After Investigation, Some Communities of Women Religious Corrected by The Vatican

By Paul Kokoski
4/22/2012
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

One thing is clear: sisters need to refocus their communities on the founding charisms or original purpose of their orders

The reform comes in light of a hardened defiance of the groups' leaders against Catholic morality in areas of family life and human sexuality and is meant to ensure the groups fidelity to Catholic teaching in areas including abortion, euthanasia, women's ordination and homosexuality. According to the Vatican, such deviations from Catholic teaching have provoked a crisis "characterized by a diminution of the fundamental Christological center and focus of religious consecration."

A picture worth a thousand words

Facebook Delicous MySpace

Twitter Stumble Digg

More Destinations

HAMILTON,Ontario (Catholic Online) - The Vatican has recently initiated a major reform of the association of women's religious congregations, Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR). The LCWR, a Maryland-based umbrella group that claims about 1,500 leaders of U.S. women's communities as members, represents about 80 percent of the country's 57,000 women religious.

The reform comes in light of a hardened defiance of the groups leaders against Catholic morality in areas of family life and human sexuality and is meant to ensure the groups fidelity to Catholic teaching in areas including abortion, euthanasia, women's ordination and homosexuality. According to the Vatican, such deviations from Catholic teaching have provoked a crisis "characterized by a
diminution of the fundamental Christological center and focus of religious consecration."

Catholic News Service reports that "the announcement from the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith came in an eight-page 'doctrinal assessment,' based on an investigation that Bishop Blair began on behalf of the Vatican in April 2008. That investigation led the doctrinal congregation to conclude, in January 2011, that 'the current doctrinal and pastoral situation of LCWR is grave and a matter of serious concern, also given the influence the LCWR exercises on religious congregation in other parts of the world.'"

While we often hear about the present day priest shortage, few seem aware that in Canada, the U.S. and Western Europe, nuns are vanishing at an alarming rate. A recent study by the U. S. National Religious Vocation Conference found the number of nuns in the United States had fallen a
stunning 66% over the past four decades. In Canada, there are 19,000 nuns, down 54% from 42,000 in 1975.

Indeed, at the beginning of the sixties, Quebec was the region of the world with the highest number of women religious in relation to the population. Today, all sociologists agree that
unless there is a reversal of the present trend, women's religious life as we have known it will be only a memory in Canada.

Pope Benedict XVI has reduced the problem mainly to a certain "radical feminism" that has crept into women's religious orders causing an identity crisis among active orders and congregations. Women religious, the pope says, have turned away from theology and sought liberation in psychologists and psychoanalysts who can only say at most how the forces of the mind
function but not why and to what purpose.

After Vatican II, religious communities began every kind of reform imaginable: abandonment of the religious habit, degrees at secular universities, insertion into secular professions, a massive reliance on every type of "specialist". Not surprisingly, modern secular values were often uncritically adopted and the concept of "love of neighbor" was soon replaced by that of "social welfare".

In the process Christianity gradually became reduced to an ideology of doing. Pope John Paul II later warned against this minimalist approach saying that the true leaders are those who are "profoundly rooted in contemplation and prayer. Ours is a time of continual movement which often leads to restlessness, with the risk of 'doing for the sake of doing'. We must resist this temptation by trying to be, before trying to do."

Not surprisingly, cloistered contemplative orders are under no such Vatican scrutiny. This is because they have withstood very well due to the fact that they are more sheltered from the Zeitgeist, and because they are characterized by a clear and unalterable aim: praise of God, prayer,
virginity and separation from the world as an eschatological sign. Their wonderful capacity to give love, help, solace, warmth and solidarity did not give way to the economistic, and trade-union mentality of the "profession ".

We are at a point now when religious life in the Catholic Church should be presenting an alternative to the dominant culture of death, of violence and of abuse, rather than mirroring it. Hopefully the new reform remedy this.

One thing is clear: sisters need to refocus their communities on the founding charisms or original purpose of their orders. They also need, as a remedy against radical feminism, Mary whose mystery was inserted into the mystery of the Church at Vatican II making her a focal point for the
equilibrium and completeness of the Catholic Faith.

