Vatican's doctrinal official gives blunt warning to LCWR

May 05, 2014

At a meeting with representatives of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), the prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith rebuked the group for giving a top award to a dissident theologian, and pointedly reminded the American women religious that the LCWR is “a canonical entity dependent on the Holy See,” and must comply with Vatican-mandated plans for reform.

Cardinal Gerhard Müller said that the decision by the LCWR to confer its Outstanding Leadership Award on Sister Elizabeth Johnson, whose writings have drawn a caution from the US bishops’ committee on doctrine, can be “seen as a rather open provocation” in light of the Vatican’s call for reform of the American group.

Under the terms of the reform ordered by the Vatican in 2012, Cardinal Müller reminded the LCWR, the speakers at LCWR meetings should be cleared by the Vatican’s delegate supervising the reform process, Archbishop J. Peter Sartain of Seattle. But Archbishop Sartain was informed about the award for Sister Johnson “only after the decision had been made,” the cardinal observed, in an apparent violation of the Vatican’s directives.

Cardinal Müller—who apologized several times during his address for speaking so bluntly to the women religious—advised the LCWR leaders to bear in mind that an “assessment” of their group, at the conclusion of a Vatican investigation in 2011, had uncovered serious doctrinal problems. He said that these problems “are so central and so foundational, there is no other way of discussing them except as constituting a movement away from the ecclesial center of faith in Christ Jesus the Lord.”

To illustrate his point, the cardinal spoke about the “Conscious Evolution” movement, which has been discussed at length in LCWR meetings and publications. Cardinal Müller said:

Again, I apologize if this seems blunt, but what I must say is too important to dress up in flowery language. The fundamental theses of Conscious Evolution are opposed to Christian Revelation and, when taken unreflectively, lead almost necessarily to fundamental errors regarding the omnipotence of God, the Incarnation of Christ, the reality of Original Sin, the necessity of salvation and the definitive nature of the salvific action of Christ in the Paschal Mystery.

 

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Further information:

• Opening Remarks by Cardinal Gerhard Müller (CDF)
• LCWR announces top award for theologian criticized by US bishops (CWN, 5/2)