A much-anticipated Vatican report on U.S. women’s religious orders, which was ordered under Pope Benedict XVI, will be released Tuesday in Rome – and its contents will be closely watched for signs of changed relations between the Roman Catholic hierarchy and nuns under Pope Francis.

The study is one of two separate Vatican inquiries of American nuns that angered many Catholic sisters, who considered the reviews an attempt to bring them more under the authority of the all-male church leadership.

The other investigation was released in 2012. It focused narrowly on the major umbrella organization for sisters, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, and concluded the organization had strayed from church doctrine and had to change. Cardinal Franc Rode, then-head of the Vatican office for religious orders, said in 2009 that the review was not a sign of mistrust. But he said there was concern about “a certain secular mentality that has spread in these religious families and, perhaps, also a certain ‘feminist’ spirit.

The new leader of the office, Cardinal Joao Braz de Aviz, said last year a “new attitude” of cooperation and equality was needed between Vatican officials and nuns worldwide.


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