Network (lobby group)

Last updated

Network (stylized NETWORK) is a national Catholic social justice lobby founded in 1971 and headquartered in Washington, D.C. [1] [2] The organization focuses its lobbying efforts in the areas of economic justice, immigration reform, healthcare, peace making and ecology. [3]

Contents

Sr Simone Campbell, SSS was executive director of NETWORK from November 2004 to March 2021. She was succeeded by Mary Novak.

History

Network was founded in December 1971 when 47 Catholic sisters involved in education, healthcare, and other direct service activities gathered from across the U.S. at Trinity College in Washington, D.C., with the intent to form a new type of justice ministry. The Catholic Church was undergoing dramatic changes in response to Vatican II reforms and calls from the Vatican and U.S. Bishops to seek "Justice in the World". Individual women religious orders had already become involved in the Civil Rights Movement, and anti-war activism. [4]

In April 1972, the group opened an office in Washington, D.C. [4] They sponsored legislative seminars that attracted many notable participants and presenters including prominent Members of Congress (e.g., Senators Ted Kennedy, Adlai Stevenson, Barbara Mikulski, Walter Mondale and Joseph Biden) and Catholic notables such as Fr. Bryan Hehir. [4]

In January 2001, President Bill Clinton presented the Presidential Citizens Medal, the US's second highest civilian honor, to a Network founder and first Executive Director, Sister Carol Coston. She was the first Catholic nun ever to receive this award.

Obamacare

In 2010, during the 2010 healthcare reform debate, lawyer and the executive director of Network, Simone Campbell a member of the Sisters of Social Service, [1] [2] wrote the "nuns' letter" supporting the bill. The letter had 55 signatories, including the president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious and several leadership teams of women’s orders. On March 18, 2010 Sr. Simone Campbell was interviewed by NPR about Network's support of the then pending US national health care bill, when she, along with "heads of dozens of religious orders" [5] signed a letter to congress urging passage. Network circulated the letter to the various heads of the orders and asked them to sign. [5]

Ann Carey, author of Sister in Crisis, takes issue with the claim that those signing the letter represented over 50,000 religious sisters. Said Carey,

"I have heard from many women religious who asked me to make it clear in my writing that such sisters do not represent them, and those prominent sisters have no right to speak for all sisters." [6]

President Barack Obama invited Campbell to the ceremony celebrating the bill being signed into law. The Network group was credited with being a significant force in the passage of the bill into law. [7]

Pope Benedict XVI

On April 18, 2012 the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith under Pope Benedict XVI issued a report criticizing the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, [8] a group that represents the vast majority of the 57,000 nuns in the U.S. The report explicitly cited NETWORK as being a particularly negative influence. [8] In response to the criticism, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, a lifelong Catholic, defended NETWORK and its activism. [9]

The report, which specifically accused NETWORK of focusing too much on the social justice mission of the church, was released without NETWORK being notified in advance that anything was amiss. Noted Campbell:

"The sweeping condemnation came like a bolt out of the blue--it even took the American bishops by surprise--and it came without the courtesy of input or a response from our organization."

However, unlike LCWR, NETWORK is independent of the Vatican and was thus able to continue its mission unencumbered. [10] In response to the "blistering critique" they received, NETWORK created the "Nuns on the Bus" program, which The New York Times called a "spirited retort to the Vatican." [11]

Nuns on the Bus

Network sponsors Nuns on the Bus. Led by Sister Simone Campbell, they place emphasis on the church’s long-standing commitment to social justice. A small group of nuns travel on a dedicated bus inside the United States publicizing different issues. In 2012, the Nuns aimed to draw attention to nuns’ work with the poor and to protest against planned aid cuts.

In 2013, the Network partnered with self-described "strategy center" "Faith in Public Life" to promote the theme of immigration reform. FPL was founded in 2005 "to advance a positive alternative" after "decades of political dominance by the Religious Right". FPL "played an integral role in planning and executing the 'Nuns on the Border' bus tour". [12]

Related Research Articles

Nun Member of a religious community of women

A nun is a member of a religious community of women, typically living under vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience in the enclosure of a monastery. Communities of nuns exist in numerous religious traditions, including Buddhism, Christianity, Jainism, and Taoism.

Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith Roman congregation

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is the oldest among the nine congregations of the Roman Curia, seated at the Palace of the Holy Office in Rome. It was founded to defend the church from heresy; today, it is the body responsible for promulgating and defending Catholic doctrine. Formerly known as the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition, it is informally known in many Catholic countries as the Holy Office, and between 1908 and 1965 was officially known as the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office.

