Vatican at loggerheads with ‘radical feminist’ US nuns

VATICAN CITY: The Vatican told a group of US nuns rapped for defying Roman Catholic doctrine to toe the line on Tuesday, but a meeting at the Holy See failed to end a public row over their behaviour.

In April, the Vatican accused the nuns of “corporate dissent” from the Church's teachings against homosexuality, and claimed they were pursuing “radical feminist themes” -- accusations they fiercely denied.

Two nuns from the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), which represents around 80 percent of some 45,000 US nuns, said they had made their point at the meeting and would now deliberate their next move. “It was an open meeting, and we were able to directly express our concerns,” one of them, Pat Farrell, said in a statement.

The three-year inquiry by the Vatican's doctrinal watchdog the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) criticised the LCWR in particular for taking liberal stances on contraception, homosexuality and female priests.

Tuesday's meeting will “be discussed later this week with the LCWR board” and the group will “gather its members in regional meetings and in its August assembly” to decide a response to the CDF report, Farrell said.

AFP