An American Nun Responds to Vatican Criticism
Fresh Air’s Terry Gross interviews Sister Pat Farrell, president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), which represents 80 percent of American Catholic sisters. Following the Vatican’s public condemnation of the LCWR in April, Sr. Farrell wonders, “Can you be Catholic and have a questioning mind?” The Vatican’s Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith accused the LCWR of having “radical feminist themes.” “[W]hat I hear in the phrasing [of the Vatican’s rebuke],” says Farrell, “is fear—a fear of women’s positions in the church.”