When one recognizes the place assigned to Mary by dogma and tradition, one becomes more solidly rooted in authentic Christology. As both a Jewish girl and mother of the Messiah, Mary also binds together, in a living and indissoluble way, the old and the new People of God. She is, as it were, the connecting link without which the Faith (as is happening today) runs the risk of losing its balance by either forsaking the New Testament for the Old or dispensing with the Old.

Finally, according to her destiny as Virgin and Mother, Mary continues to project a light upon that which the Creator intended for women in every age.

Mary is the one who rendered silence and seclusion fruitful. She is the one who did not fear to stand under the Cross. As a creature of courage and obedience she was and will always remain an example to which every Christian man and woman should look.
-----

Mr. Paul Kokoski holds a BA in philosophy from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. He is a freelance writer who resides in Hamilton. His articles have been published in several journals including, Homiletic and Pastoral Review, and New Oxford Review.

- - -

Pope Benedict XVI's Prayer Intentions for January 2013
General Intention: The Faith of Christians. That in this Year of Faith Christians may deepen their knowledge of the mystery of Christ and witness joyfully to the gift of faith in him.
Missionary Intention: Middle Eastern Christians. That the Christian communities of the Middle East, often discriminated against, may receive from the Holy Spirit the strength of fidelity and perseverance.

Keywords: Nuns, sisters, religious women, LCWR, Reform, contemplatives, monastery, Paul Kokoski

NEWSLETTERS »

Rate This Article

Was this helpful to you? Very Helpful Somewhat Helpful Not Helpful at All

Would you be interested in more articles like this? Yes, I am Interested No, I am not Interested

