Morning Briefing

And suddenly, it's over! The Vatican investigation of the LCWR came to a "curt and unexpected" end today, reports NCR's Vatican correspondent Joshua McElwee. "LCWR president Immaculate Heart of Mary Sr. Sharon Holland said in a statement that the oversight process brought the sisters and the Vatican to “deeper understandings of one another’s experiences, roles, responsibilities, and hopes for the Church and the people it serves.”

“We learned that what we hold in common is much greater than any of our differences,” said Holland. Read the entire report.

That matter of holding bishops accountable regarding the sex abuse scandal? They're getting to it, said Vatican spokesman Jesuit Fr. Federico Lombardi, referring to a recent meeting of Pope Francis's Council of Cardinals. "This is a subject that I have heard spoken of," Lombardi said. "The question remains open; namely, how to confront these cases in an efficacious way."

Pope wonders about 'gender theory' in a talk on men and women. Looking ahead to fall Synod on the Family.

From Jamie Manson: While the world anticipates Francis's encyclical on the environment, a panel at Yale gathered to discuss what it would mean to "stakeholders outside the church, including environmental scientists, lawmakers, and leaders of world religions." 

 From Global Sisters Report: Women religious joined thousands of women from throughout the world who attended meetings of the UN Commission on Women. The March sessions marked two decades since the 1995 Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action at the U.N.’s Beijing World Conference on Women. The U.N. Commission on the Status of Women was established by a U.N. resolution in 1946.)

Also from Global Sister's Report: Melanie Lidman's initial story from Zambia on women religious who are dealing with the human consequences of that country's enormous copper mining operations.

Catholic Church official in Israel reports that a Christian cemetery was vandalized, with graves damaged and crosses smashed.

How Europe has worked out the difference between religious and civil marriage. Maybe there's something here that might work in the U.S.?