The Vatican's Congregation of the Doctrine of Faith - formerly known as the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition - has announced that it will launch a doctrinal investigation into the leadership of Catholic sisters in the US.

This will effectively mean that the Vatican is investigating women's religious communities in the US on two fronts, because last December it announced a study to assess the "quality of life" in apostolic women's religious communities in America.

A letter (Feb 20) from Cardinal Levada, the Congregation's prefect, put the Leadership Conference of Women Religious on notice that a doctrinal investigation was also in the works.

The investigation will address three areas of doctrinal concern - concerns that stem back to a meeting in Rome in 2001 between the Women's Leadership Conference and the tall hats in the Congregation of the Doctrine of Faith. The Vatican believes the sisters have come up short in addressing these concerns.

The first is ordinatio sacerdotalis aka "On the Ordination to the Priesthood" - a Vatican document that surprise, surprise... asserts that the priesthood is for men only.

The second concern relates to Dominus Jesus - a document that cautions the ecumenically minded not to get too carried away. Non-Catholic Christians are described as being "in a gravely deficient situation" compared to the more fortunate servants-of-the-Vatican.

The third concern relates to church teaching on homosexuality. It's hard not to have the sense that this might not go smoothly. In 1986 in his former role as Cardinal Razinger, Benedict wrote: “Although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not a sin, it is a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil; and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder.”

Cardinal Levada told women's conference leaders that “Given both the tenor and the doctrinal content of various addresses given at the annual assemblies of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious in the intervening years, this Dicastery can only conclude that the problems which had motivated its request in 2001 continue to be present.”

This Vatican investigation has the appearance of a test of loyalty. Others have suggested a witch hunt. It comes as no surprise that the Vatican might feel threatened by a body of strong minded women who sometimes raise questions about directives coming down from the ecclesiastical old boys' club in Rome.