This is the story of what was learned by the Leadership Conference of Women Religious during a six-year crisis (2009-2015). A high-ranking and very powerful Vatican office suddenly and very publicly confronted the organization with forceful questions and negative assumptions about the foundation of the lives of Catholic sisters. The conflict grew more intense midway through those years. The Vatican office threatened the autonomy and even the existence of the conference, an organization on which the great majority of US Catholic sisters rely for many kinds of resources, supports, and connections. The experience rocked LCWR's officers, its hundreds of members, and the approximately 60,000 sisters who belonged to member congregations at that time. Yet the ultimate resolution benefitted everyone. How did that happen? This book answers that question. It not only explains how the organization worked through a very difficult situation, but it provides spiritual grounding, useful information, as well as inspiration and hope to anyone working through a situation of conflict, polarization, or even impasse in their own personal, professional, family, community, neighborhood, or organizational settings.

Published by The Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR)

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Annmarie Sanders is a Sister of the Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and serves as the director of communications for the Leadership Conference of Women Religious. She’s worked previously in communications for her congregation in Pennsylvania and in Lima, Peru, and as a medical social worker. She has authored several articles on religious life and edited three books on the life and leadership of the LCWR.