UPDATE: Moments ago (Friday evening), at the business meeting of the Catholic Theological Society of America, the assembly voted by an overwhelming majority to adopt the statement of the CTSA board on the case of Sr. Margaret Farley as its own. (A few members opposed the motion, and a few more abstained.) This is significant because CTSA board statements are solely the responsibility of its members. Full statement of the CTSA below. [End update.]

This morning the Catholic Theological Society of America board released the following statement responding to the Vatican’s “notification” on Sr. Margaret Farley’s book Just Love:

On June 4, 2012, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith published a “Notification” entitled “Regarding the Book Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics by Sister Margaret A. Farley, R.S.M.” The “Notification” judged that, in a number of respects, Professor Farley’s book presents positions on matters of sexual ethics that are contrary to the teaching of the Magisterium.

We, the undersigned members of the Board of Directors of the Catholic Theological Society of America, wish to note that Professor Farley is a highly respected member of the theological community. A former President of the CTSA and a recipient of the Society’s John Courtney Murray Award, she has devoted her life to teaching and writing on ethical issues and has done so in ways that have been reflective, measured, and wise. Her work has prompted a generation of theologians to think more deeply about the Christian meaning of personal relationships and the divine life of love that truly animates them. The judgment of the “Notification” that a number of Professor Farley’s stated positions are contrary to the teaching of the Magisterium is simply factual. In our judgment, however, Professor Farley’s purpose in her book is to raise and explore questions of keen concern to the faithful of the Church. Doing so is one very legitimate way of engaging in theological inquiry that has been practiced throughout the Catholic tradition.

The Board is especially concerned with the understanding of the task of Catholic theology presented in the “Notification.” The “Notification” risks giving the impression that there can be no constructive role in the life of the Church for works of theology that 1) give voice to the experience and concerns of ordinary believers, 2) raise questions about the persuasiveness of certain official Catholic positions, and 3) offer alternative theological frameworks as potentially helpful contributions to the authentic development of doctrine. Such an understanding of the nature of theology inappropriately conflates the distinctive tasks of catechesis and theology. With regard to the subject matter of Professor Farley’s book, it is simply a matter of fact that faithful Catholics in every corner of the Church are raising ethical questions like those Professor Farley has addressed. In raising and exploring such questions with her customary sensitivity and judiciousness, Professor Farley has invited us to engage the Catholic tradition seriously and thoughtfully.

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Robert Mickens of the Tablet and Sandro Magister of Chiesa are reporting the names of the men behind the investigation of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious. You’re going to recognize a few. First, Magister:

The inspection [of LCWR] had been urged above all by some cardinals of the United States, both of the curia and residential [i.e., those who live in Rome], with direct knowledge of the “problematic” orientations of the LCWR.

Cardinal Franc Rodé, prefect of the congregation for religious until the end of 2010, had given the go-ahead to a rather hostile apostolic visitation of the LCWR. But after, on January 4, 2011, he was replaced by Brazilian cardinal João Braz de Aviz, a focolarino [member of the Focolare movement], and even before that, when the American Redemptorist Joseph W. Tobin became secretary of the same congregation, the apostolic visitation continued and concluded in a much more conciliatory manner.

This changing of the guard at the top of the congregation for religious was not at all to the liking of the cardinals from the United States residing in Rome at the time – Levada, Raymond L. Burke, James F. Stafford, Bernard F. Law, John P. Foley – so much so that none of them attended Tobin’s episcopal ordination at Saint Peter’s Basilica on October 9, 2010.

That’s extraordinary. On Magister’s telling, those American cardinals were so disappointed with the decision to appoint Tobin — an outsider who didn’t want the job and freely admits to “ranting about the curia” — that they couldn’t be bothered to attend his ordination to the episcopacy. (I wonder who attended Cardinal Law’s 2004 appointment as archpriest of St. Mary Major. His retirement ran silent.) Imagine their surprise when soon after a nun was appointed undersecretary for the congregation — and one who doesn’t usually wear a habit, just like those troublesome LCWR nuns. Those American cardinals must have seen the writing on the wall. Under new management, the apostolic visitation of the LCWR seems to have gone precisely nowhere.

Unlike the doctrinal investigation, which was run by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, headed by Levada. As Mickens explains, the CDF had been looking into the LCWR for quite some time:

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From the Editors:

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s recent censure of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious for “serious doctrinal problems” raises a number of familiar, if troubling, questions. The LCWR, which represents most American nuns, exists to provide support for the work sisters do for the poor, the imprisoned, the ill, and the marginalized, and to give the various religious communities a corporate voice. As part of the CDF’s action, the LCWR will be put into a kind of receivership under Seattle Archbishop Peter Sartain—essentially suppressing what little autonomy the group has had. Its statutes will be rewritten and speakers for LCWR meetings will now be vetted. The sisters were specifically reprimanded for speaking out in opposition to positions taken by the U.S. bishops but also for keeping “silent” about church teachings on ordination and same-sex marriage. Is silence now considered a form of dissent? Are women religious not even allowed to determine the priorities of their own ministries?

