I’ve heard a bit about it but not actually read it. Is it worth the time?
Yes, because it gives you part of the story. This is the rest in a nutshell.
In the 17th-19th centuries there were many congregations of sisters formed specifically to teach in particular schools, staff certain hospitals or even to live in particular places. However, they were apostolic, meaning that their work was their reason for being. We’ve talked about this to some extent in our conversations about religious orders and so on elsewhere in this forum.
Anyway, these sisters were sorely needed among the burgeoning poor of the industrial revolution and immigrant cities and all that. These congregations were set up with constitutions, but often no rule, and sometimes they didn’t have foundresses or their foundresses were replaced with others; sometimes they were founded by non-religious and so on. The point of the congregation was the work. Period. They were often even explicit about this. They were teaching or nursing orders.
Now what this set up was a situation where a charism could be no more than a set of lines in a constitution or a custom, like how to turn the corner in a hallway, or how to put on a wimple or how to ask permission to use a pencil which was actually required in some of these congregations. Many sisters taught large groups of children with little more than a high school education or whatever they had entered with. Some of them taught religion with no more training than their own childhood training. This was pre-Vatican II.
Their appearance was allowed to return to a sort of semi-monastic form, because it encouraged respect by the laity and made it easier to do the things they needed to do, such as support themselves. The same thing with some of the practices they adopted and so on. They encouraged vocations, edified the laity and helped the sisters cope, giving them some sort of religious life, although perhaps not the profound training that a Dominican contemplative nun or a Poor Clare sister might expect from her formation.
So, to make a long story short, when Vatican II ordered that the congregations, orders, institutes and all go back to their sources and founders, and concentrate on what they were founded to be, members of these orders were confounded. They had very little, if anything, to go back to. Their apostolates closed; their habits gone; their practices curtailed overnight. And no profound theology or charism like the Benedictines or the Franciscans.
Into the picture strides Dr. Carl Rogers in the IHM example, but variations of this happened to congregations all over. He tried to help them discover who they were, from a transactional analysis viewpoint, using interpersonal encounter methods. And you can about guess what the result was.
To be honest, Dr. Rogers didn’t realize what was going to happen. The 60s & 70s were that hapless and clueless. I know I was there. In fact, he was a Catholic and thought that he was helping them. Well, he helped them all right. Right out of the Church.
Likewise Vatican II. To cause all this turmoil and hurt anyone was not the intention of Vatican II. At all. At all. But people were not prepared for it. And the congregations had not done their work in setting themselves up soundly enough to withstand the future.
Of course, the ancient & medieval orders and other groups that had solid rules, supporting theology and great founders, were nowhere near as affected. You’ll find that most of the real mischief that you’ve heard about wasn’t among them but among the congregations. Not a surprise.
In the years since all this, the remaining sisters have become more sophisticated. Their apostolates are gone. The ones that are young enough serve as administrators, and yes, staff things like the LCWR, CHA and so on. Some of them have left the church without leaving the order because they literally have nowhere else to go. The order has been their home since the age of 18 and all their friends are there. Everything is there.
See the picture?
Now not all sisters have gone this way. In fact, there are many sisters who you never see who are much more faithful. Some are older and spend all their time in the motherhouses. If you go and walk through one at mealtime, you will see many sisters in habit and partial habit but they are often very old. I’ve seen some of this personally. So blanket statements are kind of cruel at this late stage. It’s a sad situation all the way around.
Read the story of Carl Rogers and the IHMs. It’s enlightening. You can find it online in several places.
