Today on Register Radio, it was a very special show devoted to last week's St. Louis assembly of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious. In our first half, EWTN's Father Mitch Pacwa, SJ, provided some insight into who Barbara Marx Hubbard is. Hubbard was the LCWR's keynote speaker.
"She says that there is a hierarchy of voices that speaks to her," explained Father Pacwa, who is an expert on the New Age movement. "The highest of those voices is what she describes as her 'Christ-self.'"
"She has a very different Christ than what we have in the Gospels, in Sacred Tradition, and what the Magisterium teaches," said Father Pacwa. "Her Christ is an alternative to what the Catholic Church teaches. She considers us to be closed-minded."
"For her to address the LCWR sisters when the Vatican is trying to draw the sisters back to the faith and the way of life and discipline of the Church, the LCWR's approach has been a New Age approach for some decades," added Father Pacwa. "As they follow that, they do not gain any vocations. Their medium age is 74 and I would estimate that not 2% of their vocations are below the age of 50. They are not life-giving, yet they see [Barbara Marx Hubbard] as giving a vision of a life-giving future. The Pope and the rest of the Church are saying, 'No, this is not the authentic Jesus Christ of the Gospels. You should not be following a false Christ or any other voice.'"
In our second half, Register correspondent Ann Carey, who covered the LCWR assembly spoke about the gathering. "Barbara Marx Hubbard cherry picked from the Catholic faith and the New Testament in her keynote address," said Carey. "At one point she said that after reading the New Testment, she realized that if we were to use a higher way of thinking, we too would be like Christ and even performing miracles. She was pretty far out there."
Asked about the LCWR's response to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's doctrinal assessment, Carey said that their decision was to continue dialogue.
"They seem to think that if they can keep the other side talking, one never has to come to a conclusion," said Carey, paralleling the situation with the LCWR to that of the Society of St. Pius the X.
Carey added that there's a stark difference between the LCWR's mission today and it's stated purpose when it was first organized in 1956. "Originally, their purpose was to promote the spiritual welfare of Sisters and closer cooperation with the hierarchy of the Church," said Carey. "The Vatican founded the group and can decide if a group within the Church retains canonical status. Retaining canonical status means keeping close ties with the hierarchy and remaining faithful to the Church. The LCWR thinks that they have their own authority because they are the ones living the life."
As always, to learn more listen to today's show at 2 p.m. EASTERN Friday on any EWTN Radio affiliate or Sirius/XM Satellite Radio. The program re-airs at 7 p.m. EASTERN on Saturday and 11 a.m. EASTERN on Sunday, and is also available on the Register Radio web page, and via podcast.
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“She considers us to be close-minded.”
Some people’s minds are so open their brains have fallen out
Thank you very much for this update, I have been following this issue since I first heard that the Vatican had ordered an investigation.
-“Dialoguing” is becoming a bad word, it is another way to say “both sides have agreed to stall until nobody is looking and then they will retreat to their respective corners and nothing will ever change.”
Pray for the LCWR, and pray for Barbara Marx Hubbard. She is horribly confused. “If you stand for nothing, you’ll fall for anything.” She is an elderly woman fearing and denying her inevitable death. If you don’t believe in the REAL Christ, there is no hope. If the only thing you have is a flaky fairy-tale, what a pity!
It’s no surprise that the LCWR invited such a speaker. They cannot help but see their demographics. If the “dialogue” lasts very long, there may not be any of them left. Please pray for the sisters. We all need the truth of the REAL Christ.
When I heard about this speaker, and the LCWR’s obvious continuing obstinacy, the biblical phrase “a spirit of deep delusion” came to mind. It’s really pretty sad, if you think about it. Many of these women have traded true faith in the Lord Jesus Christ for a handful of dust. In a few years, their communities, and they themselves, will be gone. They will be remembered for having destroyed the religious communities founded by saints. I think many of them sincerely love the poor, and I hope that love covers their sins when they stand before Jesus, because they will also have to answer for those they led astray and for their own infidelity, as all of us will. I fear for their souls. I pray those who need to repent and come back to the true Catholic faith will do so before it is too late.
