The World - News from April 9, 1989

Pope John Paul II, in a letter to U.S. Catholic bishops, warned that “radical feminism . . . does not reflect or promote the full reality and true dignity of women.” The reference was contained in a nine-page instruction to U.S. bishops on how to handle and encourage monks and nuns in the sometimes restive U.S. Roman Catholic Church. It was John Paul’s first formal communication to American bishops since the Pope and his chief Vatican aides met with 35 U.S. cardinals and archbishops March 8-11 to discuss problems facing the church in America. The letter was based on the report of a commission set up in 1983 to study various aspects of religious life in the United States.