Max Rossi / Reuters

Pope Francis, shown Sunday, reaffirmed the church's official criticism of the group representing most U.S. nuns as having 'radical feminist' doctrine.

VATICAN CITY -- Pope Francis has reaffirmed the Vatican's criticism of a body that represents U.S. nuns that the Church said was tainted by "radical" feminism, dashing hopes that he might take a softer stand with the sisters.

Francis's predecessor, Benedict, decreed that the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), a group that represents more than 80 percent of the 57,000 Catholic nuns in the United States, must change its ways, a ruling that the Vatican said on Monday still applied.

Last year, a Vatican report said the LCWR had "serious doctrinal problems" and promoted "radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith," criticizing it for taking a soft line on issues such as birth control and homosexuality.

The nuns received wide support among American Catholics, particularly on the liberal wing of the church, as LCWR leaders travelled around the United States in a bus to defend themselves against the accusations.

On Monday the group's leaders met Archbishop Gerhard Ludwig Mueller, the new head of the Vatican's doctrinal department, and Archbishop Peter Sartain of Seattle, who has been assigned by the Vatican to correct the group's perceived failings.

"Archbishop Mueller informed the (LCWR) presidency that he had recently discussed the doctrinal assessment with Pope Francis, who reaffirmed the findings of the assessment and the program of reform, " the Vatican's statement said.

The Vatican reminded the group that it would "remain under the direction of the Holy See," the statement said.

It was the nuns' first meeting with Mueller, who succeeded American Cardinal William Levada as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Levada, who retired last year, oversaw the Vatican's investigation of the U.S. nuns.

A statement from the LCWR said the "conversation was open and frank" and added: "We pray that these conversations may bear fruit for the good of the Church."

In April 2012, the doctrinal department criticized the LCWR for challenging bishops and for being "silent on the right to life," saying it had failed to make the "Biblical view of family life and human sexuality" a central plank of its agenda.

The nuns supported President Barack Obama's health-care reform, part of which makes insurance coverage of birth control mandatory, while U.S. bishops opposed it.

Many nuns said the Vatican's report misunderstood their intentions and undervalued their work for social justice.

Supporters of the nuns said the women had helped the image of the church in the United States at a time when it was engulfed in scandal over sexual abuse of minors by priests. They were praised by many fellow Catholics and the media for their work with the poor and sick.

Monday's Vatican statement expressed gratitude for the "great contribution" American Catholic nuns had made in teaching and caring for the sick and poor.

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University Of Wisconsin-Madison / Reuters

Gerda Lerner founded the women's studies program at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York, which in 1972 became the first to offer a graduate degree in women's history.

MILWAUKEE -- Gerda Lerner, a pioneer in the field of women's history and a founding member of the National Organization for Women, has died. She was 92.

Credited with founding the nation's first graduate program in women's history, Lerner died peacefully Wednesday at an assisted-living facility in Madison, Wis., her son said.

"She was always a very strong-willed and opinionated woman," Dan Lerner recalled. "I think those are the hallmarks of great people, people that have strong points of view and firmly held convictions."

The former professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison wrote several books in the field of women's history, including her 1986 work "The Creation of Patriarchy" and her 1994 volume "The Creation of Feminist Consciousness." She also edited "Black Women in White America," one of the first books to document the struggles and contributions of black women in American history.

After obtaining her doctorate at New York's Columbia University in 1966, Lerner went on to found the women's studies program at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York, which in 1972 became the first to offer a graduate degree in women's history.

Lerner later moved to Madison, where she helped establish a doctoral program in women's history at the University of Wisconsin.

Imprisoned by Nazis
She was born into a privileged Jewish family in Vienna, Austria, in 1920. When the Nazis rose to power, she was imprisoned and spent her 18th birthday behind bars, in a cell with two other young women who had been arrested for political work. Jailers restricted rations for Jews, but the gentile women shared their food with her.

"They taught me how to survive," Lerner wrote in "Fireweed: a Political Autobiography." "Everything I needed to get through the rest of my life I learned in jail in those six weeks."

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She said the experience taught her how society can manipulate people. It was a lesson she saw reinforced in American academia by history professors who taught as though the only figures worth studying were men.

"When I was faced with noticing that half the population has no history, and I was told that that's normal, I was able to resist the pressure" to accept that conclusion, she told the Wisconsin Academic Review in 2002.

After arriving in the United States from Europe, she married filmmaker Carl Lerner and collaborated with him in writing the 1964 civil rights-era film "Black Like Me," based on the 1961 best-selling book by John Howard Griffin.

The couple were involved in activism that ranged from attempting to unionize the film industry to working in the civil rights movement.

Carl Lerner died in 1973, and Gerda Lerner moved in 1980 to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she established a doctorate program in women's history. She retired from the university in 1991.

When asked how she developed such a strong sense of justice and fairness, she told the Wisconsin Academy Review that the feeling started in childhood. She recalled watching her mother drop items on the floor and walk away, leaving servants to clean up her mess.

"I wanted the world to be a just and fair place, and it obviously wasn't — and that disturbed me right from the beginning," she said.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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