Churches “Product Identity”?

by Sue Rakoczy · Published June 14, 2012 · Updated September 10, 2020

What comes to mind when you hear product identity? Most probably it is making sure that Coke or Mercedes Benz or Nando’s is clearly identified by the public.

This phrase from corporate culture was used this week by Cardinal William Levada, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, to describe what the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), the umbrella organisation which represents 57,000 sisters in the United States, is not doing.

The CDF has placed the LCWR under administration by three US bishops who are to reform it in line with CDF norms. He said that the LCWR isn’t representing the church with any reasonable sense of product identity.

His contention is that the LCWR is not strenuously resisting abortion and same-sex marriage, and instead focuses on poverty and social justice issues. The US bishops speak so loudly and so often on these two issues that few other Catholic voices are necessary.

So the Catholic Church is now a corporate like any other body which needs product identity. I thought that the Church is a community of persons trying to live the Gospel, which is a way of life.