An organization of Catholics who support a “renewed church” plan weekly vigils outside St. James Cathedral to support the American nuns who are being investigated by the Vatican and were recently put under the supervision of Seattle Archbishop J. Peter Sartain.

“Support the Sisters” vigils will take place on Tuesday evenings — May 8, 15, 22 and 29 — between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. Participants are urged to bring candles and, noting Seattle’s spring weather, umbrellas.

The vigils will be sponsored by Call to Action Western Washington, the state affiliate of a national group, and self-described as “Catholics who value a renewed Church in Western Washington.”

The group lists as links two breakaway Catholic communities in Olympia: Archbishop Sartain advised Catholics last winter that the groups and their worship services do not enjoy recognition by the Church.

The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith recently delivered a sharply critical “doctrinal assessment” of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), the group which represents an estimated 80 percent of the nation’s Catholic nuns.

It faulted the sisters for not devoting enough time to propagating the Church’s teachings on abortion and sexuality, saying the LCWR had been “silent on the right to life from conception to natural death.”

The LCWR was also faulted for shows of independence. “Occasional public statements by the LCWR that disagree with or challenge positions taken by the bishops, who are the Church’s authentic teachers of faith and morals, are not compatible with its purpose.”

Archbishop Sartain and two other bishops have been put in charge of getting the sisters to toe the line. The trio of celibate men have authority, over the next five years, to revise the sisters’ statutes and review programs (including, presumably, speakers at LCWR’s conferences).

The archbishop has made conciliatory statements about consultation and cooperation.

Even if applied with a velvet glove, however, the Vatican’s seeming crackdown has caused deep discontent among many American Catholics.

Fr. Michael Ryan, pastor of St. James Cathedral, took note of “the recent disheartening and disturbing news about the investigation of women religious in this country” in a sermon last Sunday, in which he appealed for worshipers to give to the Annual Catholic Appeal.

Noting discontent over treatment of nuns, and Archbishop Sartain’s support for efforts to overturn Washington’s new marriage equality law, Fr. Ryan warned:

“Refusing to contribute to the Annual Catholic Appeal this year will hurt the tens of thousands of people whom the Archdiocese serves far more than it will hurt the Archdiocese itself, because this appeal is not about funding a bureaucracy. It is about serving and caring for people.”