Honored by LCWR, 'elder' speaks of its origins

May Our Lord richly bless these incredible, dedicated Sisters & their vocations. They all deserve our
prayers & unending gratitude. Thank you, Sisters!

Margaret Brennan and her IHM Sisters as well as Theresa Kane are all remarkable and inspiring women. The moment of truth about the greatness and the courage that the LCWR exhibit in their dignified behavior as the witch hunt from Rome loses credibility and steam are just wonderful. Yes, this will most likely be the LCWR "finest hour" and perhaps may spell the end of a misguided and unfortunate venture from the men in Rome. The pendulum has just begun to swing back to the middle of the spectrum of Catholic thinking as the right wing elements in the Church show their true colors. May the Holy Spirit protect these great LCWR sisters and provide the support and love that these women have more than earned.

Boy, what a mistake by Pope Pius XII!! If only he could see the good sisters now. Poor man must be spinning in his tomb. Obedient children of the Church no more.

When I looked at the photo of these good sisters, all in their 70s and 80s, I realized how silly the visitation is. These "reformed" orders will be out of existence within 10 years and the whole to do will be for nothing. If these sisters really want to be "prophetic" they would change course now before its too late.

Besides being honored by LCWR Margaret Brennan deserves the gratitude of the contemplative nuns of the US. She made available to us accomadations for our meetings in Monroe Michigan. She was available to us with advice and encouragement and asked other members of LCWR to also come to our aid as we struggled with renewal.

When some of us were again meeting at the motherhouse in Monroe, Cardinal Deardon gave permission to the Major Superiors in the diocese to assist with the distribution of Communion, (the first women Euchaistic ministers). The folowing morning when it came time for communion, every contemplative nun in the congregation moved over to her side of the aisle to receive communion from her. I have always rememberd her for this First Communion from a woman and the impact and insightfulness of receiving from this exceptional woman who had been so very good to us.

“As we know, and maybe need to remember, it was not a grass-roots organization.”

“A simple intervention of one of the participants ended the doubt and the debate. Mother Marie of the Ursulines took the floor and with the simple statement ‘Rome wishes it, and, as obedient children of the church, there should be no hesitancy.’ The Conference was born.”

When I read the anger at Rome, the Curia and Hierarchy that washes across so many articles and comments at this site - especially with respect to the Vatican Investigation - and then read comments such as found above, I have to conclude that the investigation is both needed and prudent. With so many sisters opposed to Catholic Dogma, doctrine, teaching and practice (and we all know that is far too often the case - just read this site and talk with almost any sister for any length of time) I can't help but think that a mature response by the LCWR "as obedient children of the church" would have demonstrated the lack of need for the investigation, but the horror, anxiety, histrionics, denunciations and outright resistance simply prove that the LCWR, and far too many of its member orders have simply forgotten who and what they are and were.

It really is a terrible indictment of the failure of the implementation of the Council by the orders and the Church, and an abandonment (or worse - a distortion) of the historic charism of so many orders.

Yes, thank God and the universe for these women who follow the Gospel.
They are truly the prophetic ones. Prophets point some way forward. We are
entering different times, uncertain times. The future will not be like the past.
There are such huge issues facing us: catastrophic climate destruction,
overpopulation, globalization, economic disparity, overuse/misuse of resources,
financialization, growing corporate dominance of governments and democracies...

Our church leaders seem to be able to speak authoritatively on 2 or 3 issues. And
even on these they are being rejected soundly by everyone.

It has been shown that this women's religious life has been declining as a
percentage of church membership for over 200 years. Why? The emancipation of
women, the growing recognition of the gifts and the choices of women.

There are several orders that are growing. These are mainly populated by fearful
women. They really want to wear the old dresses and are live in the middle-ages.
They are medievalists. They will have some limited success. But many of these women
are from cocooned families, home schools, cocooned colleges like Steubenville...
Let this women pursue their own pursuits. They'll do some good. They can co-exist
with others. But be honest about what they're about and who they are.

It's a difficult time. It's nice to see modern women religious attempting to grapple
with real and important world struggles.

"These "reformed" orders will be out of existence within 10 years and the whole to do will be for nothing. If these sisters really want to be "prophetic" they would change course now before its too late."

Many already are. There have been several mergers of reform orders. Every year I hope that the LCWR re evaluate itself. Last year, there was a glimmer of hope. A lone speaker gently questioned several long standing reform practices. This year, it was back to the same old slogan chanting.
As you say, the visitation is simply not needed.

It's funny how the LCWR began, in obedience to Pope Pius XII! I guess back in the day the vow of obedience actually had some meaning! From the panorama of gray, white & blue hair, one wonders if all of these nuns were around at the founding of this group.

