Cards and letters of support from all over America plaster the office entrance of Network, a Catholic social justice lobbying organization on Capitol Hill. Observers were stunned when the Vatican issued a disapproving report last month on an umbrella group for American nuns, decrying its “radical feminist themes” and theological errors. Also mentioned in the report was Network. Sister Simone Campbell, who runs the organization, spoke to The Washington Examiner about the conflict and her thankfulness for the many donations and letters she has received since. “When you think nobody notices — and then to have this. It’s amazing,” she says. Initial news stories about the Vatican’s reprimand of nuns in America focused on the shock. Now that the shock has passed, what do you think happened? Why was this done?

It’s very, very complicated. There are bishops here who argue with us, who don’t like what we did with health care and who are not used to having a diversity of perspectives expressed out loud — I think that’s behind it. And I think there must be some level of fear on their part that they’re losing control. It’s so funny — they say that they, the bishops, speak for the Catholic Church. Well, that’s true, absolutely true — we never said otherwise. But I think, though I previously thought Catholic sisters’ lives were fairly anonymous, people really see our lives and take the moral witness of our lives as having power or having an example for people. I think some of the bishops wish that they had that same attractive quality. And they don’t, because of the pedophilia scandals, because of everything else that’s gone on in our church. It’s hard for them, I think, to watch us be respected.