The Dialog

By Catholic News Service

ST. LOUIS — Archbishop J. Peter Sartain of Seattle “listened carefully” to the concerns and feelings of board members of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious and asked for the board’s help in learning more about “members’ experience and understandings of religious life,” the LCWR said after an Aug. 11 meeting with the archbishop.

Archbishop Sartain was charged with overseeing the group’s reform after an assessment issued in April by the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith questioned the organization’s fidelity to Catholic teaching in areas including abortion, euthanasia, women’s ordination and homosexuality.

Read more »

By Francis X Rocca

Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY — A newly announced reform of an association of women’s religious congregations in the U.S. offers the sisters and their bishops an opportunity to communicate and work together more closely, said the archbishop named by the Vatican to oversee the reform process.

Archbishop J. Peter Sartain of Seattle spoke to Catholic News Service in Rome April 22, a day after arriving for a periodic “ad limina” visit to the Vatican.

Read more »

By Francis X Rocca

Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY — Citing “serious doctrinal problems which affect many in consecrated life,” the Vatican announced a major reform of an association of women’s religious congregations in the U.S. to ensure their fidelity to Catholic teaching in areas including abortion, euthanasia, women’s ordination and homosexuality.

Archbishop J. Peter Sartain of Seattle will provide “review, guidance and approval, where necessary, of the work” of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, the Vatican announced April 18. The archbishop will be assisted by Bishop Leonard P. Blair of Toledo, Ohio, and Bishop Thomas J. Paprocki of Springfield, Ill., and draw on the advice of fellow bishops, women religious and other experts.

Read more »

By Catholic News Service

SEATTLE — Now that the Easter triduum has passed, parishes in the Archdiocese of Seattle are free to participate in gathering signatures for a referendum challenging a Washington state law that legalized same-sex marriage.

Seattle Archbishop J. Peter Sartain, who testified against the measure when it was still under consideration by the Legislature, had asked parishes not to collect signatures on Palm Sunday or Easter Sunday.

Read more »