Is Benedict returning to role as enforcer?

As Pope Benedict XVI marked his seventh anniversary as pope last month, many Catholics were wondering if the pontiff is finally becoming the doctrinal enforcer that some feared—and others hoped—he would be when he was elected in 2005.

The questions were prompted by the mid-April announcement that Benedict had signed off on a crackdown on the organization representing most of the 57,000 nuns in the United States, saying that the group was not speaking out strongly enough against gay marriage, abortion and women’s ordination.

The investigation of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious was launched by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican agency charged with overseeing orthodoxy and the department that Benedict—then as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger—led for nearly a quarter century before his election to the papacy.