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THE HOLY SEE’S main theological watchdog has criticised the organisation which represents the majority of nuns in the United States, saying they spend too much time discussing issues like social justice and not enough time upholding Church teaching.
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith said the Leadership Conference of Women Religious will be asked to rewrite its statues and review its plans and programmes, including inviting guest speakers, in order to follow Catholic ritual.
The Conference represents 57,000 nuns in teh US, and offers leadership training programmes as well as advocacy services on social justice issues.
The Vatican’s body said the Conference faced a “grave” doctrinal crisis, in which issues of “crucial importance” to the church, such as abortion and euthanasia, have been ignored.
Officials also castigated the group for making some public statements that “disagree with or challenge positions taken by the bishops,” who are the church’s “authentic teachers of faith and morals.”
Church officials did not cite a specific example of those public statements, but said the reform would include a review of ties between the Leadership Conference and NETWORK, a Catholic social justice lobby.
NETWORK played a key role in supporting the Obama administration’s health care overhaul despite the bishops’ objections that the bill would provide government funding for abortion.
The Leadership Conference disagreed with the bishops’ analysis of the law and also supported President Barack Obama’s plan.
Sister Simone Campbell, executive director of NETWORK, said in a phone interview with AP that the timing of the report suggested a link between their health care stand and the Vatican crackdown. The review began in 2009 and continued until June 2010, a few months after the health care law was approved. The report does not cite Obama or the bill.
She later told NPR that the “visceral” report was “like a sock in the stomach” to the lobby. “The idea that Women Religious in the United States is not being faithful to the Gospel is just shocking,” she said.
The fact is that our lives are committed through these vows to living the gospel and while we have amazing richness in the spiritual life, we give up a lot to do this.
Additional reporting by the AP
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What’s that rushing up towards me, said Rosetta. I shall call it “rocks” it thought happily – I wonder if it will be my friend?
Who is flying it, Mmmmm……it would be too much to hope for, by the way is leaders questions on this morning.
They better be friends. They’ll probably be together for billions of years.
Per second? Wow! That’s fast..
@The Girl:
Approx. 30,000 mph
Sure the Earth is going at 30km per second, and rotating at 1,000mph at the equator.
True, the earth orbits the sun at about 108,000 km/hr. And all without spilling your tea. ☺
Has to be 14km per hour, the speed of a gentle amble
Don’t forget that the Milky Way itself is driving along at 1,300,000 mph. It’s all very interesting really!
@Elma Phudd: so in other words if I walk forwards I am travelling at 1.3m mph + 108k mph + 1000 mph (if at the equator) + whatever speed I am doing :-). Like a fly in a car (doing 90) flies from the back to the front inside the cabin. Is he doing the 90+fly speed or jsut fly speed :-)
It depends which direction you are walking in ;)
You only don’t spill your tea because the brakes have been sabotaged by the illuminati to stop anyone getting off and away from the crazyness.
Whenever life gets you down, Mrs. Brown, And things seem hard or tough, And people are stupid, obnoxious or daft, And you feel that you’ve had quite eno-o-o-o-o-ough, Just remember that you’re standing on a planet that’s evolving And revolving at 900 miles an hour. It’s orbiting at 19 miles a second, so it’s reckoned, The sun that is the source of all our power. Now the sun, and you and me, and all the stars that we can see, Are moving at a million miles a day, In the outer spiral arm, at 40,000 miles an hour, Of a galaxy we call the Milky Way. Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars; It’s a hundred thousand light-years side to side; It bulges in the middle sixteen thousand light-years thick, But out by us it’s just three thousand light-years wide. We’re thirty thousand light-years from Galactic Central Point, We go ’round every two hundred million years; And our galaxy itself is one of millions of billions In this amazing and expanding universe.
A truly incredible and inspirational program from start to finish. What they’ve achieved is astonishing!
Everything that lives is born to die…….even spacecraft!
Lets hope Rosetta’s impact doesn’t nudge the comet off its trajectory and send it spiraling towards earth.
It’s going the wrong direction and there’s not going to be much force from the landing! The momentum of the comet probably won’t be affected by the satellite crashing into it.
bags summa dat metal dere boss
Were any of the scientists wearing sexist clothing during the announcement? Because that’s what really matters here.
All that technology and it took them ages to find Osama Bin Laden.
Why crash it though? Why not just let it drift off into the abyss?
Litter bug!
@OU812: They hope to obtain useful data from the crash landing. They’d get none if they let it drift.
And it was on its last legs….
This way they know where it is: drifting it’d be a hazard to the next one up?
Fantastic and another European victory in the friendly space race between the USA and Europe/Russia…hopefully much more can be invested in Space exploration.
Rosette are you better, are you well well well
We should all be glad that we managed to land on a comet before one landed on us.
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