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PDF versionVatican's visitator: 'Great hope' for 'new flourishing' of religious life
by Joshua J. McElwee on Jan. 12, 2012
The women appointed to head up the Vatican’s visitation of U.S. women religious says that the three-year study gave her “great hope for a new flourishing of vibrant religious life” in an interview posted this morning.
Mother Mary Clare Millea’s comments come three days after news that reports of the apostolic visitation have been quietly submitted to Rome.
The email interview, posted at the National Catholic Register’s website, seems to show Millea, who is also the superior general of the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, with a fairly positive outlook on the continued role of women religious in the U.S.
In answer to one question on the decline of communities of women religious, Millea responds that she was “encouraged to note” that “many congregations have increased their efforts to present the consecrated life as a viable and joyful way of serving the Church.”
“Conversations on this topic are taking place among religious within their own communities as well as with members of other congregations,” writes Millea.
“This dialogue is already resulting in a comprehensive strategic plan for the promotion of religious vocations involving all components of the Church in the United States. This gives me great hope for a new flourishing of vibrant religious life.”
Millea also writes that, with the seeming end of the visitation, she is “happy” to return to the “more than…full-time task” of coordinating the life of her own order.
“At the same time,” she writes, “the apostolic visitation has greatly increased my love and esteem for the women religious in the United States.”
“Should the Holy See request any further involvement on my part for the promotion of religious life, I would be open to considering that possibility.”
To read the full interview, head over to the Register’s posting.
"The email interview, posted
"The email interview, posted at the National Catholic Register’s website, seems to show Millea, " as obstinately out of touch as ever, using this highly polemical and obsolete REGISTER website for her pronouncements rather than the vital and living ncronline.org
but that's why Rode picked her to investigate her superior sisters, while failing to investigate herself.
It depends. If you want
It depends. If you want religious orders in the future that are faithful to church teaching and the pope, and traditional expressions of religious life as confirmed by Vatican II, these orders ARE growing. For the rest of the orders, the LCWR mainstay, they will be gone in twenty years-or less maybe much less. Now since most of the posters here are of that generation and will be gone too dont worry about it.
Find a pendulum, gerard, and
Find a pendulum, gerard, and watch it awhile.
Talk about a "propaganda
Talk about a "propaganda campaign" by the hierarchy who try to paint a picture of Religious Life as entering a new "flourishing". Pure propaganda. There will always be Religious Life for women and men but their will be smaller numbers and only a few major orders will survive. This is reality. Traditional orders wearing Habits as a model for the future of Religious Life is also going to be a short lived phenomena. The novelty of this type of institute has a very short shelf life. Contemplative Orders will probably be the main type of Religious Orders which survive. This is all natural evolution.
There is great hope. Look at
There is great hope. Look at the Dominican Sisters in Nashville and many other solid orthodox Orders. They are young, growing, alive, and vibrant. As opposed to the dying and sour dissenting communities.
Odd. Our dear and most
Odd. Our dear and most Reverend Sister Joan CHittister OSB's latest is called HAPPINESS.
and reads neither dying nor dour nor sour nor dissenting, but life and faith affirming
the rest of your polemics here are equally insupportable
Joan is 75. How many women
Joan is 75. How many women joined her community last year? Are you aware that 65% of the Dominicans of Nashville are under 40.
yeah, all three of them, and
yeah, all three of them, and how long will they stay before getting tired of serving as the bishop's unpaid slaves?
Fifty percent of the novices
Fifty percent of the novices at self-described "traditional" religious orders leave in the first three years. Self-described "JPII priests" remain in the priesthood less than seven years, on average. Those are statistics from CARA.
Most superiors of religious
Most superiors of religious orders who sanction abandoning the habit, community life and community prayer would rather see their congregations disappear rather than to admit they made a grave mistake after Vatican II choosing this path to extinction
ABANDONED COMMUNITY
ABANDONED COMMUNITY PRAYER??
TO all of us such I strongly suggest, with the most Reverend Sister CHittister OSB, faithful following in common of the great "That God may be glorified: Liturgy of the hours : an inclusive language setting"
It is worth considering that
It is worth considering that those religious orders that are dwindling in numbers might have fulfilled their particular charisms and are making way for new forms of ministry in the future. Institutions, including the Church and religious orders, live the same Paschal Mystery as Jesus did, and as we humans do. Something is always dying and something is always rising. Perhaps it is the very religious orders being criticized in the comments above that have been the most faithful followers of the Holy Spirit. God's ways are not our ways.
