themselves in a big line of people, entering a tunnel which gets darker and darker and more frightening.

Gloria Polo, Dante and many others in the present times who have seen this frightful spectacle after death on earth, say that the people in that line of the damned know that it is all over , there is nothing which can be done anymore to change the situation for all eternity. They would like to go back to earth and live in repentance but they cannot. Now they understand what the Church was teaching but they cannot change things. Like Abraham with Lazarus told the rich man Dives in the Gospel of St. Luke: ‘the gulf between you and us is too big’. No one can cross over.

There is no reincarnation and LCWR ‘evolution of consciousness’ there. There is devolution of consciousness there and over time one looks like a beast, with all that screaming, hate, fright and pain.
There are some 18 times that Jesus mentions Hell according to Fr. Stefano Manelli F.I.
There are mortal sins of morals and mortal sins of faith and it is on the mortal sins of faith that the American Sisters along with the Vatican cardinals are on the same boat, which Dante saw, ferrying people to the land of the damned.-Lionel Andrades

1.

CARDINAL LEVADA SAYS LCWR SISTERS CAN AVAIL OF THE SACRAMENT OF PENANCE- WHAT ABOUT THE EUCHARIST?

LCWR Sisters and the Secretary of the CDF need to affirm the literal interpretation of the dogma in accord with Vatican Council II (AG 7) along with implicit baptism of desire and invincible ignorance

Fr. Francois Laisney, Fr. Peter Scott like Cardinal Luiz Ladaria S.J is saying that the Catholic Church is no more Exclusivist ecclesiocentric: SSPX priests and liberals agree that there are explicit exceptions to the traditional interpretation of the dogma outside the church no salvation
http://eucharistandmission.blogspot.it/2012/06/fr-francois-laisney-fr-peter-scott-like.html

 VATICAN CURIA EXPECTS SSPX TO ACCEPT HERESY AND ONE PARTICULAR INTERPRETATION OF VATICAN COUNCIL II

CARDINAL KOCH MOUTHS HERESY AT THE ANGELICUM UNIVERSITY: THROWS AWAY VATICAN COUNCIL II, BIBLE AND DOGMA

Vatican Council II states all Jews and other non Catholics need to convert for salvation and so the comments were pulled down. The comments were contrary to the political propaganda at the University by the rabbi

KOCH: SSPX WILL HAVE TO ACCEPT JEWS DO NOT NEED TO CONVERT TO RECEIVE CANONICAL STATUS

When the SSPX bishops realize that there is an implicit and explicit baptism of desire magisterial texts will open up in a new way

CCC 1257 ‘God is not limited to the Sacraments’ does not contradict itself, Ad Gentes 7 or the dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus


Nostra Aetate does not contradict Ad Gentes 7