No open discussion of Vatican demands at LCWR assembly

August 09, 2012

At the annual assembly of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), members have been asked not to speak to reporters about the issue on everyone’s mind: the LCWR response to a Vatican call for reform of the group.

Sister Patricia Farrell, the LCWR president, told members: “If in your own conscience you cannot understand or perceive confidentiality as anything other than total transparency, we ask you to think about not coming to the executive sessions, not in the interest of ever excluding anyone, but in creating the kind of environment we need to really discern with each other in freedom and openness.”

Reporters were, however, able to hear the keynote address by “futurist” Barbara Marx Hubbard, who told the women religious that the earth is on the edge of a new breakthrough in evolution. Ann Carey, covering the event for the National Catholic Register, had a quizzical comment on the keynote speech:

Hubbard is an engaging speaker, and she knew how to connect with her audience, though the futurist terminology she used left this journalist reaching for a dictionary to look up “noosphere,” “cosmo genesis,” synergistic convergence” and “Christification.”

Reporting for the New York Times, Laurie Goodstein found that many nuns were pleased with the support they had received from other Catholics in their conflict with Rome. But the Times report also conveyed the unusual nature of the gathering:

They sat in silence for a long stretch, sang songs about truth and mystery accompanied by a guitar and a choir, and heard a keynote address by a futurist who was escorted to the podium by seven liturgical dancers waving diaphanous scarves of pink and tangerine.

 

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Further information:

• Nuns, at Juncture, Meet to Weigh Their Reply to the Vatican (New York Times)
• Futurist Addresses LCWR Assembly (National Catholic Register)
• LCWR assembly begins; Vatican representative told attendance 'would not be helpful' (CWN, 8/6)