Thank you, Mother.  You were an inspiration to me when you led the Nashville Dominicans, and your leadership now with the “Ann Arbor” Dominicans continues to show how blessed we are to have truly “consecrated religious women” in our lives, communities, and schools.

I agree no less with you compared with what media sensationalism and emotional outburst have made out of this ecclesial issue

The Uniform.

The demoralization of religion and society has been in part due to the promotion of ‘we are all equal’, a literal half-truth from the true statement, ‘we are all equal before God’.

Part of this movement has focused on removing any differences real and perceived between people.

It is in my opinion that ‘the habit’ set religious people apart, and reminds us and them that they are not of this world.

(based on the book, THE JESUS CHRIST CODE, teaching the world how truths can lie…)

april 24: The National Catholic Reporter is setting up a blog site to protect and defend the poor sisters from a patriarchal hierachy and a dying papacy. I have witnessed the National Catholic Reporter’s attempts to destroy Religious communities faithful to Rome throughout the years. How absurd to believe that the Vatican is overstepping its bounds to check on their followers! I’m sure that every major corporation carries out ‘assessments’ every so often to make sure that all is as it should be. Perhaps there are many among the elderly sisters of this radical group who stayed in because their superiors gave them no choice. Now, maybe they can move over to the group of Religious Superiors and communities that are faithful to Rome. And Superiors and CEOs such as Sr. Keehan will lose their clout with those who defy the Church and her teachings such as Pelosi and Biden and Sebelius…meanwhile, we have to pray for all involved that those who desire to return to the Church will be led back by Shepherds who will bring them hope and healing in their waning years. And that those who persist in their defiance and distortion of Church teachings will be converted ...

With all the media coverage of militant, prideful nuns one tends to forget that there are holy, eloquent, obedient nuns like Mother Mary Assumpta out there fighting the good fight.  If only they knew what tremendous support they give all of us. 

Mother, thank you for this article. I noticed all of the things that need rectified 25 years ago while in college. The religious sister who helped with campus ministry (at a secular college) was very dissenting, and encouraged this with the students. And it wasn’t anything new at the time. My question is, why did it take so long for this reform to start? How many souls have to be harmed before the Church, as a good mother, steps in to help? Nevertheless, I’m very grateful that it is happening now.

Thank you for this article!  Very well-done.

Somtimes I think it has to get really bad before we humans will turn back to God and accept change.

Mr. Squitti: the sisters are “of this world” in the fullest sense—they take care of the people who make up the Body of Christ in this world—here and now. All of us live out our lives here, not in some misty extra-planetary place.

Seems to me, when you create these large leadership groups like the LCRW and the USCCB, you end up in big trouble when the group starts going down the wrong path. Is it really necessary to have and LCRW and USCCB? The Catholic Church in America existed long before these organizations which have degenerated into the Church’s political religious.

Dearest Mother Mary Assumpta,
I LOVE YOU!
That’s all I wanted to say.
God Bless You
:)

Mother how do you interpret the whole church in your quote from Lumen Gentium?  My inpression from reading the V11 documents is that the church means all the people of God - all those who try to listen to God with an open mind and to do his will as they see it.

is the Church’s responsibility, assumed in love, to safeguard the beauty and gift of consecrated life at all times. This responsibility is most acute when the integrity of consecrated life begins to diminish, evidenced in this case by clear examples of dissent from the hierarchy and lack of authentic ecclesial communion.

Thank you Mother Assumpta for this summary of your impression of the CDF/LCWR dynamic. I pull your quote above to ask that you review a statement that says ‘integrity’ of consecrated life is beginning to diminish.  The majority of contemporary active Dominican sisters and other communities would firmly disagree with you and are proving their point by providing the church the valid example of religious life as mandated in documents of reform from Vatican II mandating a new and more contemporary option for ‘communal’ religious life both male and female for the Church. The spiritual drive here will come directly through more dialogue and an openness from clergy and laity to distinct forms of contemporary…not modern…consecrated lives.