It’s firghtening that they will admit no wrong and take no correction. I have dealt with such sisters, and theologians who are the same, in person. It is astounding the way in which they simply cannot take in any facts that do not fit their views, no matter how gently you present them. It actually scared me during one discussion I had with a professor, because it is not normal for someone that intelligent to be utterly unable to truly engage with a real point made by a sincere, peaceful other person. We need to realize that these things are part of the battle which is not with flesh and blood, but with powers and principalities. Prayer and fasting is in order.
Enough already! Kick the heretical new age social workers out! What else is there to gain from dialogue with these nuts?
Been watching this unfold with total amazement. The Church will probably engage in much dialogue, in part because these sisters are attached to parishes and other Catholic communities that would not understand a “shape up or ship out” ultimatum, leading to lay people leaving the Church and more lost souls.
I heard that the sisters were being directed to start doing the morning (and evening?) prayers religious communities gather for. You’d think they would comply with that one without stalling.
It is very unfair and shows a serious lack of knowledge to compare the actions of the LCWR to the SSPX.
The LCWR are obviously promoting heresy - therefore they are.
The SSPX is obviously promoting orthodox Catholicity and has been warning the rest of the Church, since it was founded by Papal decree, about the errors and heresies of modernism.
A perfect example of which we see manifested in the LCWR and was allowed to “proper” under our last Pope.
“prosper”
Lamentation is the only word that seems to fit. “By the waters of Babylon, we sat down and wept”...for the LCWR. (Psalm 137)
How many of us enrolled in parochial schools in the late 60’s witnessed the sad progression as once vibrant religious communities were decimated?
The Dominican Sisters of Caldwell, NJ…St. Aloysius School, Mt. St. Dominic Academy…so sad.
The habit, the identity, the way of life…all gone.
St. Grace Marie, Sr. Joachin, Sr. Joseph Gabriel, Sr. Edmund, Sr. Margaret Mary, Sr. Adin, Sr. Mary Regis… Thank you for passing on the Faith.
Even small religious orders such as The Society of the Holy Child Jesus (Philadelphia, in this country) send around heretical Theilhard writings. The question is what did these selfserving old girls profess when they accepted ‘orders’ that they descarded years ago? There’s nothing like the Cardenal sin of Pride (conceit, presumption) to get you condemed is there.
On deeper reflection it bears mentioning that I made some typos in my previous post. I canonized our principal, Sr. Grace Marie :) and I misspelled Joachim and Adan. I guess I didn’t learn my studies too good after all.
I think we need to commend the LCWR on their forbearance. If they had returned the disrespect and confrontation that was aimed at them, I can only guess st the turmoil it would have produced. I am wondering also who the “deaf” are Leveda was referring to, think maybe he has noticed a bit of a hearing loss himself?
“Let all the ” LCWR “therefore know assuredly that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.”
What I feel for the LCWR can’t be described “nicely”. The destruction of faith caused by encouragement that it is “OK” to take birth control, to be sterilized. The subsequent choices made from the destruction of that faith, the many adulteries, abortions, the destruction of family. And when asked why/how did the journey take such a turn, it is that one moment in time that is pointed out, the disobedience of a nun, encouraging the disobedience in one of God’s children. That.
“but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened round his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.” Amen.
At what point does the Church ask someone in authority in the Church to undergo an exorcism? It would seem from all the accounts that this may be beyond the individual sister’ ability to overcome at this point.
We can easily blame the women who have been attracted to this, but we should all share the blame. When this group was forming its influence we allowed it to become what it is today. We saw our young and still impressionable Sisters being drawn to it and we just stood there and witnessed to see it go in the direction it was all heading. Who is more to blame? Those with good intentions that have been deceived or those that knew of the deception and just stood there and watched?
Rather than being “far out there” as Carey asserts, becoming Christ like is quite biblical and is even in the Catechism—- The Word became flesh to make us “partakers of the divine nature”: “For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God.” “For the Son of God became man so that we might become God.” “The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods.”[460) See Mt. 10 and Luke 10 for the potential to perform miracles with the Holy Spirit…
A comment I posted to the St Louis Review several days ago:
sister Pat told reporters that “we are charged to enter into a process
of dialogue,” however, matters of doctrine will not be the LCWR’s
starting point.”