Read the whole thing here.

In its recent statement regarding the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith noted that its principal means of assessing the doctrinal fidelity of the LCWR was a review of keynote and leadership addresses at the LCWR annual assembly.   Many of the documents in question are publicly available on the LCWR web site.  Given the controversy, I wanted to read some of these documents myself.

What I found was not what I expected.  With all the concerns the CDF raised about “radical feminism,” I assumed I would encounter many stirring denunciations of patriarchy and criticisms of the Church’s teaching that the sacrament of Holy Orders be restricted to men.

Intimations of those positions find their way into the documents here and there.  At most, however, they are a minor concern.  The core struggle revealed in these addresses is an emotional and spiritual one: how to live out a religious life in communities whose vision of Church—a vision that once seemed a real possibility—is increasingly a road not taken.

It would be one thing if these communities were attracting new entrants who shared that vision.  But they are not and the authors of these addresses know it.   For the most part, they are dying.  There is much talk of hope.  But it is clearly not the hope of Isaiah 40, where the Jews in Babylon are assured that their exile is at an end.  It is, at best, an eschatological hope.

Reading these addresses reminded me of a conversation I had with a sister a few years ago. Formed in the self-confident Church of the 1950s, she was ill-prepared for the wrenching changes that came with Vatican II.   By the early 1970s, many of the women who had been part of her novice class had left.  Her own congregation was in turmoil and sisters often struggled to work out the meaning of their vows without much support from their community.  There was real pain in her voice as she recounted this story and I remember thinking that I knew few marriages that would have been able to withstand this kind of strain.  Her ability to persevere, to heal, and to continue to minister to others humbled me.  It humbles me still.

Which is why I have little patience with younger Catholics whose response to the CDF statement was a more or less venomous form of “I told you so!”  You cannot understand the meaning of vows until you have lived them through a major crisis.  Those that have lived them in this manner are generally humble about judging the decisions of others who have faced a similar challenge, for they know how close to precipice they themselves have walked.

I do not argue that the LCWR and its member communities are beyond criticism.  I have sometimes found documents and resources prepared by the Conference and its member communities to be intellectually and theologically shallow.  The same, though, can be said of many documents prepared by Vatican congregations, to say nothing of the statements of some individual bishops.  The intellectual crisis of contemporary Catholicism is a generalized phenomenon.

In the end, the Doctrinal Assessment may be the least of the challenges the LCWR faces.  Nevertheless, it is hard to see how it will really contribute to the organization’s “renewal.”  Discipline can be imposed from above, but renewal cannot be.  It must come from within or it will not come at all.

Michael Sean Winters continues to call down shame on the secular press for its coverage of the latest phase of the sexual-abuse crisis. Winters doesn’t see why anyone should be too troubled by how the CDF handled the case of Stephen Kiesle: “This, we are led to believe, is the smoking gun. Raztinger signed the letter in 1985. That is HIS signature. Case closed.”

In 1978 Kiesle was convicted of molesting two boys and was sentenced to three years’ probation. (Later he was convicted of molesting a girl.) As Winters points out, the priest sought to be released from celibacy and returned to the lay state. The bishop of Oakland and others who knew Kiesle sent letters to Rome–along with Kiesle’s file–in support of the request. (Read the documents here.) Winters writes:

The first document posted at the Times is a 1981 letter from a parish priest who worked with Kiesle. It says that Kiesle lacked “maturity and responsibility and spirituality” and says he only became a priest to please his over-bearing mother.

That’s not all it says. Read it for yourself: Fr. Dabovich writes that Kiesle worked mostly with teenagers and children in the parish CCD program. “They liked him and cooperated with him. Yet he acted as one of them: played ball with them; took them to outings and shows and spent time in their homes.” He continues: “I was somewhat concerned, but never received any unfavorable comments. Only some years after he left this parish did I learn of some improprieties that were going on while he was here.” An experienced Vatican official would know how to read between those lines.

Winters:

The second document, also from 1981 and also from a priest who worked with Kiesle, says that Kiesle’s family was opposed to his becoming a priest and claims that Kiesle was irresponsible and had trouble relating to adults. The letter refers to “the eventual difficulty that Father Kiesle had with the law because of his relationship to young children” but there are no details.

So what? The letter writer, Fr. George Crespin, then chancellor of the diocese, may have felt squeamish about detailing Kiesle’s crimes. He may have wanted to stick to the protocol of understatement when communicating with Rome. Note, too, that before euphemistically mentioning that Kiesle ran into trouble with the law because of his “relationship to young children,” Crespin also notes that Kiesle showed interest in “ministering” to no one else but young people. Does Winters expect us to believe that CDF officials couldn’t connect those dots?

What’s more, in the same letter Crespin says that “a sufficient description of the nature of the difficulties” was included in the Acta, which had already been sent to Rome. Later in the post Winters–still ignoring the unpublished Acta we know was sent to the CDF–repeats the claim that Ratzinger was never informed of the full extent of Kiesle’s crimes. That assumption is unsupported by the record.

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