I think you have some misconceptions there about the religious life. I know of many communities that have members from a wide range of racial, ethnic and socio-cultural backgrounds.
Well, this referred specifically to being black, socio-cultural and ethnic backgrounds can refer to anything, i.e. being Irish vs. Anglo-Saxon. Some bridges are harder to bridge than others. Of the only two blacks in communities in my area, one is a bishop suffering from severe depression and the other doesn’t even live with the community. She is a professor in another state. They have also done research studies that show unhappiness in blacks compared to people who aren’t clergy. Here is an article by CNN:
cnn.com/2010/OPINION/09/05/white.catholic.black/index.html Dr. C. Vanessa White is assistant professor of spirituality and the director of the Augustus Tolton Pastoral Ministry Program at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, Illinois. So just because they are there, if you have seen blacks and not just people from other backgrounds, doesn’t actually mean that they are happy.
If you are not going to be happy, it doesn’t make sense to go, does it? Or is there some deeper purpose served by joining like offering your pain to God?
It doesn’t matter to them or to God. And I do not understand what you mean thinking “[they] consider the pro-life issue the most important” because there are very, very few communities dedicated only to pro-life issues.
There need to be more. The Vatican is doing a crackdown on religious orders because they are failing to prioritize the pro-life issue. See this thread discussing how the Vatican is demanding a reform:
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=666901
Religious life is inspiring b/c of the saints, who did heroic moral deeds to help the world, whether through prayer, theology, or social service. For example, St. Maximilian Kolbe helped the person in the concentration camp, St. Katherine Drexel and St. Peter Claver helped Native Americans and blacks, St. Catherine of Siena helped the poor, St. Faustina prayed for Poland and those in purgatory, nearing Hell, etc. Being a religious is not worth very much if you are not going to use it to help others; the religious who were wealthy and owned slaves were not good people. The Diary of St. Bridget of Sweden says that the religious who just sought worldly renown were going to Hell. So it is not inspiring to me to be in a community that is not working either through prayer or social service on the most important genocide of our day, more important than the Holocaust, slavery, or colonialism.
The other issues ARE important, of course, but just like many religious orders during the Holocaust hid the Jews, it seems all should have some sort of pro-life ministry even if it is just prayer.