Those that think that the Church is “oppressive” to women need look no further than Mother Assumpta Long and the Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, to see that nothing could be futher from the truth. These sisters are making a big difference in the lives of so many while being faithful to the teachings of the Church.

The LCWR writes that their purpose is “to change the church”; why should they claim to be shocked when the Vatican points out that they’re not really Catholic?

@ Victor Pedraz: You wrote: “The spiritual drive hee will come directly throuth more dialogue…”..What?? Forty years of on-going dialogue bewteen the Vatican and the LCWR’s not enough? Even the Israelites got
tired of their wanderings in the desert after 40 years! It is time to
act on this diaglogue which is what the CDF proposes in their request
for reform/renewal. The LCWR has five years to respond and act. It is
time to come together and stop the nonsense such as we have been seeing. The Church found by the Christ was for an earthly repository of His Truth. To tamper with the truth in the manner of the LCWR has been to
attempt the Church’s demise. Time to stop this blasphemy.
The vast majority of nuns are no more guilty of the accusations brought
by Rome than the vast majority of the hierarchy are guilty of the clergy sex scandal. A few bad apples! Why do so many within these comboxes demand the removal of those “bad apples” in the hierarchy but promote
the teaching dissent of these sisters involved. Could it be that the laity is also infected?

Mother you are awesome & I know now why your group is growing by leaps & bounds. You are such an inspiration and I feel privileged to donate to your Sisters year after year.

Just plain, thank you, Mother Assumpta Mary…as a mother and grandmother, I know we can be assured of a continuation of Good Nuns in the future.  You are an example not only to grandmothers, but also to their grandchildren….and that these young ones are our future…God Bless you!

@Thirst For Truth…...Doesn’t it make one wonder why devoted and outspoken conservatives have a problem using their REAL names….instead of a psuedonym….?

Thank you Mother and God bless!

@  Barbara McDonnell

This is from another site: 

“Many of you have heard from your pastors the title of this article in that we are to be in the world, but not of the world in our walk with the Lord. Not only is this a very catchy phrase and saying, but this is also a rock, solid, God-truth that is coming straight out of our Bible.”

http://www.bible-knowledge.com/in-world-not-of-it/

What you may not have heard,is that research has shown that there is a negative side to truth that may in fact be remnants of the ‘original sin’ when Adam and Eve took of the tree ofknowledge and believed Satan that this would make them LIKE GOD TO know the difference between good and evil.

A book about these dark-human truths can be found by looking up ‘THE JESUS CHRIST CODE; THE LIGHT; THE RAINBOW OF TRUTH.

The Catholic Reporter is an anti-christian anti catholic media.They think they are the infallible all knowing persons. I am at a loss to understand why they want the name catholic in the name. When they reject the teachings of the Church in all sexual morality, when they want a very very permissive society and sexual anarchy, how can they think of the word catholic ? Let Pelosy and Sebilius become bishops and biden the Pope of a new church and rule.

On the Vatican response to LCWR is this article showing some of their crazy new age directions.
http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/media-and-nuns-colluding-in-deception-says-expert-vaticans-reform-no-david
And their conference this year
https://lcwr.org/assembly
showing the new age tendencies of their group.
And as you will note this one is in St Louis this Year.
And this is some info on their lead speaker Barbara max Hubbard.
http://www.barbaramarxhubbard.com/site/
After reading this I felt the need to stop at the chapel for Eucharistic adoration

God Bless Bob.

You don’t see any make-up on this old lady.  (Thank you, Mother Assumpta).  Just sayin’.

I posted this at another blog this Am after I was praying as this is personal and I know some good people I used to pray with in a healing ministry, including a nun who I think has gotten off on these new age tangents which some of the LCWR have gotten off on,  and I was praying of how I could avoid getting again caught up in such foolishness and these thoughts came to me after Mass.

