Ex-Nuns Work for Women in the Catholic Church

Book critic John Leonard reviews the new book by ex-nuns Barbara Ferraro and Patricia Hussey, co-written with Jane O'Reilly. Ferraro and Hussey defied the Catholic Church's policies on abortion, birth control, and the ordination of women. Their convictions eventually led them to give up their vows.

When Armstrong decided to leave the Roman Catholic convent where she was a nun in 1969, she entered a world vastly different than the one she had been isolated from for seven years. She had no idea what was going on in Vietnam and had little idea what was happening in popular culture. She's written a new memoir, The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness, about her life in the convent and the spiritual quest that followed. Her other books include The Battle for God and A History of God.

Bishop Leonard Blair talks about his Vatican-ordered assessment of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, an organization that represents 80 percent of Catholic sisters in America. He says the LCWR is promoting a "new kind of theology that is not in accordance with the faith of the church."