Outrage over Vatican request for $1.1 million to fund sisters investigation (National Catholic Reporter)

[JMJ_coder]

The cost covers many things.

1. The expenses of the actual study, such as administrative expenses. All the information has to be gathered, read and consolidated. This is done by a team that has to be paid. This team will be working on this for about a year or maybe two.
2. You have to pay the bishops, clerics and religious who are working on the study. They are taking time from their other duties. It is not fair for them take this time while being paid and not doing the job that they are being paid for. Therefore, they have to get paid by someone.
3. There are other expenses such as travel costs. Bishops, religious and clerics will be flying all over the country and back and forth between the USA and Rome. That is not cheap. There are airfares, hotels, meals and other expenses that have to be covered.
4. The religious congregations under investigation are not being charged for the study. Many of them do not have the money. Many have older sisters for whom they care. There are often more older sisters who need care than younger sisters bringing money into the community.

But if you think about it, there are more than 1.1 million Catholics in the USA. This adds up to a few cents per Catholic.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

As I noted before, I am not opposed in any way to the study.

But, for the sake of argument…

#3 – wouldn’t it be cheaper then to plan the logistics of going from one convent/congregation to the next, gather all the information and then back to Rome? Certainly there are legitimate travel costs in planes, trains, and automobiles, but this can be greatly optimized by simple logistics – like many of us do when running errands around town. Lodging expenses should be at a minimum – if a group doesn’t welcome and offer the investigator a room and a meal that should be points off right.

#1 & #2 – aren’t Religious, Priests, and Bishops conducting the study? Most religious orders take a vow of poverty and diocesan Priests aren’t exactly making the big bucks. I don’t know any Priest who got into religion for the money.
And the Religious, Priests, and Bishops are supposed to do whatever their legitimate superiors tell them to do – that’s obedience, a vow of religious and a promise (I don’t think they vow it) of diocesan Priests. If their superior tells them to drop this task and do that they should, no questions asked or complaining that they have other duties to attend to.

 

[Ockham]

It would be cheaper if all Catholics acted like Catholics and the Holy Church used its authority to make it so. All this limp wristed acquiescence of the past forty years has been extremely expensive.

 

[JReducation]

As I noted before, I am not opposed in any way to the study.

But, for the sake of argument…

#3 – wouldn’t it be cheaper then to plan the logistics of going from one convent/congregation to the next, gather all the information and then back to Rome? Certainly there are legitimate travel costs in planes, trains, and automobiles, but this can be greatly optimized by simple logistics – like many of us do when running errands around town. Lodging expenses should be at a minimum – if a group doesn’t welcome and offer the investigator a room and a meal that should be points off right.

#1 & #2 – aren’t Religious, Priests, and Bishops conducting the study? Most religious orders take a vow of poverty and diocesan Priests aren’t exactly making the big bucks. I don’t know any Priest who got into religion for the money.
And the Religious, Priests, and Bishops are supposed to do whatever their legitimate superiors tell them to do – that’s obedience, a vow of religious and a promise (I don’t think they vow it) of diocesan Priests. If their superior tells them to drop this task and do that they should, no questions asked or complaining that they have other duties to attend to.

The problem is that many of us (religious) work for other people. They pay our religious communities for our services. That’s how we support those ministries that we do for free, take care of our sick and our elderly, also pay for the education of our brothers or sisters. I’ll give you my own example. I work for the local diocese. They pay my community for my work. If take off for a week, they won’t pay that week. My community still has to pay all of these other bills.

A diocesan priest or a bishop gets paid a salary for his work, whatever that may be. If he’s not at his job, he will not get paid. Diocesan priests and bishops are legally subcontractors. In orther words, they are self-employed. They pay their own FICA, car insurance, clothing, medical expenses, and other expenses. The diocese does not cover any of their expenses. The only thing that the parishes give them is housing. But they pay for any extras: internet, cable TV, snacks, private telephone, cell phone, gas, and so forth. What the parishes do is they subtract the cost of housing from the salary and gives them the balance. We’re talking about a small amount of money. But they have to file and pay taxes like any other secular man. Secular deacons, secular priests and secular bishops are not tax exempt. They have to file and pay all the taxes and they do have the benefit of of an employer who pays for half of their FICA tax.