The smoke of Satan. I was thinking this morning after Mass, and I had been once lost in the folly of drug induced mysticism and eastern religion, that the smoke of Satan is in that Gnostic pride which makes us think we are among the “chosen” with special more highly evolved knowledge, (remember Genesis, “you shall be as gods” Genesis Ch 3 vs 5). I believe it is much better for us to consider ourselves as blind, stupid and in need of God’s mercy and His grace to show us His way or we may be tempted to, as Jesus said, to follow other shepherds. As for those in LCWR who are deluded, let’s pray for them as I was once lost, stupid and blind too.

Mother Mary Assumpta holds a completely distorted view of LCWR and the faithful religious of the congregations it represents. The sisters of these congregations are not unfaithful to the Church or misguided in their consecrated life, they follow the Social Teaching of the Church. The perception that they are “silent” on pro-life issues is absurd, since they are pro-life for the poor,pro-life for the marginalized, pro-life for the suffering.  The US Bishops agenda is limited to pro-life in the womb, not a bad thing.  They almost exclusively devote the Church’s political agenda to pro-life. So who speaks for the poor? the marginalized? the suffering?  Without these sisters, the Church would not have a voice for them.  The CDF assessment criticizes these sisters for being silent on a subject that is very well articulated by the bishops. There are other issues besides pro-life. Why are the bishops silent on those?

Paul in 1 Corinthians Ch 2 vs 2 says that he would speak nothing but of “Jesus Christ and Him Crucified”. And yet Barbara Max Hubbard, their main speaker for the August conference says nothing of Christ crucified but only about some ephemeral evolving consciousness. As for the idea of some evolution of spiritual consciousness, I watch the TV and read the paper and things seem to be getting only worse. So where is this so called involvement into higher consciousness? My reading of the Catechism paragraphs 676 and 677 676 (The Antichrist’s deception already begins to take shape in the world every time the claim is made to realize within history that messianic hope that can only be realized beyond history through the eschatological judgement. The Church has rejected even modified forms of this falsification of the kingdom to come under the name of millenarianism,[576] especially the “intrinsically perverse” political form of a secular messianism.[577]

677 The Church will enter the glory of the kingdom only through this final Passover, when she will follow her Lord in his death and Resurrection.[578] The kingdom will be fulfilled, then, not by a historic triumph of the Church through a progressive ascendancy, but only by God’s victory over the final unleashing of evil, which will cause his Bride to come down from heaven.[579] God’s triumph over the revolt of evil will take the form of the Last Judgement after the final cosmic upheaval of this passing world.[580] ) This would seem to indicate that we Christians will be dealing with evil, and while we must work to make things better, with God’s grace, that we will not evolve into a higher state of humanity, but that God will need to bring about our final redemption through his entry into human history through his final intervention in the world and not through anything we can bring about ourselves. As the church teaches that Christ will come again, the crucified and rison One to bring about our full salvation.

So are the events of this planned conference just an aberration or do they reflect more basic doctrinal errors?

Molly, “Mother Mary Assumpta holds a completely distorted view of LCWR and the faithful religious of the congregations it represents.”  REALLY.
Then why is the community that Mother represents breaking at the seams with young women entering,the average age being 28, while those of LCWR boast an average age of 74?  My mother didn’t raise any good looking kids, but she didn’t raise any foolish enough to believe your logic.  Life is full of rules. You may like football but not all the rules, or golf but not all the rules there either, so you do it your way.  That is how all these “other” religions came to be, because someone had a better way, their own way.  Perhaps those of us who believe “the church” has it right and follow the Catholic Church are wrong.  If so, in the end we’ll be made to look like fools.  But what if it is you, the LCWR, and others who are wrong, and the Catholic Church is right?

