American nun, Sister Joan Chittister, has been rejected from speaking at a Catholic education conference in Australia after Archbishop Peter Comensoli of Melbourne did not endorse her invitation, according to reports.
Sr Joan, aged 83, who is a well-known feminist and scholar, told the New York Times that after having clearly been invited to address the National Catholic Education Commission's annual conference, due to be held in September 2020, by its organising committee, she later received an apologetic email rescinding the original invitation.
"I am very saddened to say that while our organising committee strongly supported the inclusion of Sister Joan as a speaker at the conference, the Archbishop of Melbourne has failed to endorse her inclusion," the email said.
Sr Joan described the decision to withdraw her invitation as “pathetic”.
She told the New York Times: "These teachers for the next generation of thinkers are being denied the right to pursue ideas."
"I see it as a lot bigger than one conference… I see it as an attitude of mind that is dangerous to the church."
The Archdiocese of Melbourne is yet to comment but Jim Miles, acting executive director of Catholic Education Melbourne - one of the groups organising the annual education conference - said that the dispute was a communications failure.
Miles said that no one, including Sr Joan, had been invited to address the conference.
“It is regrettable that Sister Joan Chittister may have been given the impression that she was invited to speak at the conference,” he said. “The conference organising committee is working to ensure that this type of miscommunication does not occur again,” he said in a statement.
The Sydney Morning Herald reported that Catholic scholars were not surprised by the dispute, describing Comensoli as a conservative moral theologian who had previously served as an auxiliary bishop in Sydney under Pell when he was the archbishop there.
Sr Joan has been described as a "maverick" of the church. In 2001, Vatican officials directed her order, the Benedictines, to keep her from speaking at a Women’s Ordination Worldwide conference in Ireland. Her religious community refused, and she spoke regardless.
Sr Joan first rose to prominence in the 1980s with her opposition to nuclear proliferation. Through public speaking and authoring more than 50 books she has since developed a worldwide following for highlighting the role of women in religious orders, and for calling on the church to change and reconnect with the faithful and focus on social justice.
In 2012, Sr Joan told The National Catholic Reporter that she "came to feminism through faith” and that her work focuses on civil rights, education and healthcare.