The irony is that Pius XII wanted the nuns to modernize a bit so they wouldn't die out. He was alarmed at the drop of vocations in Europe after the war. I don't think this was a problem in America though. Yet it is the modernization itself taken to an absurd degree which has led to the inevitable death of these orders. It's really a very sad situation.

I frequently get mailings looking for money for retired sisters from LCWR member congregations -- photos of nuns in habits -- a dishonest marketing technique.

At the time of Vatican II mass exodus from the priesthood and religious life -- many nuns left or were pushed out -- who did not agree with the "reform" -- another fact that the LCWR doesn't mention.

It is sad that these sisters caught in the 1960's who brought down their religious institutions to the point they are at today. No postulants or novices. Nothing left but to argue with the Magesterium. Sisters here in Minnesota have become hairdressers, massage therapists and professional demonstrators. I am sure the holy founders of their respective communities wouldn't even recognize their communities if they were to return today.
It will be better when these institutes die out and are replaced by sisters from the newer communities flourishing by following the authentic religious life with out the "reforms" that in fact destroyed the American sisterhood.

I frequently get mailings looking for money for retired sisters from LCWR member congregations -- photos of nuns in habits -- a dishonest marketing technique.

I have noticed that as well. For example a music CD whose cover shows all the singers in habits when none of the sisters on their comprehensive website photos wear habits.

I thought liberals were so transparant....

I can’t believe the mean-mindedness of some people here and their lack of basic humanity, not to mention Christianity. What is at the same time terribly silly but also terribly tragic is the perpetuation of the sibling rivalries of the sons of Abraham. It’s all about advancing male dominion, the sibling inheritance of rivalries and conflicted interpretations of “orthodox” patriarchy. A pox on Christian absolutists, Judaic absolutists and Islamic absolutists.

It’s the bullheadedness of the male brotherhood that has kept alive violent sibling rivalries and raised havoc on Earth for millennia. The closed culture of violent male patriarchy is as meaningless and indefensible today as the static-centrist worldview upon which patriarchy self-justifies.

Sisters, the women of the world and most men of the world are with you, not with the dark apologists of “orthodox” violence, whether Christian, Judaic or Islamist. Please continue the task you have undertaken to lead us out of the dark night of violent male fundamentalism into the light of open Divinity.

Wouldn’t it be great if the proposed mosque at Ground Zero would become a place where the non-absolutists of Islam, Judaism and Christianity came together to reverse the violent wrongs of history perpetrated by the animus of the sons of Abraham? Just think how that could promote healing instead of conflict! Only women are in a position to make it happen; the boys alone will only make it worse.

http://www.secondenlightenment.org/ORTHODOX%20PATRIARCHY.pdf

this was posted somewhere else in the site.. beauful

Wow! A member of our faith
Submitted by Sister Joseph Teresa (not verified) on Aug. 18, 2010.
Wow! A member of our faith community shares some honest feelings and there is a firestorm of response, many that sounded plain mean.

