In an interview published in the latest edition of a monthly supplement on women for the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, Cardinal Gerhard Mueller has stressed the Leadership Conference of Women Religious do not represent all US nuns, “but just a group of nuns who form part of an association.”
The cardinal is currently in talks with the LCWR due to concerns over its positions on Church teaching. The LCWR is a canonically approved membership organization which serves to support women religious in the United States.
“We have received many distressed letters from other nuns belonging to the same congregations, who are suffering a great deal because of the direction in which the LCWR is steering their mission,” Cardinal Mueller told Lucetta Scaraffia, editor of the monthly magazine, according to La Stampa.
“Congregations have no more vocations and risk dying out,” he added. “We have first of all tried to reduce hostility and tensions, partly thanks to Bishop Sartain whom we sent to negotiate with them; he is a very gentle man. We wish to stress that we are not misogynists, we are not women gobblers! Of course we have a different concept of religious life but we hope to help them rediscover their identity.”
The German cardinal also said the number of women in the International Theological Commission is expected to rise from two to 5 or 6, at the Pope’s request. The commission examines crucial doctrinal questions and its members, which currently number 30, serve five year terms.