United States Conference of Catholic Bishops American Catholic episcopal conference

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) is the episcopal conference of the Catholic Church in the United States. Founded in 1966 as the joint National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB) and United States Catholic Conference (USCC), it is composed of all active and retired members of the Catholic hierarchy in the United States and the territory of the U.S. Virgin Islands. In the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the bishops in the six dioceses form their own episcopal conference, the Puerto Rican Episcopal Conference. The bishops in U.S. insular areas in the Pacific Ocean – the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, the territory of American Samoa, and the territory of Guam – are members of the Episcopal Conference of the Pacific.

Religious order (Catholic) Catholic religious community living under solemn vows

In the Catholic Church, a religious order is a community of consecrated life with members that profess solemn vows. According to the 1983 Code of Canon Law, they are classed as a type of religious institute.

The Eternal Word Television Network, more commonly known by its initials EWTN, is an American basic cable television network which presents around-the-clock Roman Catholic-themed programming. It was founded by Mother Angelica, PCPA, in 1980 and began broadcasting on August 15, 1981, from a garage studio at the Our Lady of the Angels Monastery in Irondale, Alabama, which Mother Angelica founded in 1962. She hosted her own show, Mother Angelica Live, until suffering a major stroke and other health issues in September 2001. Repeats now air as either the Best of Mother Angelica Live or Mother Angelica Live Classics. From then until her death on Easter Sunday of 2016, she led a cloistered life at the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Hanceville, Alabama.

Jeannine Gramick is an American Roman Catholic sister and advocate for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights as a co-founder of New Ways Ministry.

Catholic Democrats is an American not-for-profit organization of Catholics to support the Democratic Party, based in Boston, United States. The Catholic Democrats have more than 60,000 members in all 50 American states and Puerto Rico. It claims no authorization from the Catholic Church, or any Catholic bishop, Catholic diocese, candidate or candidate committee.

Sisters of Charity Hospital (Buffalo) Hospital in New York, United States

Sisters of Charity Hospital is a general medical and surgical hospital founded in 1848 by the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, and the oldest hospital in Buffalo, New York. Part of Catholic Health, it is also a teaching hospital. The hospital has 467 beds and specializes in women's health services.

The Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) is one of two associations of the leaders of congregations of Catholic women religious in the United States. LCWR includes over 1300 members, who are members of 302 religious congregations that include 33,431 women religious in the United States as of 2018. Founded in 1956, the conference describes its charter as assisting its members to "collaboratively carry out their service of leadership to further the mission of the Gospel in today's world." The canonically-approved organization collaborates in the Catholic church and in society to "influence systemic change, studying significant trends and issues within the church and society, utilizing our corporate voice in solidarity with people who experience any form of violence or oppression, and creating and offering resource materials on religious leadership skills." The conference serves as a resource both to its members and to the public who are seeking resources on leadership for religious life.

Ordination of women and the Catholic Church Overview of ordination of women within the Catholic Church

In the liturgical traditions of the Catholic Church, the term ordination refers to the means by which a person is included in one of the orders of bishops, priests or deacons. The teaching of the Catholic Church on ordination, as expressed in the Code of Canon Law, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and the apostolic letter Ordinatio sacerdotalis, is that only a Catholic male validly receives ordination, and "that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church's faithful." In other words, the male priesthood is not considered by the church a matter of policy but an unalterable requirement of God. As with priests and bishops, the church ordains only men as deacons. The church does not ordain anyone who has undergone sex reassignment surgery and may sanction or require therapy for priests who are transsexual, contending that these are an indicator of mental instability.

Women in the Catholic Church

In the history of the Catholic Church, women have played a variety of roles and the church has affected societal attitudes to women worldwide in significant ways. Influential Catholic women have included theologians, abbesses, monarchs, missionaries, mystics, martyrs, scientists, nurses, hospital administrators, educationalists, religious sisters, Doctors of the Church, and canonised saints. Women constitute the majority of members of consecrated life in the Catholic Church: in 2010, there were around 721,935 professed women religious. Motherhood and family are given an exalted status in Catholicism, with The Blessed Virgin Mary holding a special place of veneration.

Gerhard Ludwig Müller German cardinal of the Catholic Church (born 1947)

Gerhard Ludwig Müller is a German cardinal of the Catholic Church. He served as the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) from his appointment by Pope Benedict XVI in 2012 until 2017. He was elevated to the rank of cardinal in 2014.

