US religious women in state of shock following Vatican announcement

LCWR 'stunned' by Vatican's latest move | National Catholic Reporter:

 "The largest leadership organization for U.S. women religious says it was "stunned" by the announcement Wednesday that the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had ordered it to reform its statutes and had appointed an archbishop to oversee its revision.

"The presidency of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious was stunned by the conclusions of the doctrinal assessment of LCWR by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith," the group said in a news release Thursday morning.

"Because the leadership of LCWR has the custom of meeting annually with the staff of CDF in Rome and because the conference follows canonically-approved statutes, we were taken by surprise.""

Cathcon-

Longer term, the Vatican will be wanting the Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious to re-unify with the LCWR.  But first the LCWR has to be transformed and transformed radically into an organisation fit for the future not for the barricades of 1968, that generation without inheritance.  Ironic, that the baby boom generation has no inheritance- those who married failed to pass the faith onto their children and those who entered religion are now leading forms of dying religious life.  See Cathcon passim for closed convents across the Catholic world.

See also a fascinating piece, The Fractured Face of Carmel.

And for the depths to which American religious life has dived.   Nuns who never have left behind life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in favour of poverty, chastity and obedience.