RNSbriefs_08_29

RNS BRIEFS

Nuns group: We are not leaving the church

By KEVIN ECKSTROM
c. 2012 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON (RNS) — A leader of the group of Catholic nuns who are facing a crackdown from the Vatican said Aug. 16 that her members have no plans or desire to leave the church, or reconstitute their group beyond Vatican control.

Sister Mary Hughes, who ended a three-year term as president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious on Aug. 11, said there is little to no support to withdraw the LCWR from the church, where it could avoid a Vatican-order makeover.

“It is the deep desire of the membership to stay within the church and not move away from it,” Hughes said at a luncheon at the National Press Club. “We derive our strength from the sacramental life of the church.”

The Vatican has accused the LCWR, which represents about 80 per cent of the nation’s 56,000 Catholic sisters, of embracing strains of “radical feminism” and focusing on social justice at the expense of abortion and same-sex marriage. Hughes said her group is a leadership support group, not a “theological society.”

“We don’t see ourselves as a teaching arm of the church, nor is it our role to discuss church documents at our conferences,” said Hughes, the prioress of the Sisters of St. Dominic in Amityville, N.Y.

When the LCWR met in St. Louis in August, the sisters said they wanted more dialogue with Rome, and Hughes said true dialogue is a two-way street. The sisters said they would reconsider their options if the LCWR “is forced to compromise the integrity of its mission.” Hughes said it would be “premature” to speculate on the outcome of fresh talks between the LCWR and a panel of bishops headed by Seattle Archbishop Peter Sartain.

Hughes said the nuns would resist any “effort to change us, to change the nature of who we are” by making them a mouthpiece for the bishops. The sisters, she said, are not interested in any attempts at “blind obedience” to the hierarchy.

“Real dialogue does not involve winners and losers; it’s about a way in which we both get stretched,” she said. “It’s not defiance, it’s wanting the church to be all that it can be. That prophetic voice will continue.”

United Church of Canada votes to boycott some Israeli products

By Kristine Greenaway

OTTAWA (RNS/ENInews) — The United Church of Canada has approved a recommendation to boycott products produced in Israeli settlements located within occupied Palestinian territory.

The intent is to bring pressure to bear on the Israeli government to stop expansion of the settlements and end the occupation.

The church’s General Council approved the recommendation on Aug. 15 and approved a policy paper on Aug. 17 at its meeting in Ottawa. More than 350 elected delegates met for the eight-day event that concluded Aug. 18.

The boycott proposal is part of a package of measures presented by a task group charged to advise the church on how to contribute to peace initiatives between Israel and the Palestinians.

The report prepared by the Working Group on Israel-Palestine Policy says that the occupation is “the primary contributor to the injustice that underlies the violence of the region” and calls Israeli settlements “a serious obstacle” to peace.

During the debate, Victor Goldbloom of the Canadian Christian Jewish Consultation commended the UCC on its commitment to seeking a peaceful solution to conflict in the Middle East, but cautioned: “I agree with the objectives but not the means.”

Similar moves to divest, or pull church investments, from companies involved in the Israeli occupation have failed in the U.S. in the United Methodist Church, the Episcopal Church and the Presbyterian Church (USA).

The United Church of Canada, with 3 million members, is Canada’s largest Protestant denomination. It was formed in 1925 as a union of Methodists, Presbyterians and Congregationalists.