-I don’t think that it is appropriate to state that many women religious are heretical although some sisters, as well as clergy and lay folk, both on the conservative and liberal sides, may possess some views inconsistent with Church teaching. Generalizing this way, however, is like saying that many priests are child abusers. And that is not true. It was really a very small number.

-If I believed this apostolic visit and doctrinal assessment were being implemented out of love, I personally would have more understanding towards those who initiated it. But I believe it is being undertaken out of fear – the traditional fear that male clerics have of women religious.

-I do agree that this whole discussion does tend to polarize. And that is unfortunate. Unity is important. But I think we have to look at the cost. And is a “unity” where many simply keep their mouths shut a real unity? Or is it just a silencing?

-I too believe there should be some discussion about the various aspects of these investigations between Rome and the congregations of sisters. But that was not possible as it was merely imposed on them. They were not asked whether they wanted or even accepted it. But who knows, maybe during the interviews, things will become more agreeable.

Question: Why is the Vatican only investigating American womens’ congregations? Perhaps they should be investigating them all, American and nonAmerican, male and female.

rose

So what is the deal with all the suspicions? (a question in general, not aimed at El Mono or anyone else) Why is it so difficult to actually dialogue, to enter into constructive conversation from all “sides” (I don’t like using that word because it automatically sets up one against another, but it seems that’s what is happening in some cases)? How do we deal with the variety of information (founded, unfounded, hearsay, opinion, fact, guess, experience, etc.) when it is all mish-mashed and presented as if it is all equally valid, all with the same weight.

It seems to me that one of the greatest causalities in all of this is not the Vatican nor even religious sisters (though trust me, it’s no picnic either) … it is the Church and our unity with one another that is suffering. JD, your statement at the end of your comment really got to me: “The bottom line is, how do we best stay a one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Body of Christ?” We nuns have to deal with this situation, as do those who began the apostolic inquiry and the doctrinal assessment. Resolution will come as it always does in one way or another. But the fracturing of relationships within the Church is what concerns me most. The suspicion, fear, accusations, loss of trust, betrayal, nameless anger, lack of goodwill and charity — these are things that affect the whole Church, at least here in the United States, as well as our society.

I trust in my religious community, in other U.S. religious communities, and in the Leadership Council of Women Religious (LCWR), that we will continue to be the faith-filled, Catholic, women religious that we are. I’m concerned about our situation, but I am not worried. However, I am worried about how the Catholic community as a whole will negotiate this situation. Like JD, I have lots of questions. Can we truly dialogue? Can we find the words and tone to express criticism out of love and not fear? Are we mature enough to not be satisfied with convenient answers or emotionally-satisfying answers that are nonetheless inaccurate or destructive? Can we acknowledge the fear and “agenda” in our own perspective and find new ways to express ourselves that come from charity and a desire for unity? Can we act as if God is really at the center of our relationships here?

Again, my thoughts aren’t aimed at anyone or any comment here but is more of a general statement of what I’ve seen and experienced as people everywhere respond to the current situation of U.S. women religious and the apostolic visit and doctrinal assessment.

The clerical arm of the Church has been trying to keep nuns and sisters under it’s thumb for centuries. (My graduate thesis was about medieval nuns; I’m not pulling this out of the thin air. It’s well documented; and it continues today.)

The third article really didn’t satisfy my understanding of the objection to the survey as a whole. I totally understand that consecrated organizations have no official responsibilities to “the Vatican” as we refer to the administrative body of the church. But those organizations are still a moral arm of God with the power to encourage and influence His followers. I can see the point here when the article mentions “…when there are no credible allegations of serious crimes…” so maybe the Vatican could gather more discretion into the time and place of its surveying. But ultimately, we all have to answer to someone. Isn’t the Pope God’s liaison here on earth? To anyone who questioned the Vatican’s survey of religious communities, what’s the better solution? Do we leave it up to individual organizations to check themselves from time to time? The bottom line is, how do we best stay a one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Body of Christ?

God bless.

Your view of Canon Law and how it functions appears to represent the ideal. Unfortunately, this ideal does not always correspond well to that which transpires in the real world. There is often a great disconnect.

I completely recognize the fact that there are many good men – and women – in the Church. This applies to lay, ordained, religious and/or consecrated folk. After all, the Catholic Church has helped more people for more years with more problems than any other institution on the planet. Can’t beat that! I wish the media would focus more on our often extraordinary good works than on their politically correct misinterpretation of the Crusades, for example.

I also don’t believe that the majority of men who enter the priesthood do so to “control and dominate.” But as happens also in secular culture, you give people a taste of power and priviledge and they want more. Once they attain the power and priviledge they come to treasure, and they feel their position is threatened, they fight back. This often takes the form of control and domination. It’s human nature. It happens everywhere. Clerics are no exception to the rule. I was a history major in a moderate-conservative Catholic university. You learn alot about this sort of thing in your studies.

