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Visits to religious women to begin in spring
Questionnaire to all congregations being prepared
Jun. 17, 2009
Two Daughters of Charity stand next to a display of photos and memorabilia commemorating 200 years of ministry by the Daughters and Sisters of Charity under the inspiration of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton. The bicentennial year opened Jan. 4.
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PDF versionWASHINGTON -- The superior general overseeing the apostolic visitation of U.S. orders of women religious is hoping to gather up to 150 names of people who will begin visiting a cross section of congregations starting in the spring.
Mother Mary Clare Millea, superior general of the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the apostolic visitator charged by the Vatican with directing the comprehensive study, told Catholic News Service June 17 that suggestions of names to fill slots on the teams continued to arrive, 11 days after a deadline she set for submissions.
In the midst of meetings in the U.S. before returning to Rome June 19, Mother Clare said from the apostolic visitation office in Hamden, Conn., that the visits will encompass a wide variety of orders.
"We know we cannot possibly visit all the congregations," she said. "So we want to give a representative sample to the Holy See."
Mother Clare, a Connecticut native whose religious institute is based in Rome, began soliciting names of women religious and men religious for the visitation teams in a May 19 letter to superior generals. In all, she contacted nearly 400 Catholic institutes for women religious.
Men would join visits only to those orders that indicate they would welcome a male, the letter stated.
The congregations will have the chance to say if they would welcome a male team member in a questionnaire that is being prepared for distribution in September, Mother Clare told CNS.
Distribution of the questionnaire will mark the beginning of the second phase of the study announced in January and ordered by the Vatican's Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life under its prefect, Cardinal Franc Rode.
The religious superiors will have about two months to complete the questionnaire, which will seek information such as statistics, activities and community practices. Visits by the teams -- which mark the third phase of the study -- will be based on the responses, Mother Clare explained.
The fourth and final phase will be the compilation and delivery of a report to Cardinal Rode in mid-2011, she said.
Currently Mother Clare is nearing the end of the first phase of the apostolic visitation. She told CNS she has met with 127 superior generals in the U.S. and in Rome since March 31. She has several meetings scheduled in Rome in the coming weeks and said she expects the first phase to be completed by July 31.
The voluntary meetings thus far have been "very positive experiences," she said.
"The (superior) generals have been very open and have put a lot of energy into preparing for our visit," she explained. "I've asked them to reflect on their hopes and their dreams for their congregations.
"Many of them have told me that while the initial reaction to the visitation was not always very joyful, this has caused them to reflect on their identity," she said.
In her letter soliciting suggestions for members of the visitation teams, Mother Clare outlined nine criteria that individuals must meet. They range from a minimum of 20 years of religious profession to "the ability to respect confidentiality, listen attentively and dialogue honestly."
Team members also will be asked to make a profession of faith and an oath of fidelity to the church.
The profession of faith encompasses the Nicene Creed with three additional paragraphs added in 1989. The paragraphs state that the person who makes the profession will support the magisterium, the church's teaching authority.
The oath of fidelity requires that the person who takes it will act in accordance with canon law, uphold church teachings and act in obedience to the bishops of the church.
Mother Clare said having team members make the profession of faith and taking the oath of fidelity is "a very logical kind of requirement."
"Every person who will take part in the visitation process in any way will also be an envoy of the Holy See," she said. "It seems logical that anyone taking part would want to take the oath because they would objectively represent the Holy See itself."
Mother Clare compared the requirements to the oath of office that public officials take "to follow the rules of the body that they are representing."
"So it is a practice that is acceptable and also lends a lot of credibility of the seriousness of the undertaking in which the person will take part," she added.
In the meetings with congregational leaders, Mother Clare said she discovered that the religious orders have engaged in deep prayer over the process. She said she expects "many new signs of vitality in religious life" to evolve.
"Young people are following the process. Hopefully young people will begin to see religious life as a viable option for their life. Hopefully there will be some very beautiful results that we do not yet see," she said.
- - -
Editor's Note: More information about the apostolic visitation can be found online at www.apostolicvisitation.org.
Seems like a balanced
Seems like a balanced approach. The Feast of theSacred Heart of Jesus-God come in the flesh is this Friday. Let us all make a special effort to go to Mass and have as a special intention, goodwill from all points of view. Rejoice! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!
No it doesn't seem "like a
No it doesn't seem "like a balanced approach" Snowdrop. All members of the people of God have made professions of faith in Baptism in Confirmation and every time we make a Profession of Faith at Mass. Taking a second loyalty oath to the bishops is beyond absurd. Snowdrop, have you even been watching the actions and antics of the most of the bishops lately? Get real! I seem to remember that the Legion of Christ took a loyalty oath never to say anything against their founder and to inform on anyone who did. Neither John Paul II nor their present friends at the Vatican can help now that that everyone knows how way down low that requirement has brought the church.
Men would join visits only to
Men would join visits only to those orders that indicate they would welcome a male, the letter stated.
The congregations will have the chance to say if they would welcome a male team member in a questionnaire that is being prepared for distribution in September, Mother Clare told CNS.
I would hope that ALL female communities would band together and "respectfully decline" the presence of male visitators, lest this too be used as "evidence and sexual innuendo" against those communities who choose not to.
There is no way the sisters
There is no way the sisters should agree to men making any kind of a visitation. BTW, have these written questionnaires been made public yet?
Oh please, spare us dear
Oh please, spare us dear Snowdrop! A "balanced approach" by taking an oath? It seems more like a cult. Get a life, Snowdrop and spare your 1950's Holy Card religion. Vatican II has already happened, or didn't you know? Seems that slipped your memory.