@TOM….everyone, pro or con, can reason this out to one’s own advantage.  No one is accusing Assumpta’s group of anything untoward…it is LCWR that is under attack.  Christianity is a new religion in the scheme of things….it is still expanding and retracting…there will always be conservatives and those that allow for wider interpretation of so called ‘rules’ which were made by men who then told the minions that the deity is on their side through the power of the Holy Spirit….that is at the heart of the motivation of why thousands of female religious and priests and religious brothers who entered in the 40’ and 50’s left after Vatican II….the ‘inspired’ way of religious life was no longer inspired…it became denigrating which is why the ‘body church’ required kenosis…..we are seeing the results of what happens when men are deciding what is right or wrong for religious sisters….but not a word about the male religious orders…many of which are also becoming extinct! In the event that one hasn’t noticed the United States and other ‘civilized’ nations and countries are having a rise in conservatism…doesn’t say right or wrong….it says people are looking beyond and in retrospect in order to get more.  More of what who
knows….but more none the less.

And so why are the more obedient orders, that is, those who follow traditional Catholic teaching and the evangelical counsels as the saints have always understood them, the orders which are growing?  Is it that God is blessing those who follow what He has taught through His church? People are free to not follow what the church has always taught, and I am free to not obey what my boss at work tells me is the company policy. If my boss were to fire me no one would argue with that. Should not those who decide not to follow the church’s teachings have the honor to leave and to go elsewhere?

@Bob…Because,very simply, the Church is not a company.  The Church is the voice of various peoples interpretations….Many of the former religious with whom I am acquainted are very firm in their faith….and still leery of the political church and it’s so called executives.  Didn’t you ever ask why???  The bishops are saying that only they can interpret authentically the teachings of scripture….doesn’t this simple fact beg the question of over reaching authority….or are we to consider all of them the actual ‘rocks’ of the faith! These people are human like you and I…collaboration with the women of Christ is an imperative…not an elective!

victor pedraz,
The Church is not a company, but neither is it a political party: it is the body of Christ, lead by the bishops in union with the pope, the successor of Peter (cf. Matthew 16:17-19.)
If you want to create a church whose teachings change from vote to vote, go ahead: but I’ll stick with the one with authority to teach what Christ taught.

Jesus said: “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church…Whatever you declare “bound” on Earth shall have been bound in Heaven, and whatever you declare “loosed” on Earth shall have been loosed in Heaven” (Matthew 16:18-19)
not “The church shall have elections every few years, and whatever the faction with the most votes wants shall be the church’s new position.”

Bless you, Mother Mary, for you have concisely and clearly laid out the major issue not with the Doctrinal issues which the LCWR have undertaken but with the far more nefarious refusal to correct said issues which was issued under the authority of the successor of St. Peter: His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI. I am going to pray daily that these Women Religious will be re-awakened to, and re-embrace, the importance of “thinking with the Church.”

Peace be with you all,

Ryan

‘thinking with the church’ is thinking FOR the betterment and awakening of the Church….the church is ALL it’s people….not just the magisterium.

victor pedraz:
If you believe that the Church is what the people believe, then go with the majority, the Catholics.
And what exactly is it that you want the Church to awaken from, if not the liberal slumber that the pope is trying to awaken her from?

@Don….I am certain that by ‘liberal’ you mean inclusive, loving and all encompassing…..as Christ himself taught….n’est pa?

We all need to be submissive to the authoritative Church with one final authority, the Pope. Otherwise, we cut ourselves off from the fullness of God’s revelation.

Are nuns the reason so many Catholics have lost faith in the institutional
Church?  We see them teaching, nursing, counseling and serving the poor
While living in near poverty themselves.  My loss of faith in the
Infallibility and authority of the hierarchy is a result of the actions and
Inactions of male clergy.  Pope John Paul II ignoring years of warnings about Fr Maciel;
Cardinal Law living in luxury in Rome with NUNS as his servants;
Cardinal Dolan making “jokes” about giving a box of fancy pastries to a
Hungry person - himself!!  Puh-leese!  Leave the nuns alone to do
God’s work.