Those who provide services to religious, such as the seminary, do charge us for studying there. The average tuition for one of our brothers at a seminary is about $15,000.00 a year. That’s on the cheap side. If they attend a pontifical university it can be as high as $30,000 a year. In my own community, we have 19 brothers at the university all working on STDs. That’s a lot of money. The university will not allow them to register if the bill is not paid in full. Those of us who bring in income, have to keep working. Then we have 30 brothers who work for free with Respect Life. Those of us who bring in salaries turn that money in to the community treasurer to support all of us. We’re a very small religious order and we live very poorly. We have only 60 members. Some orders have several thousand members and have many houses around the globe Their members in mission countries have no income. They depend on what their religious brothers or sisters send them from the USA to cover their expenses and to buy what they need for their people.

This is the same situation of other religious and other secular clerics. I hope this makes sense.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

 

[Feanor2]

I don’t see the big deal. If the hierarchy in Rome wants to do something shouldn’t we be generous and help out as the faithful? I mean they are the one’s in charge right?

I didn’t want my money going to fund lawsuits regarding the sex abuse crisis but this is different. Rome isn’t rich you know. . . .

 

[JReducation]

I don’t see the big deal. If the hierarchy in Rome wants to do something shouldn’t we be generous and help out as the faithful? I mean they are the one’s in charge right?

I didn’t want my money going to fund lawsuits regarding the sex abuse crisis but this is different. Rome isn’t rich you know. . . .

I keep repeating the same point. Rome needs 1.1 million dollars. There are more than 1.1 million Catholics in this country. So how much is that out of our pockets?

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

 

[anode]

It’s pretty hard to compare the pedophile scandal, which has cost the American church over one BILLION and counting–with whatever is driving the Vatican’s investigation of women religious, who, the last I checked, were not engaged in performing FELONIES.

I thought it was cheeky and unprofessional for the Vatican to come out passing the hat after the investigations were announced. They should have rounded up the funding beforehand.

That said, if some US Catholics feel so strongly about the new-age lesbians out there, the they should get the Vatican to open a PayPal account and watch the money roll in. I predict that they won’t get much and will still have to hit up the bishops.

 

[Feanor2]

Why do some folks have to make this issue incendiary? Why get into questions of “new age”, “lesbianism”, “women’s ordination”?

The issue is that Rome wants to do a TASK and we as the faithful should trust them.

No need to make “digs” at those being investigated. It’s not our place, and I say it is uncouth.

If Rome wanted to investigate JUST contemplative and/or cloistered orders it would be the same issue. Stop being curmudgeonly. Why take every opportunity to by#$%# about something?

(I DO hope they will be flying coach and paying for their own alcohol however. )

 

[Elizabeth502]

There is also a concern that the quality of religious life that many of these women live is not up to par with what religious life is: not living in community, no receiving the sacraments frequently, being involved in social causes for the sake of the cause instead of the sake of the Gospel, not having a deep prayer life, not promoting vocations to the religious life or promoting vocations in such a way that waters down religious life to a commitment to social issues rather than consecration to Christ, and not being obedient to the Holy See who grants them their rights in the first place.

I hope this helps everyone understand what happened and why it has to go down this way.

I would agree with this assessment. The complaints listed above relate to the very heart of religious life. If priests were not providing sacraments as their priority, not directing their flocks spiritually, we would say that is scandalous. (And many have said that as well, when it has happened.) We would wonder, “What were they thinking?” when they decided to enter priesthood. (You expected something else?)

You can’t ignore, neglect the heart of your vocation and instead choose a different vocation, or redefine what an entire institution has provided as a definition. My only surprise is that it has taken Rome so long to discover these discrepancies. They have been so obvious to me for so long. My emphasis or interest is not to punish; far from it: from the beginning I was concerned about the path on which the sisters were going ***for their own health & happiness. *** I’ll try not to repeat too much of what I said on other threads about this. I’ll just reiterate what this poster said by stating that if a religious believes that social work is the heart of his or her calling, by all means become a self-sustaining lay social worker. The pay is better, the resources with which to do your job more abundant. What the sisters have chosen is the worst of both worlds: independent social work without professional standing & compensation, in the context of a spiritual void marked by the absence of community.

