The Vatican keeps trying to kick them out or control them, but the sisters resist. Their weapon? Profound dialogue. See below for the recent Vatican statement and the Sisters’ response.

Remarks by Cardinal Muller, Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith:

Let me begin with the notion of “disproportionate sanctions.” One of the more contentious aspects of the Mandate—though one that has not yet been put into force—is the provision that speakers and presenters at major programs will be subject to approval by the Delegate. This provision has been portrayed as heavy-handed interference in the day-to-day activities of the Conference. For its part, the Holy See would not understand this as a “sanction,” but rather as a point of dialogue and discernment. It allows the Holy See’s Delegate to be involved in the discussion first of all in order to avoid difficult and embarrassing situations wherein speakers use an LCWR forum to advance positions at odds with the teaching of the Church. Further, this is meant as an assistance to you, the Presidency, so as to anticipate better the issues that will further complicate the relationship of the LCWR with the Holy See.

An example may help at this point. It saddens me to learn that you have decided to give the Outstanding Leadership Award during this year’s Assembly to a theologian criticized by the Bishops of the United States because of the gravity of the doctrinal errors in that theologian’s writings. This is a decision that will be seen as a rather open provocation against the Holy See and the Doctrinal Assessment. Not only that, but it further alienates the LCWR from the Bishops as well.

(Read full statement)

Response from the Leadership Conference of Women Religious:

Over the past several days, there has been much public commentary on the opening remarks of Cardinal Gerhard Müller, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, to the presidency of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) at their annual meeting April 30, 2014. In a public statement after the promulgation of the Cardinal’s beginning remarks, in separate releases, both Archbishop J. Peter Sartain, archbishop delegate overseeing the implementation of the CDF mandate, and the LCWR presidency affirmed the accuracy of the Cardinal’s remarks and commented on the positive conversation that followed. For LCWR, this conversation was constructive in its frankness and lack of ambiguity. It was not an easy discussion, but its openness and spirit of inquiry created a space for authentic dialogue and discernment.

The meeting with CDF must be viewed within the context of LCWR’s entire visit to Vatican dicasteries. In our first visit on April 27 to the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, Monsignor Paul Tigue, Secretary, shared that Pope Francis insists upon creating, as part of the New Evangelization, a culture of encounter, marked by dialogue and discernment. We experienced this culture of encounter in every Vatican office we visited in the Curia, an encounter marked by genuine interaction and mutual respect.

(Read full statement)

Gissing seems technological evolution allows them to be essay or term paper research Writing an essay of an immaculate initialize and structure is not an wanton job Scare until the weekend earlier the deadline.

To better capture Sister Simone, Sister Jean, and Sister Chris’s struggle for gender inclusivity and social justice, we are proud to announce that our documentary will now be titled RADICAL GRACE! We feel that RADICAL GRACE encapsulates what these three brave sisters are trying to accomplish: to help usher society to a place where all people, regardless of gender or race, are equal to one another; where the modern struggles that affect humanity are met with an equally modern perspective.

And we have you to thank for picking RADICAL GRACE. Hosting the naming contest was an amazing experience, and thank you all for choosing a title that so perfectly reflects the story our documentary is trying to tell. Please note that the names on our social media accounts on Facebook and Twitter will also be changing to Facebook.com/RadicalGraceFilm and Twitter.com/@radgracefilm.

Again, thank you for your generous support; we would not be able to make this film without it. We look forward to sharing in the coming journey of completing RADICAL GRACE with you!

Sincerely,
Rebecca Parrish and Nicole Bernardi-Reis

Sister Jean speaks at Good Pitch Chicago

Chicago Tribune, Business:Chicago Confidential
Melissa Harris
October 24, 2013

GOOD PITCH CHICAGO
Seven directors of unfinished documentary films pitched a who’s who of Chicago philanthropic and business leaders for financial and marketing support Tuesday as part of the city’s first Good Pitch event.

The actor Danny Glover appeared, supporting two films, “The Message” and “Strong Island.” Multiple attendees wanted photos with Glover — but Glover first posed with Sister Jean Hughes, an Adrian Dominican nun, featured in “Sister.”

The film follows three nuns promoting “radical feminist themes,” as a 2012 Vatican report put it, in a patriarchal hierarchy. Hughes works on Chicago’s West Side for St. Leonard’s Ministries, which helps men and women re-enter society after prison. The filmmakers have been trailing her for about eight months, she said.

“It’s funny to see yourself in a movie when you’ve gone 75 years and nobody’s paid any attention to you,” Hughes said, prompting laugher. She stood and talked to the audience of a few hundred people with the support of a cane.

She later added: “It’s not about sisters really. It’s about women. It’s about women who belong to an organization that they believe in, that their parents believed in, that their grandparents believed in. But in fact, they understand all of the sudden that in this system, women’s wisdom is not appreciated. Women’s leadership is not sought. So the system is missing half of the world, and it’s got to catch up.”

The men, she said, “are working fiercely — and these are not bad people; I’m not against the hierarchy — but the men are working so hard to prop up the system because they believe in it, and the women are working so hard to do the mission.”

Although every filmmaker left the event with more support, “Sister,” one Tweeter put it, “won the lottery” when Organizing for Action’s executive director, Jon Carson, said his group would screen the film across the country. OFA is the legacy organization of Barack Obama’s two presidential campaigns. And it has access to the campaign’s “extremely valuable” voter databases, including 17 million email subscribers, The New York Times has reported.

MIDWEST IS BEST!
They call it the Windy City and, sure enough, there was a whole lot of good in the air at Good Pitch Chicago two weeks ago. If you were there then you too will have felt the winds of change as 250+ filmmakers, philanthropists, non-profits, community organizers, educators and advocates converged around seven amazing new doc film projects.