For myself the reasons a

victor pedraz:
No, by “liberal” I so full of Pride that you think that the pope should follow YOU instead of the other way around.  And in the case of your posting, close-minded, hate-filled, and judgmental of those who follow the pope instead of you.

Mother Assumpta,

When I read your article, I feel that you are genuine and sincere in your belief that the Church has the best interest of women religious at heart.  This is where I fundamentally disagree- there is way too much politics surrounding this document.  The bishops chose to release it during an election year- this seems highly suspicious given that the bishops demand more attention from the LWCR to the issues of abortion and homosexuality.  The Church is becoming more and more politicized. We have moved from evangelizing people to evangelizing political systems.  This is a problem- it won’t work.  This fight against secularization will lose unless we appeal to individuals. I forget who said that the only Christian who could survive in the modern world is the mystic.  This is the truth and I wish that as a Church we could explore this dimension of our faith.

Other than that, I am disheartened that in your article you do not offer any new ideas or even new interpretations of recent events.  All you do in this article is quote Vatican documents. All of us are capable of reading.  If you are going to defend the bishops and the Vatican, please DEFEND them.  Don’t just quote them back to us. 

Thanks.

Christina Llanes:
If the Church is becoming politicized, blame the liberal nuns.  (You’re right about Mother Assumpta offering no new religion, but only says to follow the pope, though.)

Is your congregation a member of the LCWR, Mother?

seems to me that she is asking that people be parrots and not thinkers….a very sad state of affairs for the church

Mother Mary Assumpta Long is asking her fellow sisters to be Catholics, not parrots of George Soros.

Friday, June 15, 2012
LCWR Sisters could have asked the CDF to introduce them to those saved in invincible ignorance and the baptism of desire

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has explained that the purpose of the doctrinal assessment had been to “assist the LCWR in this important mission by promoting a vision of ecclesial communion founded on faith in Jesus Christ” and also on “the teachings of the Church as faithfully taught through the ages under the guidance of the Magisterium.”

The assessment had found serious theological and doctrinal errors in presentations at the Leadership of Catholic Women Religious(LCWR)’ annual assemblies in recent years, with many showing “scant regard for the role of the Magisterium.”

The rebellious American sisters who have still not been excommunicated, probably because of their leftist sources of power, and are privileged, unlike the SSPX bishops, cannot tell Cardinal Levada, “You first affirm the dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus and set an example for us”.

At their last meeting on Wednesday the sisters could have asked Cardinal William Levada Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) “Why don’t you affirm the literal interpretation of the centuries old dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus, ‘as was faithfully taught through the ages’ ”

Or, why don’t you issue a Doctrinal Notification to Cardinal Kurt Koch a member of the Vatican Curia and Prefect of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity,  who on May 16 said Jews do not have to convert into the Catholic Church in the present times, contradicting the Bible and the Creed.

They cannot tell the CDF to endorse the dogma since the Sisters reject the dogma and this is a cause of their rebellion, heresy and free thinking. 

It is because the Sisters have rejected the dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus that they have gone into New Age etc.

Otherwise when the Sisters were at the CDF office they could have asked the Secretary of the CDF, Cardinal Luiz Ladaria S.J: “How can you claim that there are known cases of non Catholics saved with the baptism of desire ? Who are these cases, exceptions to the literal interpretation of the dogma? “

“How can we know a person saved in invincible ignorance and a good conscience (LG 16) who is in Heaven? How can we telephone them or meet them on earth?”. The CDF Secretary says we can meet them. He makes this claim in two papers of the International Theological Commission (ITC).It is because he believes that we can meet these people on earth, he assumes that they are defacto exceptions to the literal interpretation of the dogma.

Also he writes on the ITC website that the Letter of the Holy Office 1949 during the pontificate of Pope Pius XII, corrected Fr.Leonard Feeney for rejecting the baptism of desire etc. If this is true then the cardinal is saying that the Letter made an objective mistake. Since the baptism of desire etc are not exceptions to the literal interpretation of the dogma. They are in a sense irrelevant to the dogma and its centuries old literal interpretation.