I say AMEN. The Spirit is in
I say AMEN. The Spirit is in charge. As an associate of one of these American Religious Communities, I received a call from my creator to serve in Africa!
I guess it is going to start
I guess it is going to start all over again. It already has eh - the wedge pounding by the non-religious observers between the outgoing prophetic and the "traditional markers" demonstative congregations.
Personally, I have a strong bias towards the contemporary. That's just me. Rather than praise the one and damn the other, I would like to "damn" the damners. What is wrong with you people who think that you have such a grasp of Christ's ways, message, and yes, dress, that you can preach hellfire on these women. Have you noticed that there have been very, very few supporters of the contemporary who have savaged the traditionals?
There is room in the church for the full spectrum of women serving God, God's children and God's creation. (And yes, Christ's redemptive act) Whether one's view, personality,"light" and calling is to serve through cloistered contemplation, university, back street ministering to the homeless or creating art - let your light and comittment shine, be seen, be exemplars of God working in creation, merit and evoke acknowledgement of God's goodness at work.
If that "acknowledgement" is resentment by the diminished, the angry/hurt, then so-be-it. May the well-intentioned be healed and the rest seen for what they are.
Beautifully said and
Beautifully said and well-grounded in facts. The number of religious women in the US, according to CARA, has gone from 136,000 in 1975 to 55,900 in 2011. There is about the same decline worldwide. And you can't tell me that it's all from one particular group or "type" of nun/sister. So, the way that conservative revisionists like to latch on to one or another singular community/order to assert the "truth" of what they say, the numbers nationally do not support the view that religious life is "thriving," and that can easily be said of religious orders of men, and diocesan priests, and religious order priests. The ONLY group that has steadily grown are Permanent Deacons! And how often are they pointed to as flourishing and as worthy of praise and support? Lets keep the facts clear and our thinking straight.
“In answer to one question on
“In answer to one question on the decline of communities of women religious, Millea responds that she was “encouraged to note” that “many congregations have increased their efforts to present the consecrated life as a viable and joyful way of serving the Church.”
“Mother Millea’s” vision of “consecrated life as a viable and joyful way of serving the Church” ought to take into consideration the opinion of my “great grandaddy” St. Justin, Martyr and Father of the Church, when back around the year 160 in his writings called the Church “the Great Whore of Christ;” or even more recently the words of the 20th century theologian Romano Guardini: "The church is the cross upon which Christ remains crucified.”
I personally have logged up 37 years of religious life, 25 years as a hard working missionary priest among the campesinos and indigenous peoples of the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua and now 31 years and still going strong in our ecclesiastically sacramental Catholic matrimony with two daughters. I joyfully participate in our Sunday evening Eucharistic Celebrations with our local little faith community.
Howsomewhatsoever, I get the impression that Mother Millea is putting the “horse before the cart”. The Church exists only to serve the Kingdom of Abbá (“Daddy”) Father.
I would consider “Serving the Church” as hardly even having entered into any one of my three states of life: one state by vows, and two states by sacraments.
Believing “in Jesus” in my way of looking at “faith” means BUYING INTO HIS LIFE PLAN as outlined and highlighted in the Gospels and summed up in His little prayer for us: “Father, Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth just as it is in heaven.”
This means daily working to bring about the “governance of Abbá Father” here and now in each one of our lives, here today on our planet, working for that “other possible society” that “other possible world”, soooo different from the one we have managed to build for ourselves today, where every 4 seconds one of our sisters or brothers dies of hunger while we placidly and too often “in good conscience” fight wars over petroleum and/or geo-political positioning and as we refuse to curb our greed and so continue nonchalantly destroying our very own God-given Mother Earth.
Justiniano de Managua el 12 de enero 2012
How is the wonderful and
How is the wonderful and Reverend Father Ernesto Cardenal doing? Reading his Origin of Species now. He only gets better.
Hopefully, as the "Wives of
Hopefully, as the "Wives of Chist"' with total commitment [and submission], as postration before the alter indicates, they don't allow themselves be walked on.
Bringing to mind Sr Marie McDonald and her African sisters.
affordable laptops Are the
affordable laptops Are the so-called "gaming laptops" useful for non-gaming purposes too? psa4x Are the so-called "gaming laptops" useful for non-gaming purposes too? psa4x
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