Good Pitch, fresh from events in Taipei and Buenos Aires, was brought to Chicago by Team BRITDOC in London and New York, and our partners on the ground in the Midwest.

The day was characterized by both a generosity of spirit and of checkbook: Chaz Ebert – cultural leader and widow of celebrated film critic Roger Ebert – set the tone at the audience mic for film after film, offering her own support and exhorting the audience to get involved.

Other pledges included USD25k to the outreach campaign for Homestretch by the Chicago Community Trust; Jeffrey Pechter pledged USD10k towards the production of The Message which was followed by a PUMA Catalyst Award of Euros5k from BRITDOC; POV delivered important news that Private Violence was recommended for national broadcast, ensuring it would be seen by millions; and ten people came up to the mic for Strong Island with grants totaling USD25k. ITVS and The Richard Driehaus Foundation both committed funding (USD13k and USD5k) to The Dreamcatchers; and Jeffrey Pechter, EP of Becoming Bulletproof committed a further USD75k on top of the time and financial support he had already made; Kat White of KatLei Productions offered 10% of the finishing funds needed for SISTER and a USD15k challenge grant from the Waitt Institute for Violence Prevention was reached by the end of the day for Private Violence.

And then there was the real money shot: Danny Glover embracing Sister Jean – star of feminist doc Sister – exclaiming with a kiss, “You are one of my heroes.” Sister Jean’s response? “You should get out more”. Classic.

The men and women featured in the films truly were the heroes of the day (Roque, Sister Jean, Brenda, Kit and AJ), delivering highly personal stories of overcoming adversity whilst keeping the discussions grounded by the reality they all face; the fight for their basic rights: health, safety, a place to call home, freedom to practice faith, freedom from violence, and access to justice.

Caption:Sister Jean Hughes reflects on how much has changed since she first joined her order in the film ‘Sister.’ The documentary is one of the films going before investors at Good Pitch. (sisterthefilm.com)

Of the five films nominated for the best documentary Oscar this year, two of them — “How to Survive a Plague” and “The Invisible War” — got funding and support from Good Pitch. Two out of five. Talk about validation. Launched in the UK about six years ago, Good Pitch invites a select number of doc filmmakers to make their pitch to group of funders, TV networks and other potential partners.

Two years ago Chicago-based filmmaker Steve James told me the Good Pitch he attended in London was instrumental in getting him in front of the right people when he was working on “The Interrupters.” The list of major Good Pitch docs released in just the past year is even longer: “Detropia” (a humanistic look at Detroit’s economic woes), “Gideon’s Army” (examining the punishing grind of those who work as public defenders), “Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry” (about the famous Chinese artist provocateur) and “Dirty Wars” (based on investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill’s book about U.S. military action in Afghanistan).

All came to fruition — at least in part — with the help of Good Pitch, which has expanded to other cities including New York, San Francisco and, starting next week, Chicago.

On Tuesday, seven filmmaking teams (selected from 150 submissions) will convene at the Cultural Center to get their shot. The docs are in various stages of production, and their creators were required to submit footage “to give us a sense of their filmmaking style,” said organizer Steven Cohen.

The films are all “impact” documentaries. So you’re not going to see someone pitching, say, a film about people who used to follow the Grateful Dead on tour.

“I’ll give you a good example,” said Cohen. “‘The Invisible War’ is a film about sexual assault in the military. The filmmakers wanted to show what was going on, and their film not only raised visibility of the issue, but it was actually being cited in Senate and Congressional hearings. And the filmmakers created a campaign around the documentary to help women come forward and talk about their experiences. And the end result is it got nominated for best documentary at last year’s Academy Awards.

“First and foremost, they have to be good films about important issues.”

“Important” is a tricky word when you’re talking about documentaries. Several well-intentioned film festivals show up each year with a roster of “important” films. The International Social Change Film Fest. The Human Rights Watch Film Fest. The Peace on Earth Film Fest. You can’t fault audiences for thinking these fests sound like variations on a theme: The Eat Your Vegetables Film Fest.

What’s the point if none of it sounds appealing as entertainment?

“It’s funny you say that,” said Cohen. “When we were deciding which films to include at Good Pitch, the thing you look at is: Does this film have commercial viability? Not simply because return on investment is important but because, in our view, a film that is not going to be watched by people is not a film that’s going to be able to make any real change. So you’ll never see a film at Good Pitch that isn’t story-driven and character driven in the way that a narrative feature would be. That’s why the Good Pitch films tend to be the ones that do get attention and play at Sundance and win awards.”

Of the seven projects making their pitch on Tuesday, three have local ties. “The Homestretch” details the lives of homeless teenagers in Chicago. “Sister” follows the stories of three Catholic nuns in the U.S., including Adrian Dominican Sister Jean Hughes on the West Side, who focus on social injustices rather than church dogma. “The Dreamcatchers” (which has a UK-based team) is shooting in Chicago as well, following a pair of former sex workers who now help other women escape prostitution.

Here’s how it works, per Cohen: “The filmmakers get seven minutes to make a pitch. They have to show a clip. And then each of the round table participants — funders, foundations, advocacy groups, advertising people, crowdsource funders (and boldface names scheduled to attend including Danny Glover, Gloria Steinem and Christie Hefner) — talk about how they might help. It could be anything from ‘We’ll give you money’ to ‘We have an organization that’s nationwide and we’ll do screenings at every one of our chapters.’

“And it’s pure live theater because it all takes place in front of an invite-only audience of 300 people” — spectators with yet more connections and/or deep pockets who might be interested in jumping on board one of these films as well.

Realistically, one of next year’s Oscar contenders might very well be in that room on Tuesday, getting a Chicago boost.

For more info about Good Pitch go to goodpitch.org

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