Vatican's Old-Fashioned Nuns Say the Past is Key to the Future

RELIGIOUS NEWS SERVICE
By David Gibson

The Vatican's proposed takeover of the LCWR (Leadership Conference of Women Religious) had been the focus of widespread interest since April, when Rome announced that the group – which represents about 80 percent of the 56,000 nuns in American religious communities – was infected with “radical feminism,” marred by dissent and in need of a top-down overhaul. Yet the LCWR delegates, buoyed by an outpouring of public support, in the end forcefully rejected the Vatican’s charges and opted to try to pursue dialogue with Rome to resolve the dispute. But what of that other 20 percent of American nuns? Often overlooked in the coverage of the LCWR showdown, they largely belong to a separate organization, called the Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious, that the Vatican set up in 1992 as traditional alternative – some say a conservative rival – to the more progressive LCWR. The CMSWR umbrella comprises convents with a total of about 10,000 nuns. [link]