A Catholic Statement on Pluralism and Abortion

"A Catholic Statement on Pluralism and Abortion", alternatively referred to by its pull quote "A Diversity of Opinions Regarding Abortion Exists Among Committed Catholics" or simply "The New York Times ad", was a full-page advertisement placed on October 7, 1984, in The New York Times by Catholics for a Free Choice (CFFC). Its publication brought to a head the conflict between the Vatican and those American Catholics who were pro-choice. The publicity and controversy which followed its publication helped to make the CFFC an important element of the pro-choice movement.

Agnes Mary Mansour American nun forced to leave her religious order after 30 years due to her position on legal abortion (1931–2004)

Agnes Mary Mansour was an American Roman Catholic nun who was given a choice from the Vatican in 1983 to end her religious vows or to resign from her position as the director of the Michigan Department of Social Services which required her to support and allocate public funding for abortions. The controversy involved her belief that abortion was tragic but should be legal, despite her vows as a religious and the teachings of the Catholic Church.

The Fortnight for Freedom is a campaign initiated by the Roman Catholic bishops of the United States. Events over the course of fourteen days from June 21 to July 4 each year, call upon Catholics to participate in a pledge to religious liberty and an appeal for the inclusion of a "conscience clause" for religious institutions and religious faithful to practice according to the moral tenets of one's religious faith.

Nuns on the Bus is a Catholic advocacy group in the United States. Their name comes from the fact that they tour the country on a bus.

Catholic sisters and nuns in the United States have played a major role in American religion, education, nursing and social work since the early 19th century. In Catholic Europe, convents were heavily endowed over the centuries, and were sponsored by the aristocracy. Religious orders were founded by entrepreneurial women who saw a need and an opportunity, and were staffed by devout women from poor families. The numbers grew exponentially from about 900 in the year 1840, to a maximum of nearly 200,000 in 1965, falling to 56,000 in 2010. The network of Catholic institutions provided high status, but low-paying lifetime careers as nuns in parochial schools, hospitals, and orphanages. They were part of an international Catholic network, with considerable movement back and forth from Britain, France, Germany and Canada.

Simone Campbell

Simone Campbell, SSS, is an American Roman Catholic Religious Sister, lawyer, lobbyist and executive director of NETWORK. She belongs to the Sisters of Social Service. She is known as an outspoken advocate for social justice.

Ursula Mattingly

SisterUrsula Mattingly, SC was a Roman Catholic religious sister, nurse, and hospital administrator. A member of the Daughters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul, she is best remembered for her role as foundress of Sisters of Charity Hospital in Buffalo, New York. She has been called "one of the most successful and experienced hospital nurses in the country."

Religious sister (Catholic) Woman who has taken public vows in a religious institute

A religious sister in the Catholic Church is a woman who has taken public vows in a religious institute dedicated to apostolic works, as distinguished from a nun who lives a cloistered monastic life dedicated to prayer. Both nuns and sisters use the term "sister" as a form of address.

References

  1. 1 2 Goodstein, Laurie (5 June 2012). "Nuns, Rebuked by Rome, Plan Road Trip to Spotlight Social Issues". The New York Times. Retrieved 12 June 2012.
  2. 1 2 Castellanos, Dalina (17 May 2012). "Catholics all a-Twitter about the role of nuns". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 12 June 2012.
  3. ↑ NETWORK website, accessed Jan. 28, 2016
  4. 1 2 3 "History", Network
  5. 1 2 Martin, Michel (March 18, 2010). "American Nuns Out In Force To Support Health Bill". NPR News (Tell Me More). NPR . Retrieved 8 April 2010.
  6. ↑ Harmon, Catherine. "Women Religious in the U.S.: The Past Fifty Years", The Catholic world Report, July 9, 2013
  7. ↑ Anderssen, Erin (March 26, 2010). "Sisters' Obamacare Lobby Second to Nun: Nuns say Catholic bishops' blustered on abortions". The Globe and Mail . Toronto. Retrieved 8 April 2010.
  8. 1 2 Congregation for the Doctrie of the Faith (April 18, 2012). "Doctrinal Assessment of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious". Vatican.va. Archived from the original on July 24, 2013. Retrieved March 25, 2018.
  9. ↑ Biden, a Catholic School ‘Kid,’ Praises Nuns Under Fire From the Vatican N.Y. Times, Sept. 17, 2014
  10. ↑ Sister Simone Campbell, A Nun on the Bus, Harper-Collins, 2014, pp. 104-105
  11. ↑ Nuns, Rebuked by Rome, Plan Road Trip to Spotlight Social Issues NYT, June 5, 2012
  12. ↑ "2013– Hitting the road with the Nuns on the Bus", Faith in Public Life
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.