The difficulty was that unless you knew a sister well enough to know her story, you had no way to know. I suspect the media made most of those who left without dispensation and married in violation of their vows; few then (perhaps now too?) wanted to hear about religious (men or women) leaving congregations because of damaging changes. But were there records kept of why religious left?

I wonder how many women of the generations come of age since the 60s failed to try a religious vocation, at least in part, because of the apparent upheaval, for fear of ending up in the situation Suora describes?

Is it really fair for the media, Catholic and secular, as well as for clergy, religious and laity to speak of former religious as having “broken their vows”, “gone back on their promises”, or “abandoned their Congregation”? What I mean is this: when a religious makes profession of vows it is always done within a very specific context and not simply to God in some abstract way. We ALL profess according to some rule or constitution or whatever document; we ALL profess within the context of a specific community whose Church-approved idenity is quite specific. In other words, when a novice makes profession is to according to a quite specific form of life that the Church has approved and she has studied and experienced. THAT is the context within which she makes profession.

So what is one to make of a Congregation that becomes so changed that it is no longer recognizable as the one in which one lived, about which one studied, and which was approved by the Church as such? I am not dealing here with minor changes that really do NOT affect the nature of a Congregation (i.e., change of habit style, change of prayer forms, change of residential community life forms, etc.) I am thinking of truly momentous changes that rock the very foundation of the Congrgeation such as open dissent by leadership council to Church teachings, abandonment of daily or even regular community life and/or comunity prayer, decisions of the Chapter to knowingly disobey Church directives in essentials of religious life, etc. One can truly and intelligently argue that such a Congregation is 1. no longer even a shadow of what it used to be (total reformulation not contunuity in renewal) and 2. no longer even Catholic in as much as it has, as a juridical person/body, declared itself in opposition to magisterial teachings of great import (sexuality, life-issues, nature of priesthood, reality of the resurrection) etc.

In such cases (and they DO exist) what is one to make of a profession made according to a specific Rule, in a specific Congregation, and all of this within the reality of being and living as a Catholic? Once such a radical reformulation is made, are the vows once made still the SAME profession for the Catholic religious? So my question is this: Is it the fact that former religious abandoned their Congregations OR is it more accurate to state that the Congregations abandoned them?

I am much interested in what nuns, former nuns and those aspiring to religious life think about this. Thank you.