I believe that we must respect and love all humanity, not just the Bishops or the Roman Catholic hierarchy. This is what Jesus taught. Heck, we also have to love our enemies. Now that’s not always easy. None of this means, however, that we must condone anyone’s misdeeds. As you know, Jesus himself didn’t keep quiet when his fellow Jews were not acting as they should have been according to the dictates of their faith tradition. He loved them very much but often criticized their misbehavior. You can read this in Scripture as well, largely in the Gospels to be more specific.

I’m not sure to whom you were referring. But I did not state that the Bishops/Vatican were plotting to steal money from womens’ congregations. I merely wrote that a sister friend of mine told me that and I probably implied that I would not be surprised if that was the case based on my own personal experience of past actions of some of our institutional leaders. I made no accusation. I stated an opinion based on observation.

Basically, I feel that you (NCV) and I are just not going to agree here. We come from two very different mindsets. And neither one of us is likely to change.

I wish you a blessed day.

Peace,

rose

A situation where a diocese might assume the finical assets of a closed parish is very different from the situation envisioned in the supposed plot which speculates that the Vatican’s Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life called the Apostolic Visitation in order to give the US bishops a “front” or “cover” for an illicit seizure of American Sisters’ money and property.

For one thing, a parish is a part of a diocese. Because of this, a diocese and a parish can have finical connections or obligations to each other. For instance, a diocese can ask for a “tax” from each parish, or a struggling parish can ask for monetary help from the diocese. And if a parish is suppressed (i.e., if it ceases to exist), then the diocese is the rightful recipient of the suppressed parish’s assets.

In cases where a diocese does close a parish or parishes, this is typically done to respond to shifting demographics in the Catholic population of a given place, and is almost always done reluctantly. Often, the closed parishes were ones which were dwindling in population and had been financially dependant on the diocese for many years. But even though the pragmatism behind parish closings might seem cold or lacking in pastoral sensitivity, this does NOT constitute malicious intent on the part of the bishops.

In contrast, a women’s religious congregation of pontifical right is, for the most part, a completely separate entity from the diocese in which it happens to be located. This means that the local bishop does not have proper jurisdiction into a pontifical-right religious congregation’s purely internal affairs, which certainly includes its own assets and investments. (Although a bishop can govern the ways in which a congregation relates externally to the faithful of his diocese. But I don’t think this would ordinarily involve finances unless the religious themselves were breaking Canon Law in terms of the acquisition or alienation of property.) So the financial issues involved in parish closures would not ordinarily apply to congregations of apostolic religious.

But all this notwithstanding, to propose that the bishops are willing to break or flagrantly disregard Canon Law (or else manipulate it to serve their purposes) in order to steal American Sisters’ assets is a very serious accusation. And it is objectively slanderous to make an accusation of this magnitude without concrete evidence.

I really think we need to avoid a “hermeneutic of suspicion” when discussing the Apostolic Visitation or the role of the hierarchy in general. For the most part, men become priests in the first place because the truly feel called to lay down their lives in service to God’s people—not because they’re out to “intimidate and control” the laity and religious! Bishops are called to lead the Church with authority, but this is because “teaching, governing, and sanctifying” is their proper “charism” as successors to the original twelve Apostles.

Likewise, respecting the bishops has been a part of what it means to be Catholic since the foundation of the Church. (You can see this for yourself in the Epistles of St. Paul, or in the first-century writings of Sts. Ignatius of Antioch and Clement of Rome.)

Fascinating post. I honestly don’t know that much about parish closures as it hasn’t affected my diocese all that much. I myself am not too knowledgable about Church finances. But Church and diocesan finances have been fairly secretive throughout the years. One of these days, excuse my French, the shit will hit the fan – as it did in the case of the abuse scandal. One sister friend did mention to me the fear that the Vatican or diocese may very well plan to seize the assets of women religious based on some of the findings of the investigation. As congregations age and man less institutions of learning, social services, medicine and the like, I suppose the hierarchs figure they can grab what they want with less opposition. After all, what can a handful of old women in wheel chairs do in their own defense? That’s Christian, hit them when they are down! It’s amazing how people actually defend the antics of some of these princely despots. Ideally, if sisters need to divest their property, they should be able to determine where that money goes. And I trust they would find wonderful places to put the money to excellent use – to uses that bespeak Gospel values, i.e., to the poor, hungry, undereducated, uninsured. I read an article about Conrad Hilton a few years ago. Evidentally he donated a sizable chunk of his fortune to a congregation of sisters. He was neither Catholic nor a religious man. But he knew sisters were the best at getting the most out of the least, they knew how to budget, work and invest. He knew if he gave them the money, it would be put to great charitable use with little or no waste. Can’t beat that for a recommendation.