Every reader of Catholic biographies (saints’ lives and more) is very clear that God’s work cannot be done effectively without a rich prayer life; this is particularly true of the kind of utterly self-giving work such as the priesthood and religious life. In community one is supported, not to mention life being lived more economically. Even without the list of spiritual departures from recognizable Church affiliation, the very least that can be said about some of these orders & individual sisters is that their practical departure has been masochistic in its effects.

Many people in giving professions would “die for” the kind of local and overseas support available to religious in communities – many of whom do engage in niche social work such as work with particular impoverished groups in particular locales, etc. In fact, it is well recognized by psychologists that lay people in helping professions which are very demanding – such as working with Alzheimer’s patients, etc. – are in danger of imploding psychologically themselves without regular nourishment from others, emotionally and spiritually if available.

So even without the “rebellion” aspect, I wouldn’t doubt that religious in some of the lifestyles mentioned are very, very unhappy because of unwise choices they have made. It’s really incomprehensible to me.

 

[JReducation]

People complained when the Church mismanaged the sexual abuse cases. Now the Church is taking a firmer position and wants to run an investigation on a specific group of women religious, before the situation reaches critical mass and we’re complaining because it’s going to cost less than a dolar per Catholic. We can’t have it both ways. Either we pay this small amount, to avoid a future moral catastrophe or we wait and pay billions when the catastrophe strikes and then complain because no one did anything about it in a timely fashion.

I’m not saying that the sisters are going out to molest children. But the religious life of SOME religious women is in trouble and those who are exposed to them may be in spiritual trouble, if nothing is done. These religious congregations belong to the universal Church. Therefore, the cost has to be absorbed by the Vatican. The Vatican cannot absorb the cost and as Pope Benedict says, the principal of subsidiarity must be applied. This means that the problem has to be solved at the local level and the local Chuch must pay the expenses. If we want participation in the local Church, here is an opportunity to support a local project and it’s not expensive when you stop and think of it per person.

In addition, it will do a great deal of good for the sisters. Most will probably just get a slap on the wrist and a lot of counseling on how to get back on track. This is a whorthwhile endeavor. Few will actually end up in serious trouble with the Church. But the few who do end up in serious trouble will be weeded out so that they do not do more harm to their sisters and to the ministry of the Church in the USA.

All too often people complain about the absence of sisters in our schools, hospitals, parishes and other institutions. Well now Rome wants to know what’s the reason. She also wants to know why these congregations are dying and how to save them from extinction, if there is still hope. Obviously, some congregations will have to merge. There is no way out of it. Some religious families have already ordered their sisters to merge. I know that our Franciscan Sisters in the northeastern USA have been ordered to merge, not by the Vatican, but by the General Chapter. This includes sisters from New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Puerto Rico. It seems to be working for them. But other congregations are not on this track, including some of our own sisters who refused to do what the General Chapter asked.

This situation has to be addressed. It’s going to cost the American Catholic a lot more money to support isolated older sisters than to merge congregations so that there are enough younger sisters who can bring in money to support the older ones.

Another concern has been sisters living in isolation from their communities. There aer sisters who are involved in ministries several hours away from their nearest house. They live alone. Eventually they develop other friendships and other interests. This makes it more difficult for them to return to the community. What happens in the end is that they cannot serve in the community’s ministries: schools, hospitals and so forth, because they can no longer live in community. They have become very used to living a secular life. In the end, there is a shortage of sisters in these institutions. That raises the cost of services that these institutions provide or they have to be closed down. If this can be prevented by regulating how and where sisters may serve, it will eventually save vocations and save money.

Then there are those few very radical people who have taken some turn around the corner and are now teaching abortion, birth control, same sex marriage, ordiantion of women or making social issues their primary concern, while their life of prayer, silence, penance and community suffers. These are generally good women. Bad people do not become sisters. But they have taken a wrong turn. They need help to come back to the fold or help to leave their congregations and reduce contamination of the rest.

If we want to see these women helped to return to the religious life the way that it was meant to be lived by their founders and we want to vindicate those who have been unjustly accused of being less faithful, we need this investigation. The men and women who have been assigned to this duty are not mean, cruel or witch hunters. Among them is a very good friend and confere of mine, Archbishop Charlie Chaput, OFM, Cap. He and the other members of this team have an impeccable history of religious life They know what they’re looking for. But if we want people like the Archbishop to leave his diocese alone for weeks at a time, it’s going to cost money. He’s going to have to travel around and run his diocese through an auxiliary bishop while he’s away. His diocese alone should not finance his expenses to do the work that will benefit thousands of sisters and hopefully several million Catholics.

