Nuns aren’t what they used to be. Go to the website of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious [LCWR], an umbrella organisation that represents around 80 per cent of American convents and religious sisterhoods, and there isn’t a wimple or a rosary in sight. Instead you’ll find a group of women who could be members of the WI [Women’s Institute]: greying, wearing sensible sweaters, full of purpose.

Probe further and you may detect a whiff of New Agery along with the calls to social activism. The organisation hosts conferences with titles like “Women of spirit: creating in chaos”, “Embracing the dream” and “Religious life on the edge of tomorrow”. “We welcome new ideas and new ways of living religious life into the future,” proclaims the LCWR mission statement.

A section entitled “Resolutions to Action” gives some insight into where they think their priorities lie. The latest is entitled “We are the 99 per cent — the Occupy Movement”. The one before that proclaims “Economic Justice Advocacy Critically Needed.” There are calls to reduce the world’s carbon footprint and to eliminate global hunger. One is highly critical of WalMart. There’s a resolution calling for an end to capital punishment in the USA , but you look in vain for the kind of campaigns most closely associated with organised Catholicism; against abortion, contraception or gay marriage.

While no-one would claim that campaigns against global poverty are contrary to Catholic teaching — Pope Benedict’s major encyclical Caritas in Veritate was after all devoted to the subject — the LCWR’s emphasis stands in stark contrast to that of the male church leadership in the United States, currently waging war on the Obama administration’s contraception mandate in the name of religious freedom.

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