I do believe it may be best to start with matters of doctrine as a starting point. With Barbara Max Hubbard as their keynote speaker who clearly does not believe in anything even close to traditional Catholic or even Christian theology with her blend of new age talk of “conscious evolution” with it’s gnostic elements and with previous LCWR speakers suggesting that it is time to go beyond Jesus, I believe that doctrinal problems are at the core of this. As St Paul said many times in his Epistles that he was not ashamed of the gospel and he would preach Jesus and Him crucified, 1 Corinthians chapter 1 vs. 23 and chapter 2 vs. 2. I believe any true Christian, while patiently tolerating the prattle of their keynote speaker, should have felt within themselves an awareness that much of what she was teaching with not in conformity with the teachings of Christ. As St Paul again reminds us in speaking to his Jewish converts and pagan ones too in Galatians Chapter 2 vs 21 ” if justice is available through the law than Christ died to no purpose”. And the centrality of Jesus atoning death and resurrection as the only way to bring about our salvation needs to be again emphasized, with so many of their past and more recent speakers focusing on anything but Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
And, while many may say that there are many good nuns in many of their orders, it must be remembered that Satan will gradually insinuate himself into our midst with false teachings and with heresies if we are not discerning and willing to put a stop to it.
As for as the problem of pride it must be remembered that most of these new age belief systems have lot of Gnosticism in them. Gnosticism, of course, is that old heresy in which people believe they can achieve salvation by means of an increasing ascendency into greater knowledge or mystical experiences and those who believe they have achieved this “Knowledge” can come to believe they are superior to those ordinary mortals without this superior knowledge. Of course if the “ordinary mortals” are those in authority in the church they can decide that they don’t need to obey them since they are not among the “enlightened ones”. so all the more reason to keep it simple and to focus on Christ and Him crucified.
Of course Gnosticism has usually held that the flesh and the body are evil and the spirit and mind are good and even can be transformed into the divine. so let us not be like those who are Gnostics in practice but Catholics in name only but let’s worship the Crucified One in His Sacred body and blood as well as in His soul and Divinity. And I an not speaking in judgement here as I was once lost in similar folly and stupidity before God had mercy on me and opened my spiritual eyes to His truth, when I had become lost.
Check out the LCWR’s Website and read the opening addresses of the leaders and the invited speakers. Better yet, read the 8 pages from the Congregation. How is requesting that the rules formulated in 1956, when Pope Pius XII authorized the group’s formation, be changed to conform to Vatican II? The days when, “Sister said so!” ended the discussion are past. Their views are heretical. Pray for them but don’t believe their lies.
My mother got into the New Age movement around 1999 when she read the book conversations with God. It took seven years for us to pull her out of it. Just like Eve our women today are being targeted by satan and his minions filling their minds with so called secret knowledge and “their truth. All New age books have one thing in common, they deny the divinity of Jesus Christ. I was shocked recently to find a book by deepak chopra in the bookstore at the shrine of the little flower in Darian, Il. The priest had little concern for my concern. That a book that denies Christ divinity should rest among books by the greatest Saints the world has ever known. If he knew how one book could start someone down such a dangerous path He would remove it immediately
And when I had wandered off to the folly of past sins, God in His mercy called me back and I remember returning to God and praying a prayer where I confessed that “Jesus is Lord” and that Jesus died for my sins, and I cried and it took awhile to realize how central the Lordship of Jesus and Him crucified is to our faith. So to resist the temptation of pride as in “You shall be like God,” Gen 3, vs 4 it is wise to focus on Christ crucified and to remember that we are only creatures and God is God and we are not. And those new age readings are often subtle at first in that they will use nice sounding spiritual terms and thoughts and then only gradually will it become apparent that their idea of “spirituality” is different from Jesus and Him crucified and Him being the Lord of lords and the King of kings.
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