Not doctrinally, through, correct, when pertaining to settled dogmas, such as the necessity of a male for the priesthood, the eternity of God, the redemptive sacrifice of Christ, etc…? This matter is a “
doctrinal assessment,” is it not?
The issues are doctrinal but what the CDF asked the LCWR (alphabet soup) asked them to do was to “reinvent” their organization. This is not a doctrinal command. The command was given because of doctrinal discrepancies.
However, there is a problem here that the CDF has been made aware of by the Franciscan Major Superiors. There is a law that requires a council made up of bishops and religious with one religious more than bishops. Before the CDF issues any mandate to religious, it must convene such a council. And only when the council cannot resolve the problem, can the CDF take the step that it took. The CDF skipped the council.
I don’t believe that it was done maliciously at all. The people in the CDF are not that kind of people. They are good honest men. It was truly an oversight. Once the mandate was given, it was too late to go back and say, “Let’s hold a council to determine if the LCWR’s leadership needs to reinvent itself or if it can fix its problems without going that far.”
By that point, the best thing to do was for the CDF to accept the scolding that it had to take from the Franciscan Council of Major Superiors of Men.
Then there was another blooper. The CDF did not inform the Sacred Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life that it was issuing a mandate to the LCWR. The Sacred Congregation for Religious thought that the CDF was looking at the doctrinal issues, not the organizational issues. Any organizational issues pertaining to religious life fall under the jurisdiction of the Sacred Congregation for Religious, which is part of the Holy See.
The Council of Franciscan Major Superiors of Men, asked the International Council of Major Superiors for clarification. The International Council of Major Superiors, is headed by a Jesuit and a Franciscan, president and vice president respectively. It is an agency of the Holy See under the Sacred Congregation for Religious. It reported that no one had told them that the LCWR had been given marching orders of any kind. They went to the Prefect for Religious who expressed surprise that the CDF had issued such a command without informing him.
Again, I truly believe that there was no intent to do harm. These men are not in the business of trying to do others in. Especially Cardinal Laveda and Archbishop Mueller. These men are straight shooters. These are simple rules, protocols and procedures that have not been used in such a long time, that they probably forgot they even existed.
The situation is more than a doctrinal one. If it were simply doctrinal, the CDF can state that the LCWR cannot publish said pamphlets and that persons A, B and C may not speak at any LCWR function, because they’re heretics. It would be over. The LCWR would go on with life, knowing that it cannot include certain people or support certain causes. If it does, then the situation goes to the next level, which is the level of obedience. The Pope can command. Remember, the CDF cannot command religious to obey. No bishop, regardless of who he is, can command any sister to obey, even in a doctrinal matter. Only the pope can do that. A bishop or the CDF can say that such and such a statement is heresy and that such and such a person has excommunicated himself, if it applies. He cannot command a sister. No one other than her own sisters and the pope can command a sister. A sister is not a laywoman. She has greater autonomy from bishops than a laywoman does.
The real issue here is that the protocols were not followed. The rules were not followed. The Council of Franciscan Major Superiors of Men noticed it and reported it. This changes how Rome proceeds.
Rome can still proceed with the reconstruction of the LCWR, because the Holy Father wants it to happen. But it must do it conscious of that fact that it has to be fair to the sisters, because steps were skipped and people who should have been in the loop were left out. When things like this happens, you can’t be aggressive. Afterall, you’ve made some procedural mistakes as well.
If this were a civil case, if would have died on a technicality. The Church is wiser, kinder and more practical than civil governments.
The concerns are about doctrinal issues. But the mandate is to reconstruct the LCWR. It does not say, “Thou shall not teach heresy.” We know that already. No one has to spend one million dollars doing a three-year study, involve I don’t know how many people and reconstruct an organization if the only problem is teaching error. The CDF’s concern is with structure as well as content. This is where the glitch lies. Structure does not fall under the CDF. It falls under the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life. There has to be more coordination, more dialogue and it’s going to take longer.
We also have to remember that this is not about what sisters wear. Some people are making it about habits. Most women religious in South America do not wear a habit and they are thriving. They are very orthodox in their doctrine. They are very connected to the poor. They do great work in areas of education, healthcare and care for the elderly among the poorest of the poor. The have wonderful apostolates for the good of families and youth and they have very good relations with male religious superiors. This helps. They don’t have two conferences, one for men and one for women. They have one conference for religious, period. This helps, because there is a lot of balance rather than conflict between genders.
