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.

In his post below about the USCCB’s critique of Elizabeth Johnson’s Quest for the Living God, Grant noted that Fr. Thomas Weinandy told the New York Times “The primary concern was not over feminism or nonfeminism. The bishops are saying that the book does not adequately treat a Catholic understanding of God.” Laurie Goodstein’s article seems to presume that it was the feminist stuff that ruffled the bishops’ feathers. And based on what the bishops’ statement alleges, Grant wondered “whether Johnson’s feminism didn’t feature more largely in the committee’s mind than Weinandy lets on.” I think it’s a fair question.

I said below (in the comments) that the reading overall strikes me as deeply unfair and also oddly aggressive. It’s a prosecution, not a careful laying-out of concerns and clarifications, and it rests on some odd assumptions about what Johnson is trying to do. The main one, which I find totally unpersuasive, is this: “For Sr. Johnson, if God is incomprehensible he is also unknowable.” If she believed that, why would she write a book about seeking God? Why do theology at all? If you’ll look to page 11 of Quest, you’ll find citations from Scripture about the centrality of that search for God to the Christian faith, and how God has promised to reveal himself to those who seek him. As Erin Kidd writes over at the Women in Theology blog (where a thorough response to the bishops’ critique is ongoing), “We are on a quest not because we lack knowledge of God, but because we never come to the end of God. God is deeper than our glance can penetrate.” I can’t imagine coming away from what Johnson writes at the very beginning of the book convinced that she believes God is “unknowable” — unless I went in already convinced that Johnson, because she’s a contemporary feminist theologian, is interested only in tearing down the faith from the inside. I know there are people who believe that. I should hope the bishops wouldn’t take it as their starting point in analyzing a work of theology.

The reason I am wondering about just how much the feminist thing affected the bishops’ reading is that it’s in the section addressing female language for God where their critique seems sloppiest. Turn with me, please, to page 12 of the bishops’ statement, headed “New Names for the Unknown God.” (Again, “unknown” — not Sr. Johnson’s claim. “New” is also debatable.) The section begins: Read the rest of this entry »

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Committee on Doctrine has released a statement criticizing [PDF] Sr. Elizabeth A. Johnson’s Quest for the Living God (Continuum) for failing “to accord with authentic Catholic teaching on essential points.” The twenty-one-page document claims the book doesn’t “take the faith of the church as its starting point,” that it uses “standards from outside the faith to criticize and to revise in a radical fashion the conception of God revealed in Scripture and taught by the magisterium,” and that the book “contaminates the traditional Catholic understanding of God” and “completely undermines the gospel.”

Johnson, a highly respected feminist theologian (a former professor of mine, and a friend), told the New York Times that the bishops had radically misinterpreted Quest for the Living God. “The book itself endeavors to present new insights about God arising from people living out their Catholic faith in different cultures around the world,” she said. “My hope is that any conversation that may be triggered by this statement will enrich that faith.” The bishops did not invite her to discuss the book.

In a statement dated March 30, she offered a longer response to the Committee on Doctrine:

It is heartening to see the Bishops Conference give such serious attention to the subject of the living God. I appreciate how this statement acknowledges the laudable nature of the task of crafting a theology of God, and the number of issues on which the statement judges that I am “entirely correct.” The book itself endeavors to present new insights about God arising from people living out their Catholic faith in different cultures around the world. My hope is that any conversation that may be triggered by this statement will but enrich that faith, encouraging robust relationship to the Holy Mystery of the living God as the church moves into the future.

I would like to express two serious concerns. First, I would have been glad to enter into conversation to clarify critical points, but was never invited to do so. This book was discussed and finally assessed by the Committee before I knew any discussion had taken place. Second, one result of this absence of dialogue is that in several key instances this statement radically misinterprets what I think, and what I in fact wrote. The conclusions thus drawn paint an incorrect picture of the fundamental line of thought the book develops. A conversation, which I still hope to have, would have very likely avoided these misrepresentations.

That being said, as a scholar I have always taken criticism as a valuable opportunity to delve more deeply into a subject. The task of theology, classically defined as “faith seeking understanding,” calls for theologians to wrestle with mystery. The issues are always complex, especially on frontiers where the church’s living tradition is growing. Committed to the faith of the church, I take this statement as an occasion to ponder yet further the mystery of the living God who is ineffable.

Johnson says she won’t make any more public comments on the matter.

Read the rest of this entry »