Hi,
I have a sister who is a discalced carmelite (vows and everything) in a convent following the 1990 constitution. I’ve always appreciated her vocation, though slightly missing her, but for the first time in years I am having small but serious suspicions about her.
I don’t enjoy thinking about it, but I am curious if it would be possible for her to move to a different convent, or to leave the order altogether. On that topic, the only website I found just says that final vows are extremely important, but it is possible to leave through a process similar to a marriage annulment.
Does anyone know what this “annulment” process would look like? Does anyone know of any former discalced carmelites? Can they leave but still observe their vows? Can they go back to secular lives?
(I’ve only heard of ex-nuns with horror stories, and of ex-nuns that have turned to new age spirituality–and none of those sound encouraging…
)
It would be a matter of speculation for us to try to understand what you intend when you say you have “small but serious suspicions about her.” As in her personal well-being? Or the well-being of the monastery to which she belongs?
Yes, it is possible for her to be moved from one monastery to another – the normal situation in which that would happen is if her monastery were to make a foundation and she was chosen as one of the foundresses of the new monastery. It can happen, permanently or temporarily, for other reasons.
There is provision for one in perpetual vows to leave the monastery. It is a rare occurrence simply because the Religious will have spent many years preparing for perpetual vows and the community, particularly the Mother Prioress and her Council, will have taken care in those years to determine that the candidate for perpetual vows is apt for the life and indeed has a vocation to Religious Life and as a Cloistered Discalced Carmelite specifically.
I don’t know the website you are looking at but the process does not look like an annulment at all, other than, I suppose, that it involves in each instance the building of dossiers and submission of material to be evaluated in a process governed by the norm of law. That would be on the most superficial of levels considering what is actually being evaluated.
Declarations of nullity are petitioned through the diocese and are handled by the diocesan tribunal under the Judicial Vicar with appeal to the ecclesiastical court of second instance, which would normally be the metropolitan see.
Discalced Carmelite Nuns are under pontifical enclosure and, by pontifical right, enjoy exemptions from the local bishop’s jurisdiction. The process would begin with one or more defined periods of exclaustration. The Sister could then petition to be dispensed from her perpetual vows. This would involve in this case the General Curia of the Discalced Carmelites, which is in Rome, and The Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, which is the competent dicastery of the Holy See.
There are certainly circumstances in which the Religious would/could wear the habit during exclaustration as, for example, if a Religious is exclaustrated to care for a dying parent or other extreme family crisis or for some need concerning the monastery or for the health of the Sister.
Normally, a Sister could not live in that state indefinitely since part of the vocation of a cloistered nun – as opposed to an active Sister – is to live a cloistered and contemplative life. It can happen, for all intent and purpose, if the nun were to have a massive health crisis at end of life and needed to be, for example, in a long term hospitalization. Obviously, she would be granted exclaustration for the duration of the need, which could be unto death.
A cloistered Religious could certainly seek to move to an active Order or Congregation…but in my experience, it is more likely to go the other way with an active Religious seeking to move to a contemplative monastery.
Finally, yes, a dispensed Religious can return to lay life.
Rather than asking people who do not know your sister or her monastery, why do you not address your concerns directly to your sister? She is far better positioned to actually reassure you than we are.
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