Hi Linda
I was talking about well established orders, or new orders who have choosen to wear a traditional habit and the apparent effect on the numbers of young women comtemplating a vocation in religious life.
This is a commonly-held view, but only tells one side of the story. Proportionally more people try a vocation with religious institutes that wear religious garb than with those who don’t, yes. But the statistics indicate that with the exception of a couple of congregations (and the best of luck to them, since they’re obviously flourishing) proportionally no more candidates make it to solemn vows in the habited than in the non-habited institutes.
That can be interpreted in several ways, but two elements I would consider - and note I say elements, I’m not suggesting this is the whole story - are that many of the ‘traditional’ groups pride themselves upon having very open policies on admission, and want to give most applicants a chance, because they think the selectivity of other groups is a sign of a lack of faith in God’s oversight of such things; and that some of the applicants to traditional settings that I’ve met seem more in love with the idea of wearing a habit that with the demands of religious life.
That might mean that quantity is being emphasised over quality, and when I say ‘quality’, I don’t mean that the people who leave aren’t good or holy - that I am in no way qualified to judge! - but that they may not have made a qualitatively sound discernment before entering.
My other topic was why priest and Monk’s and yes Carmelites didn’t throw the baby out with the bath water.
I have to say that I think that does sound a little prejudicial. The Second Vatican Council mandated in
Perfectae Caritatis that religious return to the visions of their founders, and that often meant many changes being made. Including returning to a non-habited state if that was the original vision, as if often was. What’s the baby that has been thrown out here?
Yes there were some communities who had in thier constitution “no habit” however I referred to orders that had like the Sistes Charity, and especially the Benedictine sisters.
Here’s a perfect example of what we’re talking about.
The Sisters of Charity, so famous for their habit and their huge cornettes, did not originally wear religious garb. Hence their recent abandonment of it so as to be true to St Vincent’s vision. You might wish to read some of Brother JREducation’s posts in relevant threads e.g.
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=493899
or
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=504045
A range of views are expressed there, but also some hard facts about why these are complex issues.
Are we done with this “discusson”?
Well, apparently not.
As Brother David said, those of us who have been here for a while see the issue raised every few weeks or so, and often with much less courtesy than you initially evidenced. So its a sensitive area and there is room for misunderstanding.
I don’t have any problem at all with people expressing an aesthetic preference for religious garb - as I usually say at this point in a discussion, I am after all myself a religious who wears a habit! But I’m certainly troubled by the misrepresentation that
only habited institutes have vocations, that the habit is a sign of being orthodox and faithful and that religious who don’t wear the habit are ‘liberal’ or ‘modernist’ (the words being employed in such a way as to make them meaningless) and that more generally, it is safe to make assumptions about religious based upon the externals. That shows a distinct misunderstanding of what religious life is about.
For what its worth, I don’t think that priests and religious here deserve any more respect than any other poster, even though the moderation rules request this. But I do think that some secular people - a very few here on CAF, but a vocal few - have a particular and romantic notion of the habit which is fundamentally quite dangerous to prospective vocations, because it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy in discouraging people from non-habited orders because they are somehow inherently ‘wrong,’ after which the claim is then made that they aren’t receiving any vocations. Well, not now they’re not.
(Yes, I’m over-simplfying.
I don’t mean its quite that straightforward, but there is a risk of turning people away from excellent institutes simply because they don’t wear a habit. I have encountered this as becoming an unnecessary pressure in the midst of a discernment process that’s difficult enough to begin with).
From reading your posts, I don’t think for a moment you’re one of those people, but by getting a little annoyed as you have, the stakes got raised a bit too quickly, and the discussion was somewhat derailed. If we all chill a little bit, perhaps we can get it back on track.
Sincere best wishes, and despite the aforementioned misunderstandings, welcome to the forum. Hoping to discuss things with you more in the future.
) are filled with new life and new postulants – they are growing larger and larger every year and are having to start new convents and build new motherhouses.
