Cardinal Burke on LCWR – reform or be suppressed

Tragically, I am almost certain it will have to be the latter, should the Vatican have the will for such.  Most likely, the Holy Father will let nature take it’s course as the easiest alternative – these women will not go without a bitter, brutal struggle.

Cardinal Burke makes plain his view – the LCWR must “convert” (yay!!) or their organization will be suppressed:

“If it can’t be reformed, then it doesn’t have a right to continue,” Cardinal Raymond Burke, prefect of the Vatican’s Apostolic Signatura, told EWTN’s Raymond Arroyo in a Thursday interview for The World Over.

How in the world can these consecrated religious who have professed to follow Christ more closely … be opposed to what the Vicar of Christ is asking? This is a contradiction,” he said.

The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) launched the reform of the LCWR in April with a hard-hitting document raising serious doctrinal issues with the group, including its failure to uphold Church teaching on the right to life, homosexuality, and women’s ordination. The organization represents about 80% of America’s 57,000 women religious. [Hmmm……just a few years ago, LCWR was described as representing over 90% of women’s religious.  Now, that is actually under 80% and rapidly falling.  Within 10 years or so, they won’t represent the majority anymore.  So very sad, what they have done to religious life in this country]

Cardinal William Levada, then-prefect of the CDF, warned in June that the LCWR could be decertified if they fail to implement the reforms.

………

In his World Over interview, Cardinal Burke told Arroyo that the issue is simply a question of the sisters remaining faithful to their vows. “Consecrated religious … are bound to the Vicar of Christ by a very significant bond because they have professed … to follow Christ in an exemplary way and so to be a source of strength and inspiration for the whole People of God,” he explained.

“The question now is for conversion to the true nature of religious life and to accept gratefully and humbly what the Holy Father is asking through his representatives and to reform the organization,” he added.

The prelate also noted that few people realize the Holy See actually founded the LCWR, in 1956. So, he asked, “Why should it not have a right to say ‘look this organization is no longer fulfilling the mission for which we founded it’?”

Precisely.  LCWR was founded in a well-intentioned but ultimately fruitless, and then incredibly destructive, effort by Venerable Pope Pius XII to modernize religious life. He wanted nuns to network and get educated.  Well, they did, and then promptly left the Church in the wake of the disastrous implementation of Vatican II.  Many of these women, especially in the leadership, haven’t been remotely Catholic, or remotely faithful to their vows, for decades.  Change will be exceedingly hard, especially at such an advanced age.  I think many expect they will refuse to change, and keep their worldly, frankly heretical beliefs.

Again, this whole sad saga is a tragedy of epic proportions.