The Sisters could have asked the CDF to introduce them to those saved in invincible ignorance and the baptism of desire

The Sisters have been rightly criticized for reported distortions of faith in Jesus and the structure of sacramental life, as well as undermining the doctrines of “the Holy Trinity, the divinity of Christ, and the inspiration of Sacred Scripture.”.-Lionel Andrades

Dear Mother Assumpta,

Thank you for your prayeful and sincere approach to what is happening between the Church and the LCWR. I hope and pray the consecrated women belonging to this group find their way back to their reason for being.

I HAVE A GREAT RESPECT FOR MOTHER AND HER COMMUNITY AND LOYALITY TO THE CHURCH~ I WAS IN THE NASHVILLE DOMININCANS AND MOTHER DID NOT RECIVCE ME FOR FINAL VOWS DUE TO A FAMILY ISSUE.  THAT HURT HAS NEVER GONE AWAY~ ONE’S VOCATION SHOULD BE BASED ON ONES LOVE FOR CHRIST, THE RULE AND FIDELITY.  SHE WILL HAVE TO ANSWER TO GOD FOR THAT. MY ADOPTED PASRENTS DID NOT GIVE TO THE COMMUNITY OR TRIPS OF PILGIMAGES TO THE SUPERIORS. EVERY DEAR SISTER WHO IS CALLED SHOULD BE JUDGED ON THEIR FIDELITY TO THEIR VOCATION, WHICH IS NOT AT ALL THE CASE
~OR WASN’T WHEN MOTHER WAS SUPERIOR.

@ Bridgett…While I was not there to know the true facts, I hope you
are being honest with yourself about the reasons you were not allowed
to take final vows. Perhaps you were not ready. It is up to the Superior to decide along with the sister as to when these vows are taken. There
have been several saints who had to wait for this permission past when
they desired. I hope you have had more opportunity to evaluate your
situation. To say you were denied because your adoptive family were
not in a position to give money for extravagant trips for the Superiors
does not dovetail with what I know about either the order or Mother Assumpta. I will pray for you ...and your vocation. Trust yourself to
the Holy Spirit and His Spouse, Our Blessed Mother. God bless.

As a woman in her sixties who once belonged to, and am still very close to, a congregation belonging to the LCWR, I offer these thoughts. The sisters with whom I was privileged, to pray, live and work, are still the strong, luminous, faith-filled women they always were…just older. They live in community, pray the Prayer of the Church and are faithful to their founder’s call to share with others the fruits of their contemplation. They work with the ghetto poor, farmworkers, in prison ministry, in AIDS hospices, in soup kitchens, seeing daily the truth of Mother Teresa’s words “Christ often comes to us in the distressing disguise of the poor.” They are truly faithful to all that is the joy and the sacrifice of living the consecrated life. Mother Assumpta is entitled to her opinion; however, I personally find a level of pride and an assumption (no pun intended)of superiority in her remarks that is unacceptable. This is the same woman who said that “George W. Bush was the most pro-life president we ever had”...a man who started two unprovoked wars and executed more than 250 prisoners while governor of Texas, and whose economic policies have created untold misery for millions of Americans. As to the idiotic “extra ecclesiam nulla salus”, please read John Paul II’s Redemptoris Missio, written in 1990. It will tell you all you always wanted to know but were afraid to ask about “eens”...eternal life is NOT a private club. Oh,by the way, the medieval Pope who signed the “eens” document never read it…he was on a hunting trip when some bishops tracked him down and apologized for butting into his vacation, but if he’d just sign here… Isn’t it good to know that God really is in charge, not us, and that He is going to do it His Way, whether we like it or not