We really should get behind this project instead of waiting for something serious to happen and then lament that no one helped when it could have been taken care of. Those are just my thoughts.

Remember, not only does the laity have to contribute 1.1 million dollars, but those of us who are religious and working for dioceesan projects have to take budget cuts on our projects to help the dioceses stay afloat. No one is going to freeze the cost of electricity, water, gas, food, healthcare or education while the Church in the USA freezes its budgets. As one who works in Respect Life, I do not want to see our budget frozen. If the average person cannot contribute $1.00, that’s exactly what’s going to happen.

Let’s join together and support this project of the Holy See and support the sisters too. Let’s wish them well as they go through this study and pray for them that they will survive, not only the study, but that their religious congregations will find way of flourishing again.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

 

[JReducation]

I would agree with this assessment. The complaints listed above relate to the very heart of religious life. If priests were not providing sacraments as their priority, not directing their flocks spiritually, we would say that is scandalous. (And many have said that as well, when it has happened.) We would wonder, “What were they thinking?” when they decided to enter priesthood. (You expected something else?)

You can’t ignore, neglect the heart of your vocation and instead choose a different vocation, or redefine what an entire institution has provided as a definition. My only surprise is that it has taken Rome so long to discover these discrepancies. They have been so obvious to me for so long. My emphasis or interest is not to punish; far from it: from the beginning I was concerned about the path on which the sisters were going ***for their own health & happiness. *** I’ll try not to repeat too much of what I said on other threads about this. I’ll just reiterate what this poster said by stating that if a religious believes that social work is the heart of his or her calling, by all means become a self-sustaining lay social worker. The pay is better, the resources with which to do your job more abundant. What the sisters have chosen is the worst of both worlds: independent social work without professional standing & compensation, in the context of a spiritual void marked by the absence of community.

Every reader of Catholic biographies (saints’ lives and more) is very clear that God’s work cannot be done effectively without a rich prayer life; this is particularly true of the kind of utterly self-giving work such as the priesthood and religious life. In community one is supported, not to mention life being lived more economically. Even without the list of spiritual departures from recognizable Church affiliation, the very least that can be said about some of these orders & individual sisters is that their practical departure has been masochistic in its effects.

Many people in giving professions would “die for” the kind of local and overseas support available to religious in communities – many of whom do engage in niche social work such as work with particular impoverished groups in particular locales, etc. In fact, it is well recognized by psychologists that lay people in helping professions which are very demanding – such as working with Alzheimer’s patients, etc. – are in danger of imploding psychologically themselves without regular nourishment from others, emotionally and spiritually if available.

So even without the “rebellion” aspect, I wouldn’t doubt that religious in some of the lifestyles mentioned are very, very unhappy because of unwise choices they have made. It’s really incomprehensible to me.

I just want to respond to one of your questions. “Why has it taken so long?”

The truth is that Pope John Paul II wrote many letters to women religious about their life. He ordered them to do certain things: put on some kind of habit, live in community, return to the charism of their founders, consolidate their efforst by merging smaller congregations, take car eof their elderly, take a more pro-active approach to promoting vocations, be faithful to the Eucharist and to the sacraments, have a more defined and structured community prayer life and many other things. Some sisters did do what Pope John Paul wanted. That’s how we ended up with two conferences of women religious in the USA.

We have the Conference of Women Religious and the Conference of Major Superiors of Women Religious (I believe that’s the proper name). The latter is made up of those congregations that are not under investigation. These are the congregations that took Pope John Paul’s demands to heart. In fact, they not only grew in numbers, but some congregations gave birth to other congregations or helped found new congregations. The Sisters of Life are one such congregation that received a lot of help from other congregations to get started, as did the Dominican Sisters of Mary. The Franciscan Sisters of the Eucharist came out of two congregations that were not very obedient to what Pope John Paul wanted, so a group of sisters joined forces to start a new Franciscan congregation and they are doing well.

