U.S. nuns meet Vatican officials to defuse “radical feminism row”

PanARMENIAN.Net - Leaders of the largest group of U.S. nuns are due to meet Vatican officials in a bid to defuse an escalating row. A Vatican report in April accused the nuns of adopting "certain radical feminist themes" and of ignoring official church teaching, BBC News said.

Nuns from the group, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, say they have been unjustly criticised.

Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said they hoped to forge a "mutual understanding" with the nuns.

"Obviously there is a hope for a positive usefulness for all parties, for the Church and the persons involved, and for the orders of nuns," he told reporters.

Sister Pat Farrell, president of the Leadership Conference, will meet Cardinal William Levada, head of the Vatican's doctrine office and a former Archbishop of San Francisco. She will also meet the bishop charged with overseeing a Vatican-backed overhaul of the group.

Despite the Vatican's hopes for "constructive" talks, the nuns have so far shown little desire for compromise.

The Vatican report accused the Leadership Conference of taking positions on issues ranging from homosexuality to the all-male priesthood that undermined Catholic teaching.

It proposed replacing the group's leadership with three bishops that would have the authority to rewrite the organisation's statutes, meeting agendas and liturgical texts.

The nuns said the report has "caused scandal and pain throughout the Church community and created greater polarisation".