Jessica Coblentz

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I was sitting in a coffee shop in Cambridge, happily reading a book on this beautiful day, when I received a Catholic news update from the National Catholic Reporter (NCR).  I was so upset by what I read that I simply could not return to my previous reading.

As many of you know, last year the Vatican announced its plan to conduct a 3-year study of all the non-cloistered women religious communities in the US.  While much of Rome’s rhetoric surrounding this “study” presents it as a friendly checking-in on the lives of women religious in the States, the response from the leaders of these American religious communities points to the widespread suspicion that there are very different motives underlying the Vatican’s announcements:

The Leadership Conference of Women Religious, following a four-day meeting in New Orleans Aug. 11-14, issued a statement questioning what it says is a lack of full disclosure of the motives behind a Vatican investigation of U.S. women religious communities.  In an Aug. 17 press statement, the conference also said it objects to the fact that the congregations “will not be permitted to see the investigative reports about them” when they are submitted in 2011 to the Vatican’s Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life and its prefect, Cardinal Franc Rode.

In addition, the women religious leadership expressed concern about secrecy they say is surrounding the funding of the study, said Sr. Annmarie Sanders, director of communications for the women’s conference…The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, meanwhile, is in the midst of a “doctrinal assessment” of the women’s leadership conference, having cited concerns in three areas: ordination, the primacy of the Catholic church, and homosexuality.  Read More…

Today, NCR reported that the Vatican has now asked the US Bishops—and the women’s religious communities, themselves—to fund (as least partially) this 1.1 million dollar study. Why is the Vatican “studying” only US religious communities?  And, why have they targeted women’s communities—especially the most visible, publicly influential women’s communities? Even as these questions remain unanswered, begging suspicions that this whole “study” may be a guise for what is really a contemporary Inquisition of sorts, the Vatican now seeks to place its financial burden directly on the American church.

Now, I understand that, through the hierarchal system of the church, American money will partially finance these sorts of things whether the American church is officially responsible or not.  What I place in the collection basket at Mass makes its way to the Vatican, in part, one way or another—that’s how this whole institution thing works. However, the finances in the American church are in shambles due to years of financial mismanagement, and most recently, the horror of the clergy sex abuse scandals. And with the current economic recession, even thriving ministries are financially struggling. Now, in addition to the American money already allocated to them, the Vatican wants us to front the bill for their project?

Finances aside, I object to the imposition of such a major, invasive project on the American church—particularly American Catholic women. I have not heard one American voice give reasonable support to this study.  As far as I can tell, it’s motives our entirely from outside this country, yet we will suffer its impact entirely.

The Vatican has been painfully vague about this whole project.  Therefore, even as I write this, I realize that I could be all wrong in my pessimism and interrogation of Rome’s motives.  The Vatican could be really, genuinely concerned with bettering the lives of American women’s religious communities.  They could have kind motives.  Has my perception of the Roman Catholic higher-up’s been totally, unjustly corrupted by malicious media and uber-liberal theology—or are my suspicions grounded in the Vatican’s history of power abuses, a disregard for the laity, and a painful tradition of patriarchy?

I’m the kind of person that gives people the benefit of the doubt.  But I can’t ignore the incredible emotional (and, I think, rationally-founded) response I have to this current situation. Has Catholicism driven me mad, or does this whole situation seem wrong to you too?