In addition, the Holy See did send back several drafts of the constitutions of some religious congregations to be revised, because it found them lacking in religious fervor. Individual superiors were called to task, because the Holy See felt that they were not exercising their authority over their communities. The answer always seemed to be the same. The sisters argued that in the USA people are not used to being told what to do, but are more independent and mature and capable of commiting without such structured supervision by a superior. Pope John Paul gave some of these communities trial periods of several years to prove that this was really true. That trial period has expired and they have been unable to prove it. Now Rome has decided to step in and demand explanations.

The good thing is that Rome is not bent on destroying anyone or punishing anyone. It really wants to help these people. If they don’t want to be helped, they will have to live with the consequences. Let us pray for them.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

 

[JMJ_coder]

The problem is that many of us (religious) work for other people. They pay our religious communities for our services. That’s how we support those ministries that we do for free, take care of our sick and our elderly, also pay for the education of our brothers or sisters. I’ll give you my own example. I work for the local diocese. They pay my community for my work. If take off for a week, they won’t pay that week. My community still has to pay all of these other bills.

A diocesan priest or a bishop gets paid a salary for his work, whatever that may be. If he’s not at his job, he will not get paid. Diocesan priests and bishops are legally subcontractors. In orther words, they are self-employed. They pay their own FICA, car insurance, clothing, medical expenses, and other expenses. The diocese does not cover any of their expenses. The only thing that the parishes give them is housing. But they pay for any extras: internet, cable TV, snacks, private telephone, cell phone, gas, and so forth. What the parishes do is they subtract the cost of housing from the salary and gives them the balance. We’re talking about a small amount of money. But they have to file and pay taxes like any other secular man. Secular deacons, secular priests and secular bishops are not tax exempt. They have to file and pay all the taxes and they do have the benefit of of an employer who pays for half of their FICA tax.

Those who provide services to religious, such as the seminary, do charge us for studying there. The average tuition for one of our brothers at a seminary is about $15,000.00 a year. That’s on the cheap side. If they attend a pontifical university it can be as high as $30,000 a year. In my own community, we have 19 brothers at the university all working on STDs. That’s a lot of money. The university will not allow them to register if the bill is not paid in full. Those of us who bring in income, have to keep working. Then we have 30 brothers who work for free with Respect Life. Those of us who bring in salaries turn that money in to the community treasurer to support all of us. We’re a very small religious order and we live very poorly. We have only 60 members. Some orders have several thousand members and have many houses around the globe Their members in mission countries have no income. They depend on what their religious brothers or sisters send them from the USA to cover their expenses and to buy what they need for their people.

This is the same situation of other religious and other secular clerics. I hope this makes sense.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

Well, I disagree on a number of points - but, we digress from the topic at hand…perhaps I will start a new thread to address such issues.

So, anyone find out the address to send donations yet?

 

[Elizabeth502]

I appreciate your response of post 30, JR., but I still think the effective response has been way too slow. (1) The initial time lag between even recognizing such dramatic and profound changes, and “writing a letter,” was much too long; (2) the follow-up has taken too long and the approach too tepid, given the breadth of such departures in the U.S.

OTOH, this was part of my complaint earlier on another thread – that you disagreed with --on JP2’s failure to really engage the full Catholic church, religious & laity, in this country, and do so in a timely manner. It is important that any Pope see U.S. Catholicism as a priority, not an afterthought or an opportunity to make “political” (P.R.) visits, or token visits, or the equivalent of youth rallies. A pope needs to see the reality of the U.S. role as comprehensively a political force, which includes Catholic political power and Catholic spiritual presence, even if the style of that Catholic expression is personally distasteful to him. Engaging the U.S. Catholic leadership is very different than making visits, which is what figureheads like monarchies do.

Hey, no Pope can solve all the problems of/in U.S. Cahtolicism, for heaven’s sake. Nor am I suggesting that. But I think leadership, and aggressive initiatives appropriate to a powerful modern country were called for, and are called for. My opinion is that the response to this decades-long problem of the disintegration of religious life among large portions of religious, was greeted much too passively. If he was thinking that Catholic laity were simply going to ignore the overt & covert messages they were receiving by virtue of such examples in their own country, and instead focus on a Pope thousands of miles away, he was very much in error in such a judgment. People receive their religion mostly on a local level, everywhere in the world. They may additionally identify with or relate to a foreign representative, but that is not the primary source of their information or their experiences. It’s their parish priests, their local sisters (if there are any!), and definitely – in a media-aware culture such as we have here – their impressions and even rumors about their local religious representatives.