I don’t understand those Catholics who feel they cannot criticize the Church. An analogy I would make is that of a parent to a child. Ok, let’s say I have a teenage son. I love him with all my heart as a mother does. I would give him my own life. I gave birth to him, fed him, clothed him, read to him, nursed him when sick, took him to school and baseball practice, etc. I want him to be the best person he could be. I wish him the best life he could have. In spite of my efforts, he eventually starts to take drugs, he steals money from friends and family, he uses profanities with his parents calling his mother and father all sorts of bad names. He goes into his little brother’s room and takes his money and clothes and then beats him up when the young boy confronts him. Should I, as a mother, just let him continue on this destructive path? Or should I admit that my son has problems and try to get him help? If I pick the second option, am I a bad or inferior mother because I don’t passively assent to his beliefs that his behavior is to be accepted? Do I enable him in hurting himself and/or others? Do I act out of love? Or do I act out of fear?

Jesus did indeed establish our Church – to further the Gospel message. But this does not mean that all in the Church, lay or ordained, are perfect. We are all sinners at times. We all make mistakes. We need to repent and make restitution the best we can. Jesus himself challenged the religious authorities of the time – as did may of our saints who were first punished by the Church and later canonized. Jesus preaches peace and love. He did not found our Church to perpetuate Machiavellian politics.

rose

“But even beyond this, Canon Law is very strict about the safeguarding of financial assets, right down to respecting the intentions of original donors and benefactors. (This is why Canon Law goes into such detail and has so many regulations about cases of “alienation of Church property.”) There is simply no way that Canon Law could provide even a loophole for this kind of supposed episcopal seizure of a religious congregation’s assets.”

This is exactly what vibrant, viable faith-filled parish commuities are experiencing HERE and NOW. In many dioceses, bishops are closing churches to seize parish assets for diocesan use. More parishes might be threatened, but for the faith-filled and courageous Vigil Parish Communities in a number of dioceses. The Congregation for the Clergy instructed Boston that it could not directly seize the assets of parishes it closed, so Boston’s Fr. Richard Lennon (now Bishop of Cleveland, currently closing vibrant parishes there) went around to “receiving parishes” and intimidated most of them into relinquishing the assets of the closed parishes. There are 10 or more appeals currently sitting in the Apostolic Signatura contesting the closures of parishes to seize assets. See reports of parish closures and seizures in Boston and Springfield, MA, Scranton and Allentown, PA, Cleveland, Ohio, New Orleans, LA, New York (City) and Buffalo, NY, e.g. Many of us in the vigil communities and their supporters recognize this “Investigation” of U.S. Women Religious as a prelude to a similar attempt to seize assets.

In many parish appeals, canon law protections have been ignored. Let’s pray that the Apostolic Signatura uses the canon law protections mentioned by newly consecrated virgin to protect unfairly targeted parishes (many times, the parishes with valuable assets). And that Cardinal Rode will head the response of so many US and beyond Catholics who question this Investigation, its costs and goals, and end it now.

A witness through lived experience
for more info: http://www.futurechurch.org/sopc/parishwatch/

I certainly don’t know for sure what the Vatican’s agenda for this study is. Based on what I have heard from various sisters, though, it is clear to me that, at the very least, it is “to intimidate and control” apostolic women religous in the US.

I also don’t know if the American Bishops want to take money from the congregations either for priestly indiscretions or any other reason. It is true that they didn’t explicitly initiate or plan the investigation. But I do believe some of them very well may have had something to do with it. They do communicate with the Vatican. I hate to say it, but it does appear like a battle between the conservative and more moderate or liberal factions of the Church.

To state or imply that the clerics of the Roman Catholic Church don’t misappropriate funds (using perhaps a Canon Law defense) does not appear to be accurate to me. I can almost guarantee (and this is only one example) that if just about any parishioner knew his/her tithes were to be used to defend guilty priests in the abuse scandals, he/she would have kept his/her wallets shut! How many millions of lay donations, given in good faith, were squandered on this? As we know, these amounts are NOT mere pitances. Entire dioceses have been bankrupt! This is HUGE systemic misbehavior and mismanagement. I met a family a couple of years ago whose grandfather had donated a large tract of land to the Church in the Boston area to build a church years ago. The parish was sold and the money used for the scandal. The family was decimated and said if their grandfather knew what was to happen, he’d be rolling over in his grave!

Unfortuantely, many bishops, and other hierarchs – and even some parish priests – are more like politicians than shepards. Once the faithful realize this, and act accordingly demanding accountability from them (hey, how about an investigation of bishops? or even the Vatican), we’ll all be in a better position.

