'Rebel' nun Anita Caspary dies at 95

LOS ANGELES -- During a showdown with the Catholic Church in the late 1960s, Anita Caspary and the Los Angeles order she led, the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, were cast as "rebel nuns" for progressive reforms that included abandoning the nun's habit and suspending a fixed time for prayer.

Although the moves were made in response to a call from the Vatican to modernize, conservative Cardinal James Francis McIntyre of the Los Angeles Archdiocese barred the sisters from teaching in the Catholic schools he oversaw.

The sisters appealed to Rome, but when the Vatican squelched their modernization efforts, more than 300 of them asked to be released from their vows, Caspary later wrote.

As of last year, it remained the largest Catholic order in the U.S. to sever ties with the Vatican, according to the 2010 edition of "Unveiled: The Hidden Lives of Nuns." The ex-nuns came together to found the Immaculate Heart Community, an independent ecumenical organization that marked its 40th anniversary last year. It has 160 members today.

Caspary, who served as the order's final leader and the community's first president, died Oct. 5 at the group's retirement home in Los Angeles, said Lenore Dowling, an organization spokeswoman. A cause of death was not released. Caspary was 95.

She grew up in Los Angeles and attended Immaculate Heart College, founded by the sisters. As she worked toward her bachelor's degree in English, Caspary developed an appreciation for the independent-minded nuns.