 

[manualman]

Thanks for the tremendous insight into how religious communities work, JR.

To any who still can’t understand why this investigation is necessary, I recommend the book “Ungodly Rage” by Donna Steichen. Likely available used on the web somewhere… It’s getting to be an old book, but the problem isn’t exactly new either.

 

[Stylites]

. . .

Now there are allegations that these congregations of women have abused their freedom to push such agendas as women’s rights, abortion, same-sex marriage, ordination of women, divorce and remarriage and other things that are not in keeping with the teachings of the Church. There is also a concern that the quality of religious life that many of these women live is not up to par with what religious life is: not living in community, no receiving the sacraments frequently, being involved in social causes for the sake of the cause instead of the sake of the Gospel, not having a deep prayer life, not promoting vocations to the religious life or promoting vocations in such a way that waters down religious life to a commitment to social issues rather than consecration to Christ, and not being obedient to the Holy See who grants them their rights in the first place.

I hope this helps everyone understand what happened and why it has to go down this way.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

Thanks again, Brother JR, for bringing clarity and light to these public discussions.

 

[redrosetea]

I’m not outraged I’ll gladly send them a few bucks

 

[JReducation]

I think it would be a gross lack of charity and disrespect toward all the posters here, if I were to say this person is wrong and that person is right. Every post has some element of truth. I’m simply posting from my position on the inside of religious life.

I will say this in defense of John Paul II. Every pontificate has its priorities, according to the times and according to the gifts of the Pontiff. John Paul’s priorities were fighting Communism, which he did very effectively and very diplomatically. He also had the youth of the world in mind and we must admit that he had a profound effect on them. As a result the number of men and women entering religious communities has increased. There is an increase in the lay apostolate run by younger men and women in their 20s and early 30s, who were exposed to John Paul and moved by him. And there has been a birth of many new forms of consecrated life, most of them are not religious congregations, but secular institutes and their members are very young, usually under 35-years of age.

His other priority was building trust between Catholics and people of other faiths. Without opening those doors of trust, future evangelization is impossible. One of his greatest accomplishments was that he got many people of other faiths to feel more positive and more trusting toward the Catholic Church. Unfortunately, there is a group on both sides that still insists on building distrust; but that’s always going to happen.

As to visiting nations as a figure-head rather than as the leader of the Church, we have to understand that this is not the role of the papacy. The role of the papacy is not to run the local churches. That’s where subsidiarity enters into the picture. The local churches must run themselves and fix their problems at the local level. The papacy is to run and fix the problems that are outside the jurisdiction of the local churches. Religious congregations and religious orders (they are different) of Pontifical Right are outside the jurisdiction of the local bishops. Those have to be governed by their Superiors General and by the Sacred Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Consecrated Life. The Sacred Congregation was ordered by Innocent III in 1209 never to interfere in the internal affairs of religious, unless they were invited to do so. Their role has always been to approve new forms of religious life and to offer a consultative service. At the time, the reason for this restraint over the Sacred Congregation was that most of the members of the Congregation were not only bishops, but many were also members of royal families or powerful merchant families with vested interests in the properties of the religious communities. Their intervention had to be monitored. Today, most of the members of the Sacred Congregation are religious. They are clerics, brothers and sisters who belong to religious communities. The political and economic issues of 1209 are non existent, especially since most religious communities are broke. LOL

Should the Sacred Congregation have been released to act earlier? Maybe. Would it have made a difference? Who knows. We have to deal with what we have today.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

 

[JReducation]

I’m not outraged I’ll gladly send them a few bucks

I’m not even sure how the money is going to be collected. Maybe the bishops will just take it out of the taxes that it gets from the parishes and the laity will not be approached. It’s not a lot of money when you break it down by diocese. Again, don’t take it from me. I don’t work in that area.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

 

[Elizabeth502]

JR, I do not disagree with some of your points, specifically that JP2 did some good in the areas you reference. Nevertheless, while he was doing good in those areas, he equally neglected other equally important areas. I’m sure he felt from his perspective that nothing was urgent in the U.S., but the U.S. is a vast country, and as a major world power, cannot be ignored for any significant length of time without serious impact. The point is, one cannot know whether there are problems unless one investigates. Perhaps in addition there should have been clergy state-side that should have called such matters to his attention, and did not, and I’m glad to suspend judgment about that.