There are many religious congregations belonging to the LCWR
with which the CDF does not have a problem. These are the orders that are flourishing and maintaining close ties with the Magesterium and have remained loyal to the tenets of the Faith.
It is not to these that the CDF is addressing its studies and recommendations. It is to those in leadership positions who are in no
way faithful to the Magisterium and its teachings Rome is directing its concerns. And it is none too soon as these particular sisters have been singing “off-key” for decades, much to the consternation of not only the CDF but to much of the lay faithful.
It is interesting that some commentors here,  in order to make a particular point, need to stretch back in Church history and select afew less than stellar popes and or members of the hierarchy in order to besmirch all hierarchy as well as the motives of the CDF. As if afew bad apples define the Church. It is a denial of reality to do so. To do thus is to deny that the Church which was founded by Jesus Christ as a repository of Truth,charged with protecting and proclaiming it,remains thus charged today. These modernists are most influenced by the secular humanist culture they live in and openly strive to bring the Church into the 21st century by attempting to align the Church’s teachings with the thinking of the social humanist. One cannot do that and remain in good standing with the church of Jesus Christ.
Thus one who is promoting the agenda of these wayward sisters is critical only of those who job it is to preserve the traditions and teachings of our 2000 year history. Be it Mother Assumpta or the CDF.
To rebuke Mother Assunta on some personal remarks is another example in kind. Her remarks concerning George Bush above taken totally out of context. Mother was praising Bush for his strong support for preserving the sanctity of life in the womb. Clearly she would be remiss if she did not acknowledge this support. She was not speaking about just war criteria at the time nor justification of the death penalty.  Clearly those opposing the action of the CDF are agenda driven and since
Mother Assumpta is trying to aide in the necessary reform and renewal of those errant sisters, these discreditors of the whole reform would not be her most loyal fans.

Shamrock, you seem clueless about what the issues are but yet you are full of unfounded opinions…...tragic response to an important issue. I fear that Mother Assumpta’s view of Bush and other issues does not seem to value the seamless value of life—-no death penalty, no crazy wars like Bush did…..people like her pick and choose their issues and do not seem to be able to think independently or see how the Gospel needs to be lived today….in stead of reforming the church, she is in face hastening its demise by her positions…

Shamrock…it’s so easy to protect the life of the unborn…especially if it’s not YOUR unborn. What IS difficult is truly living your life in the spirit of the seamless garment of life issues…believing and supporting ALL Church teaching ALL the time on these life issues. You cannot be “pro-life” and start wars. You cannot be “pro-life” and order executions. You cannot be “pro-life"and support/promote torture.You cannot be “pro-life” and pursue economic policies which enrich the super-rich and drive millions of American children into the nightmare of hunger and poverty. So, Mother Assumpta, in your view, praises W. because he “pro-life toward life in the womb”; that’s what we also call “10,000 lawyers chained together at the bottom of the sea” A GOOD START! Pro-life is not pick and choose; and when some members of the Church roar so mightily on behalf of the unborn, one could only wish they could muster up a little noise for all those of their suffering brothers and sisters who are BORN!

I respect Mother Assumpta’s opinion and reverence her community, believing in her sincerity in defining how she perceives religious life in the church.  I found some of the venomous comments by others to her blog very hurtful and disturbing.  In all the articles I have read about this issue, I have never seen one of the LCWR nuns or their supporters lash out or question the integrity or sincerity of our more conservative sisters.  We neither challenge nor disparage what they are doing or how they are living, seeing them as a clear expression of their interpretation of religious life.  For 56 six years I have tried to be prayerful and faithful to the Mission and Ministry of Jesus.  My early role models were: (1) Bishop Thomas Riley, a Redemptorist who walked the dirt roads of the campos with us in the Dominican Republic, learning, sharing God’s love and sacraments with extraordinary people; (2)  Our own sisters who lived in a barrio built on top of the Managua, Nicaragua’s garbage dump in Acahualinca and ran a sewing cooperative for women so they could use their skills to feed their children.  We went to these places in response to invitations from bishops. If being in these places, and now on the west side of Chicago working with formerly incarcerated men and women, qualifies for some as “doing your own thing” then so be it.  In the end, we will all humbly stand before Jesus, who also walked among the people, respected the woman at the well, challenged the money-changers in the temple and invited the good thief into heaven.  I believe we will be judged on our love, commitment to truth and justice, compassion and service.  If I’m wrong, I honestly won’t regret a minute of it because, with all my faults, I did it in good faith.     

