This, according to LifeSite.net:
ROME, April 25, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Despite few in the western world having seen any in the last four decades, the image of the nun as the sweet, selfless and courageous “bride of Christ” is remarkably enduring. And according to U.S. Catholic author, researcher and expert on Catholic religious life in the U.S. Donna Steichen, this “classic” and noble image is now being used knowingly by the LCWR sisters and their supporters as a means of generating public sympathy in their fight with the Vatican.Please, continue reading here.
Last week the media and the “progressive” end of the Catholic Church reacted with outrage to the announcement by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith that the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) is to be reformed after a doctrinal investigation found that their focus had turned more towards radical feminist politics than their Catholic religious foundations.
The picture being manufactured by sympathetic media, including the Washington Post, Huffington Post, and Independent, closely following the lead of the National Catholic Reporter and America, the two main organs of the extreme Catholic left in the U.S., is that of an epic struggle between a tyrannical, overbearing, “out of touch,” Vatican, and a group of plucky, underdog sisters, fighting a guerilla battle for intellectual and moral liberty: a theme one Catholic blogging wag has described as an endless recap of the plot to Star Wars.
That this shopworn theme is a deliberate falsehood, Steichen says, is what Catholics should first understand when reading either the secular mainstream coverage of the affair or the sisters’ own comments.
Commentary. I must agree with Donna Steichen's analysis. A simple survey of the themes dominating MSM reporting and commentary make me suspect of a coordinated information campaign with specific talking points to mantain a unified message. Not one of the sympathetic reports disseminated via the MSM even bothers to analyze and discuss the Holy See's doctrinal objections to the LCWR. All MSM reporting emphasizes in different ways the "manhandling" of the LCWR by those mean, celibate, "patriarchal men" hiding in the Vatican who "fear strong women". A complete crock, if you ask me, but that's the spin the LCWR defenders are giving throughout the many sympathetic MSM outlets.
Let us pray for the Archbishop of Seattle (himself facing a rebellion in his archdiocese) who will lead the reform of the LCWR, that he may receive the graces necessary to lead this holy endeavor, and for the LCWR-affiliated sisters themselves, that this painful moment be a true ocassion for faith and renewal.