I have read the other posts on the other forum, and although this may be a healing process for those involved, I have to say I do not agree that a public forum is the proper place for this. First of all, many people read these posts. Some may be considering a religious vocation. I don’t think it is healthy or wise to read the one-sided account of someone’s departure from an order.
That being said, I think it would be healthy for religious communities to discuss departure with their postulants/candidates as a part of their formation. Ours does, and it eliminates a lot of heartache and misunderstanding if and when the time comes for a departure.
Most communities do not discuss departure outside of the council members and the sister who is leaving. In otherwords, no general announcement is made that Sister Mary X is leaving next Tuesday, so let’s all say our good-byes. When you really think about it and pray it through, you’ll see that it makes sense. First of all, it is no one else’s business. A vocation is between a soul and God, who is guided through formation by those who have the authority to lead them. Sisters leave for different reasons, but we can divide them into two basic groups: those who choose to leave, and those who are being asked to leave. For privacy reasons and in charity, you need to treat both groups the same way. If Sister X is being asked to leave the community, the reason she is being asked to leave is no one else’s business, not even that of her classmates in the novitiate.
Regarding the rule asking that the person is never discussed in community again:
The way some of the posters responded to this made it sound like a “cruel rule.” In our community, when a sister leaves, she is free to keep in contact with the superiors for as long as she wishes, but the rest of the community does not continue to talk about her once she is gone. That would be gossip. They may, of course, continue to pray for her. But to constantly rehash what happened, why it happened, what was she thinking, why didn’t she do this or that? How is that charitable? You can’t do any good for a person by talking about them once they are no longer with you. I know of several communities with the “no further mention” rule, but again, this applies only to the sisters and not to the superiors.
Once again, discussing this all beforehand helps a person make sense of it all, and they can understand the charity, wisdom, and justice behind the rules. If I had been asked to leave a community, I don’t think I’d want the reason(s) to be general knowledge, nor would I want my sisters talking about it after I was gone. Compared to the way things work in the professional world, this may seem harsh, but we need to keep in mind that even in vibrant, healthy communities, about 1/3 of the women who enter will leave. In the professional world, that would be considered very high turnover! When we let an employee go, we do not disclose the reasons to their co-workers. When an employee asks to be released from their work agreement, we sit down with them and discuss an exit date, and we set the parameters. Generally, we make a blast announcement to parents and students together, immediately after the departure, and that’s the end of it. If the employee has been let go, we do not try to hinder their chances of future employment by making that fact common knowledge. If the future employer wants to discuss it with us privately, then we are happy to do so. Likewise, if a sister is asked to leave, it may be that she just needs to mature and then try her vocation again.