Rate Article

1 - 10 of 15 Comments

whitney
1 year ago
In my opinion, 'Love Thy Neighbor' equals social justice concerns. If your neighbor is hungry, feed him; if your neighbor is without clothes, you clothe him. It's all right there in the New Testament! I noticed in the article, as well as in the comments, that there were a lot of ambiguous pronouns; who is 'they'; who is 'them'? Are you saying ALL (they/them) are 'cretinous'? The article is generalizing the behavior of religious women as a whole. I have been around nuns for a long time; all I've witnessed is their love and devotion to God and Mary. A lot of them who do not live in convents, and must pay for their own housing, devote their mornings to the Catholic morning prayers, and the same is done in the evening, with the Catholic evening prayer. This was a very disrespectful, judgmental, nonobjective article, and many of the commenters were, too. Don't paint religious women with such a broad brush! I attend Mass every morning, and am a member of my church's Pastoral Council. We pray for all people. We do not judge, and we do not divide. And what a silly exercise for the Vatican to participate in, interrogating nuns! The sisters are involved pastoral duties,nursing and health care , and education, amongst others, and some sisters work as missionaries; why don't we look at the good a majority of them do, instead of worrying about what kind of clothes they wear?
C'mon. Have you ever worn a serge habit in hot weather? Is this the suffering you're talking about? Please re-read your Catechism again regarding social justice, as well as the U.S. Bishops' statement entitled "Responsibility, Rehabilitation, and Restoration". You may be surprised at what the Catholic Bishops of the United States support. Please stop being so petty, and appreciate all the hard work the religious sisters do, often with no credit or recognition, as they often do their work anonymously; this is what God has called them to do. Please truly Love Thy Neighbor, and everything that entails. And pray, people; please do not forget the power of prayer. God will manage to get things right; we humans cannot.
Respectfully submitted, Whitney.
Roseann
1 year ago
My daughter is now 24-years-old. When she went to a Catholic elementary school, we discovered that the principal of the school had a "partner," a woman she lived with, away from the Order's community. It was allowed. Needless to say, the true faith was never taught in that school. The bad start our daughter got in this terrible place, has affected her spirituality until this very day. I'm glad they are finally speaking out to these cretinous women. It is long, long overdue.
DLL
1 year ago
Invent your own Church and make your own rules the devil will support your every whim. Masturbation is a mortal sin in the Catholic Church that all men must confess who are guilty of this sin.Men must be chaste. Don't tell me about woman's contraceptive/abortive rights or GBLT rights. Women also must be chaste. The bottom line is to be obedient to God as Christ was obedient to death,death on a cross. All Catholics must be obedient to all Church Teaching,especially regarding faith and morals. Open your hearts and your mind to God and you will be filled with the Holy Spirit and of one mind in Christ,properly in Communion with the Church. The religious teach all by their example. Look at all the female Saints in the Church. The Church is certainly NOT against women. Look at how many women are"Doctors of the Church"don't tell me women don't influence Church teachings. Women are adored and honored in the Catholic Church,more so than anywhere else on the face of the earth. Those so honored as Saints have always realized the value of sound Church Doctrine as well as Dogma.
Greg
1 year ago
You have only two choices with eternal destination. The wide road, an easy way, where you profess your opinions and you hope people agree with you. The narrow road is to desire Truth and Only Truth. That narrow road requires from you to die to your desires to have most popular opinions. The Truth, Christ, is all worth dying for. Opinions are not. Stop right now, and for the Love of God, and Love of His Church, stop fighting with God, and say FIAT to Him. Die to yourself and become a living Saint. "Sir (Madam) - we want to see Jesus!"
Daniel
1 year ago
To be pro-life is to be pro-choice. Why? Because choosing to have a child "creates" an infinite number of choices related to the child. The child will make choices relative to friends and family. Friends and family will make choices relative to the child. And so on. It is interesting to think that those "pro-choice" are only for one choice - death. In relation to the choice to murder, the number of future choices for the guilty and others related to the abortion is closer to zero than the (infinite number of) future choices of those related to the child born. And let's not forget that homosexuality is defined by sex. It is defined by sexual intercourse. it cannot be defined by marriage, love, children, etc. It is solely defined by a perverted sexual act. Homosexuality is defined by sex. Heterosexuality is defined by God. Amen.
Kevin Burtyk
1 year ago
"Do not confuse the humanity of The Church with The Divinity of The Church."
Kevin Burtyk
1 year ago
I take comfort in knowing that whenever bitter souls delve deeply into The Catechism for "dirt" on The Church, they come away as our most fervent Catholic converts.
Michael
1 year ago
"Catholic Feminist Theologan" is an oxymoron.
Jem hermes
1 year ago
May God bless & keep our pope,cardinals,bishops & indeed all who are committed to the cause of raiding the catholic of radicalism & excessive spirituality.more grease to ur elbows.
Diane
1 year ago
I'm glad the Vatican did this. These radical"nuns" have been mostly financially supported by the laity via the collection plate, through the years. I don't want to support them. Let them go off with their radical feminists "sisters" in the secular world, get jobs and support themselves. It really irks me that many of them probably got college educations free to them, but at the cost of the Church and thats you and me, the laity in the pew. How terrible, as they seek to destroy the Chuch, which I love, from within. Boy, Blessed Paul VI was right when he said that the smoke of Satan had infiltrated the Church. Open the windows and put those women out and let some good clean air in. Thank God for Pope Benedict XVI who is doing just that.

Prev12 Next

Comments submitted must be civil, remain on-topic and not violate any laws including copyright. We reserve the right to delete any comments which are abusive, inappropriate or not constructive to the discussion.

Though we invite robust discussion, we reserve the right to not publish any comment which denigrates the human person, undermines marriage and the family, or advocates for positions which openly oppose the teaching of the Catholic Church.

This is a supervised forum and the Editors of Catholic Online retain the right to direct it.

We also reserve the right to block any commenter for repeated violations. Your email address is required to post, but it will not be published on the site.

We ask that you NOT post your comment more than once. Catholic Online is growing and our ability to review all comments sometimes results in a delay in their publication.

Name *

Email *

Comment *

Send me important information from Catholic Online and it's partners. See Sample

Post Comment