Wherever the point(s) of blame lay, the fact is, U.S. religious life has/had been neglected too long, and we are now seeing back-pedaling to make up for that. I wish the investigators well in their efforts to renew and restore religious life to the holiness and place of honor it once held (more universally) in the eyes of laity. Otherwise, a significant increase in vocations (especially active vocations) cannot be expected.

 

[Brickmaker]

Try as I might, I cannot stop certain places from popping into my head when I read about this…places like Wurzburg, Baden, Ramsele, Salem…

Will auto-da-fé follow?

 

[JReducation]

JR, I do not disagree with some of your points, specifically that JP2 did some good in the areas you reference. Nevertheless, while he was doing good in those areas, he equally neglected other equally important areas. I’m sure he felt from his perspective that nothing was urgent in the U.S., but the U.S. is a vast country, and as a major world power, cannot be ignored for any significant length of time without serious impact. The point is, one cannot know whether there are problems unless one investigates. Perhaps in addition there should have been clergy state-side that should have called such matters to his attention, and did not, and I’m glad to suspend judgment about that.

Wherever the point(s) of blame lay, the fact is, U.S. religious life has/had been neglected too long, and we are now seeing back-pedaling to make up for that. I wish the investigators well in their efforts to renew and restore religious life to the holiness and place of honor it once held (more universally) in the eyes of laity. Otherwise, a significant increase in vocations (especially active vocations) cannot be expected.

I agree that female religious life in the USA is in need of renewal, in certain quarters. I will not say that this is true of every congregation. There are some historical points that we must also understand, besides the fact that these congregations are of Pontifical Right.

Until John XXIII, the Church had very little use for the Americans. It was John XXIII who lifted the veil of suspision that the Vatican had of American Catholics. The one thing that really bothered the Vatican is that Amercian Catholics often demonstrated a greater fidelity to their country than to the Church. Patriotism seemed to be a priority over Catholicism in the USA. The Vatican often referred to it as the American heresy, because so many Americans had an attitude of “my country right or wrong.” Today that is no longer the feeling of the Vatican. There is an American in every commission, department and sacred congregation and there are even some American Cardinals who are papbili. That would have been anathema before John XXIII.

The atttention that the Church in Rome paid to the American Catholic was minimal. She did not trust us. We were too patriotic and too ingrained in our ideals of self-determination and independence. Unfortunately, many of the sisters confirmed this suspicion when they affirmed that they did not need the supervision of religious superiors, but could govern themselves, because they were more mature and more independent than their counterparts in other countries. Talk about a setback in Vatican-USA relations.

The other historical fact is that the average American bishop resented intervention from the Vatican. This was long before Vatican II. The Vatican had to walk gingerly around them or risk an American schism. The modern solution that John Paul II adopted was to consecrate more bishops from religious orders. This helps, because religious orders do not have national ties. Orders like the Jesuits, OMI, Franciscans, Dominicans, Carmelites and Benedictines are used to dealing with an international perspective, since they are international communities and most of their leadership is foreign. These men are more used to thinking beyond the USA and their fidelity is to their order, not to the USA. John Paul wanted to separate the bishops from their “Americanism” and find more bishops that were Catholic first. There have been a number of other consecrations of secular priests who also have a broader pespective, not just religious. But these issues did have to be addressed before you could address the reform of the Catholic Church in America. We needed bishops who were more faithful to the Vatican than to the local culture to gain their support. The task is far from complete, but it’s getting there. In fact, two of the bishops that they placed on the Congregation for Religious are both Capuchin Franciscan friars: Cardinal O’Malley and Archbishop Chaput. There is also a Jesuit and a Dominican friar who are also bishops. These men understand religious life in the broader sense, because they belong to international communities and they understand the Vatican.

The process is very complex and has taken a long time to set up the infrastructure needed to deal with the issues of women religious in the USA. It is also interesting that the women religious who are in “trouble” are those who belong to American congregations, not those who belong to international congregations. I’m not sure what the phenomenon is, but I find it interesting.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF