CHICAGO — The Benedictine sisters at St. Scholastica Monastery breathed a sigh of relief Tuesday when the Vatican released its long-awaited report on American nuns.

Two Vatican investigators had spent two days at the Benedictine monastery in Chicago’s Rogers Park neighborhood in May 2010 as part of an unprecedented review, examining the lives of women who take vows to the Roman Catholic Church.

“The two visitators were very kind and good people, but they didn’t know very much about monastic life,” said Sister Patricia Crowley, prioress of the Benedictine community. “They came being surprised that we had a schedule for the day, where we pray together and eat together.”

The report released by the Vatican’s Congregation for Religious seemed to ease tensions and the mistrust many sisters felt as the Vatican launched its review in 2008. It was viewed as an affirming and realistic assessment of women religious — the Catholic term for sisters — while also reminding them to adhere to church teaching.

“It is not a document of blame or simplistic solutions,” said Sister Sharon Holland, president of the Leadership Council of Women Religious (LCWR), during a news conference in Rome where the report was unveiled.

“One can read the text and feel appreciated and trusted to carry on,” she added.

The report is the result of an investigation begun during the papacy of Pope Benedict XVI. It aimed to examine 341 religious orders with about 50,000 sisters, but did not include cloistered communities of nuns.

It is the first of two separate appraisals, each one under a different Vatican department. The second investigation comes from the church’s doctrinal watchdog, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and examines the adherence to doctrine by the LCWR, an umbrella group to which 80 percent of the nation’s women religious belong.

Sister Mary Ann Zollman, 73, head of the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary when Vatican officials visited their motherhouse in Dubuque, Iowa, said the one-way communication with investigators with no feedback for four years was frustrating. But in the end, the sisters were glad officials came and prompted them to reflect on their mission. A Loyola University Chicago trustee, she helped edit a book of essays by sisters about the apostolic visitations.

“The fact of the matter is it gave us an opportunity to tell our story and tell our story to one another and make that story public,” she said. “We believe in our life. We love it. It gave us an opportunity, as challenging as it was, to celebrate that.”