To Sue, there are of course, many nuns living good and faithful lives of prayer and service whose congregations are members of the LCWR and yet to take again one example from their August conference in ST Louis they are having Barbara Max Hubbard a New Age speaker who is speaking on something she calls conscious evolution.
https://lcwr.org/assembly
And some info on Barbara Max Hubbard
http://www.barbaramarxhubbard.com/site/
I have posted these sites before. I consider most New Age to be a variant of the old Gnostic heresy which feeds spiritual pride in that a person can come to somehow believe that they are among the chosen or the “enlightened” ones with “special knowledge or understanding” when God in His mercy has chosen the simple and the lowborn most often.
1 Corinthians Chapter 1 Vs 26-29, but a more complete reading of 1 Cor chapters 1 and 2 is good to get the idea of how God loves the simple and not the proud.God also focuses on simple things like the folly of the Cross, which I hear little of among several nuns who have gotten off into these ideas who I used to work and to pray with.  And these heresies of Gnostic pride have a way of creeping into our world and our church again and again as they appeal to the same human pride and I know of these things as God saved me from some similar folly and stupidity. 
So the problem is not with those who are doing good and holy works but with the heresies which are subtly being allowed to creep into some in SOME LCWR congregations and among some of the leadership in the LCWR. Remember this is a Doctrinal assessment ptimarily.

Last I heard following Gaudium et Spes was thinking with the church.  Unfortunately, we’ve stumbled into a time where religious escapism masked as piety has replaced an engaged spirituality.

Sue ...Once again you ( and afew others here) missed the point which is that neither the argument of the “seamless garment” nor Mother Assumpta’s take on George Bush’s pro-life stance pertain to this article.  These are strictly off topic issues you chose to bring up in your comment to disparage both Mother and the Church.
If you wish to argue the seamless garment old chestnut…then find another combox that relates to that issue.
If you are going to make personal attacks on Mother’s views, you could at least have the professionalism to reference such remarks. Also random pot-shots at less than stellar personages and events in the history of our Church serve no purpose other than what appears as purely destructive tactics designed to denigrate those who are taking the reform of the LCWR and its implentation seriously.

Those who defend the lives of the most defenseless, the unborn, are of course concerned about life at all its stages. But in this culture of death we must begin with the protection of life WHERE IT BEGINS…in the womb. To do this does not take away from respecting life at all its stages. And why anyone who says that those who are working to reduce the number of abortions to zero are not also supporting life at all stages or concerned about quality of life for all is just mind-boggling and disturbing! It’s sort of like saying those who fought against and defeated the horrible polio disease in other centuries did not do enough for cancer! Totally irrelevant and unreasonable argument!

Mother Assumpta, thank you again for faithfully following in the holy footsteps of your spiritual Father St. Dominic and Mother St. Catherine of Siena in calling all of us Catholics back to Rome.

  Greetings Mother Assumpta,  Thank you for your perseverance in this culture swimming against the tide so to speak. Yesterday was the feast of St. Anne. If it wasn’t for her daughter none of us today would know the saving graces of her son. it was the yes of her daughters invitation by the angel Gabriel that she humbly consecrated herself to God. Thank you Mother. In the spirit of St Dominic God Bless You and your community. Brother Joachim

Mother Assumpta knows who she is before God and man and makes no apologies. She came from a community who is thriving and helped create a community that is thriving. What really matters is that these women who have been called by God and set apart are about His business, not the business of secular society.

I will continue to pray for religious who are faithful to God and to His Roman Catholic Church!