Not sure how all of you would classify me. Probably an anomaly, but if I’m ok with that, I figure most others will be.
• I am under 40, just 29!
• I entered a religious community at 19.
• I went to a public university and graduated with a degree in social work. I had financial aid and some of my professors called me “Sister” and some “miss” since my religious name sounded like a man’s name. I thoroughly enjoyed studying with people who were very different from me. They put me on every possibly university committee because they thought I was older than I was. They challenged me and accepted me for the person I was.
• I wear distinctive habit and veil every day and do not own any other clothing. I guess I technically don’t own my habit!
• I live and work with 4 other sisters who dress just like me, but I can guarantee you, who think, pray, and have personalities that are quite different than me. Two are older, one is younger.
• We work in an interesting project with ex-prostitutes. We actually live with them, or they live with us.. not really sure. I learn so much from these women and my relationship with Jesus has been so incredible enriched from sharing my faith (or maybe they are sharing their faith with me as I recognize Jesus in them).
• I’ve never felt threatened by the Vatican, any “men of the Church,” or sisters who dress or live differently than I do. In terms of the “institutional” Church, I have never really sensed anyone was too concerned with the type of work I was doing or how many pleats my clothing has; the Bishops and pastors I have met and had real conversations with typically seemed overworked with lots of problems to resolve and they never really asked me much about my life or work but seemed to need someone to share their troubles with. I am not phased by those who do not agree or approve of how, where, or with whom I live. I don’t feel offended by those who question who I am or how I live. Consequently have found most people to be good and honest. When I did a CPE unit in a Federal men's pentitentiary, outside of mentally disturbed population, never once was any inmate or correctional officer anything but kind to me.
• I’ve never had any gay tendencies or experienced living with other women as anything “sexual” –curiously, prostitutes claim the same thing about living with other women—nothing sexual about it!
• Some of the holiest women I encountered was during the two years I spent working with our sisters in Mexico who didn’t wear habits, but you could spot them as nuns a million miles away. Talk about walking the talk! My respects. They taught me volumes about how to love others by just following them around-- and in the first few months I had no clue what they were doing or saying since I knew next to no Spanish. That's when I figured it out: people care much more about how I am present to them than the clever words I say, where I went to school, or how many books I publish.
• I’ve asked teenage boys on crowded buses if they would mind giving up their seats for the senior citizens who were standing and looked like the were close to falling down, and as I response I have gotten, “Sure, no problem!”
• Total strangers have asked me if I would hold their toddlers while they made a quick pit-stop to a restroom. Did a 5 minute interruption in my life alter some important task on my to-do list or change the course of history when I arrived 5 minutes late to wherever I was headed? (I am pretty much never on time to anything outside of the convent!)
• Moms and dads share with me all the time about the challenges of keeping a family together and I can only think my life is a million times easier.
• Invariably if I go to see a friend in a hospital, a nurse will come up to me and ask if I could stop and say hello to a patient who hasn’t had anyone visit them. The patient always cries and thanks me for being willing to talk to them. A conversation with a stranger requires no special training or courses. Why are people so afraid of stragners in the US?
• I’ve been invited to mosques, cedar meals, and the bar of a hotel at a convention and never felt my faith compromised or that I was imposing mine on anyone else.
So what’s my point? I could go on and on—I’ve always felt that I have a huge public trust to uphold— yet most of my interactions away from the sisters in my community is with non-Catholics. My point is this. Every day, in my personal vocation, life or whatever you want to call it, I try to practice the spiritual and corporal works of mercy if I can. The Sister who wrote the article may be older than me or dress differently than me, but why the assumption by so many that her spiritual or corporal works of mercy are any different, better, worse, not valid, or not what she professed to do 50 years? She calls it ministry, so do I. My life works for me, and I have chosen it and continue to choose it every day with more conviction, but I couldn’t imagine imposing it on someone else. Some of the comments here strike me as if I as a sister, were to pass judgment on two different couples and their marriages. I can’t see how I would be improving the quality of either marriage by doing that as a nun! I am thrilled to have new women join our community, but I don’t think any of the sisters in my community live our lives so membership grows. As poor, wounded, and imperfect creatures, our faith community is an attempt to live the Gospel. Figuring that out is the life journey. I want to arrive to the end of the journey, but I also want to savor every minute of the journey. I don't get all of the controversy-- aren't there enough spiritual and corporal works of mercy to go around and good work left to be done? I don't know if I am changing societal structures or helping politicians to spend money correctlty-- but maybe the Sister who wrote the article is. Her grain of sand, mine, yours... Isn't Our Lady's message for us to follow Jesus' spirit in our own hearts.

The LCWR officials were invited to report on members’ reception of Church teaching on the sacramental priesthood, the CDF document Dominus Iesus and “the problem of homosexuality.”

Dominus Iesus, published by the CDF in 2000 under then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, emphasized the uniqueness of Jesus Christ and established the differences between the Catholic Church and other religions. The document stated that only the Catholic Church possesses the fullness of the Christian faith.

“Given both the tenor and the doctrinal content of various addresses given at the annual assemblies of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious in the intervening years, this Dicastery can only conclude that the problems which had motivated its request in 2001 continue to be present,” Cardinal Levada said in his letter.

Good for you Sister Margaret! It's very easy to critcize... but you have kept your commitment and were recognized for it. Good for you! I have a feeling that some of your critics have never walked for a minute in your shoes, but seem quick to tell you what color and sytle of shoes to wear! Your life, religous life and all of our lives have taken many turns. My gosh.. look at the church itself. Putting the elephants on the table is always better than hiding them between the pleats and starch! Then, the Sister who write the long piece above certinaly has valid points. She really had me laughing outloud-- she is right.. there are enough good works to still be done. Isnt that the maxim of the Sisters of St. Joseph?? Ready for any good work?

i was a mere seminarian in rome 1994-96. however, i was privileged to encounter up close and face to face a number of the participants of the council, thanks to sessions sponsored by my claretian community. when the decree on religious liberty succeeded, an elder but sage and sympathetic claretian said: 'the americans have the ditto machines." in the early 70s, while doing graduate work at st john's university, collegeville, mn, i wrote a major paper on the council. it was painstaking and my professor, michael marx, osb, might have accepted less. however, i surmised from digging through tome upon tome in the bowels of the sju library that the council fathers got carried away. hurray! in an intimate gathering with cardinal suenens, during a visit to st john's, i was able to ask him if he would wax as enthusiastically about charisms of the spirit, [read laity] as he had in the council, and he dithered.