It felt like a one-two punch to American nuns. First, the Vatican said last December that it was launching an apostolic visitation of the 340 women’s orders to evaluate how well they are “living in fidelity” to the church’s guidelines for religious life.

The second probe is more ominous. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith — which enforces theological purity — is investigating the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, an umbrella group that represents about 90 percent of women’s orders. In February, the Vatican wrote the leadership conference, asking the group to clarify its stand on three doctrinal issues: that only men can be priests; that homosexual practice should not be sanctioned; and that the Catholic Church provides the way to salvation.

It may be some effort to kind of rein us in.

- Sister Camille D’Arienzo, former president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious
“As women religious, we wouldn’t believe that we’ve done anything to create the need for this,” says Nancy Schreck, president of Sisters of St. Francis in Dubuque, Iowa. “It feels like an affront to us.”

Schreck says the Vatican typically only launches this kind of inquiry when a group goes seriously astray. Even after the priest sex-abuse crisis, she notes, the Vatican refrained from investigating the priesthood or men’s orders in the U.S., although it did conduct a visitation at seminaries. Schreck wonders if Rome is putting the sisters’ behavior in the same category.

“I can’t help but have some suspicion about where this is coming from and who’s really behind it and what they’re trying to do,” she says.

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