We can’t stick our heads in the sand and stop criticizing the Church. We need to correct things in order to grow into a healthier institution. But perhaps, with each criticism, we could include also a praise – for the outstanding and unparalleled works of mercy our people have engaged in throughout the centuries, for example. Even though we talk up the negative, we must give the positive equal billing. We also need to stop idolizing and promoting other faiths such as Islam. Sure there are plenty of good Muslims around. But billing it as a religion of peace, and sterilizing the history of this group, and pointing out only the less offensive parts of their Scripture in study, is counterproductive and ludicrious. Ironically, a reasonable number of Roman Catholic-related groups do this (at least in the Northeast). Political correctness is one slippery slope!

I am digressing. Better go.

rose

Sister, is the idea that the progressive elements of the Church are not really Catholic a falsehood spread by the conservative elements or do you think that there is some creedence. The tone of what is said from some can seem as vitriolic as the most the writings of the most anti-Catholic Secular media sources.

The expressions I related to best within Sr. Sandra’s article are the one about households/congregations being “burglarized”, the sisters being “defenseless before overwhelming power” and the goal of “domination by intimidation”. I agree with them all wholeheartedly!

rose

JMJ+
~Betsy

Totus tuus Maria!

First of all, this is slanderous to the bishops–especially because we have absolutely NO hard evidence for such a scheme.

But even beyond this, Canon Law is very strict about the safeguarding of financial assets, right down to respecting the intentions of original donors and benefactors. (This is why Canon Law goes into such detail and has so many regulations about cases of “alienation of Church property.”) There is simply no way that Canon Law could provide even a loophole for this kind of supposed episcopal seizure of a religious congregation’s assets.

And what’s more, the USCCB is not even directly involved in the Apostolic Visitation.

Even if individual bishops have at times made wrong or imprudent decisions, I have to say that as a Catholic (and even more as a woman in consecrated life) I have enormous respect for the American bishops in general, and I pray for them daily. The bishops have a hard enough time in the secular media; and so I would think that the Catholic press should take care not to subject our spiritual leaders to unfounded friendly fire.

boy did this make me laugh!

what is it that the vatican wants to find? do they want to find the apostolic religious dancing around fires in coverns or do they want to find the women with a real gift of faith who live to serve god’s people and be a representation of christ and the hope he brings to people that cant find it on their own? the women with such a love of god that they devote their lives to prayer and service to get closer to god.

All religious orders have to be approved by the vatican.
All orders include the vows of chasity, celibacy and poverty.
Does the vatican feel that the american culture is in someway corrupting the nature and the value that these vows have on women religious? If not then why is it only american women religious being looked at?

The speculation that has accompanied this investigation can not be helpful either, speculation creates fear, unfair apprasials and hostility. I would wonder what the “talk” would be like without all the whispering behind closed doors.

I dont think that the question is “do you think that religious orders are going to die out?” i think that a more relevent question must be “what orders are attracting the most growth and why? What is it that women are looking for when they look into joining religious life?”

my personal opinion, without formal study or anything so i do apologise if it is completly off the mark, is that orders that are much more traditional, ie. wearing the habit, very strict hours of prayer etc. are experencing the most growth.

Why? What is it that the women joining religious life find in these orders that they can not find else where? Does it have something to do with the radical statement that wearing the habit has upon people in the broader community? Does it have something to do with strict, formal rules creating more of a black and white picture of every day life?

i dont know much, but the women religious that i know are some of the most wonderful, talented, generous and grounded people that i can claim aquaintence with. They give of them selves with love of christ and neighbour so that everyone can know that god loves them.

Their own personal faith stands testimony to the wonders of god and sometimes i think that people see their faith and love of god and want to understand why these intelegent women believe. When people start asking why people they respect believe, they are letting christ in, even just a little bit.

suze, i dont think that being a cradle catholic or a newer catholic would make a difference to your reaction to these articles, being a cradle catholic myself i find myself agreeing with you. but every person must be allowed to come to their own conclusions as long as we respect other people’s ideas there can be nothing wrong with that at all, can there?

I think that I managed to get up on a soap box of my own without trying to, so i will get down and look forward to people (hopefully) shedding some light on some of my questions…

=D

Whenever a man feels he knows more than a woman there will be troubles. That sounds I hope as I meant it to sound, it is just my feminist self is all riled up over the survey. I know this is The Year of the Priest but no priest received a survey, or at least one that has been publicized. The priest in my parish is wonderful and I thank God he is our pastor, but he is also chauvistic and I’ve called him out on this a few times.

As a newer Catholic perhaps I look at this differently that a cradle Catholic would?

Guess I’ll step down from my soap box and go and make my pumpkin pie for tomorrow…

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

P.S. As usual I enjoyed Sister Sandra’s article. Her writings are superb.