Yes! Yes! Yes!
Yes! Yes! Yes!
It is the Christian Brothers
It is the Christian Brothers and Legion of Christ that ought to be investigated . They perpetrated tremendous amounts of abuse on children, youths throughout many, many countries and decades, many decades .
Investigate Christ Legionnaries and Christian Brothers instead who abused so many in schools, reformatories, seminaries.
Is Rome attacking nuns in order to seize their convent properties which good Catholics donated to the nuns so that bishops can live alone in their former convents, or sell those properties and the bishop still has then his own private mansion?
It sounds like the
It sounds like the Inquisition is still quite alive and well in the Vatican these days. If these "visitors" are being required to take an oath to the all-mighty magisterium you know nothing is to remain confidential but to be immediately reported back to the grand inquisitor himself, Pope Benedict, and his little fascist inner circle. It's nothing but a witch hunt! Sisters say "no" to such visits!
Amen!! That says it all!
Amen!! That says it all!
It is an Inquisition. There
It is an Inquisition. There is no doubt about it.
"The oath of fidelity
"The oath of fidelity requires that the person who takes it will act in accordance with canon law, uphold church teachings and act in obedience to the bishops of the church." Does that include the Bishops of the Church choosing who we should vote for?
Where is Jesus Christ in any of this? It sounds so Pharisaic. The law, the law, the law.... where is Jesus? I dare say He is nowhere in this oath. It is an oath to men, not Jesus. It is an oath to force people out of the Church. It is an oath the sisters should not take, especially if they don't believe in what the Bishops are saying about gays, women, birth control and anything else that is beyond the Bishops understanding, which is frankly an understanding that is from the Dark Ages.
"So it is a practice that is acceptable and also lends a lot of credibility of the seriousness of the undertaking in which the person will take part," she added. It is a practice that is acceptable to only those who desire to enforce an oath.
Weren't the vows the sisters took serious enough or acceptable enough?
Where is Jesus? Maybe the
Where is Jesus? Maybe the visitors have moved beyond him and sojourned like the good sisters.
"Weren't the vows the sisters
"Weren't the vows the sisters took serious enough or acceptable enough?"
One would think so but it seems not.
I would like the bishops all around the world and in the United States to take a Loyalty Oath. The following would do just fine -
"DO YOU SWEAR TO TELL THE TRUTH, THE WHOLE TRUTH, AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH SO HELP YOU GOD?"
That about covers it.
Regarding the
Regarding the Vatican-sponsored visitation in the spring of 2010 to the United States religious sisters’ congregations, there is a world of difference between a Catholic profession of faith and oath of fidelity on the one hand and the oath of office that public officials take on the other hand.
Because “-- to follow the rules of the body that they are representing, “ as Mother Clare suggested is more of a contrast than a comparison. Catholicism to a significant degree has become archaic, defunct, and is vanishing because of a failure to evolve. A fidelity oath underlines this desperate fact. An oath of office of a public official such as a president is a living, relevant, resilient pledge to the U.S. Constitution and its accompaniments that serve as a democratic buoy for a free society.
The Church already in deep crisis needs no more incompatible treatment such as this while living under the delusion that this further limitation is the answer to its problems. Such a fallacy only substantially catalyzes the collapse.
I agree Marie. All members
I agree Marie. All members of the people of God have made professions of faith in Baptism in Confirmation and every time we make a Profession of Faith at Mass. Taking a second loyalty oath to the bishops is beyond absurd. Snowdrop, have you even been watching the actions and antics of the most of the bishops lately? Get real! I seem to remember that the Legion of Christ took a loyalty oath never to say anything against their founder and to inform on anyone who did. Neither John Paul II nor their present friends at the Vatican can help now that that everyone knows how way down low that requirement has brought the church.
I enjoy some of the
I enjoy some of the columnists at NCR but I don't understand why there is so much anger expressed in the comments section. This is particularly evident when the article has anything to do with Religious sisters. Why so much anger over something as simple as an oath of loyalty to the Church? I am in my 20's and I didn't fight the battles of the 1960's, so I admit my understanding of these issues is second hand, and I can't claim to know better than people who lived through Vatican II. I can only offer my own observation, and that is that there is a certain anger that seems to be confined mostly to Catholics who grew up during and immediately after the council. Want to know why I stayed away from the Catholic Church for most of my life? It's because after my first communion my only exposure to Catholicism was in my home parish where there seemed to be so much resentment towards authority, towards the pope, lay people contradicting the priest left and right, catechism non existent . Is it any wonder young people leave in droves when the Church doesn't seem to know what it believes? Magazines like NCR are very valuable, as has been demonstrated by their coverage of things like the sexual abuse scandal. But this anger, this spirit of disobedience, does more to drive people away from the Church than any scandal ever could.
I am young too. The anger I
I am young too. The anger I notice and the way people stay away from church is directly stemming from the disgust at the sex and money scandals cover-up and hypocrisy of the clergy, not anything to do with any Vatican II stuff.
News about more sex abuse by priest pedophiles keeps on being found out about all the time. It is not Vatican II that angers people, as Paddy has stated. No, it is the continuing horror of what is wrong with the church, (news, Ireland scandal, Legion of Mary scandals etc.) why it needs fixing, and that is the systemic disordered all male 'celibate' clergy that is the root of much problems. Not Vatican II as the problem.
The abuses go way back to 1930 in Ireland and in 1950's including with Legion of Christ boys and seminarian abuse sex scandal by the Legion founder as well as money scandal by the founder of Legion of Christ.
Wasn't that Vatican II much later than 1930, wasn't it in the 1960's? The abuse of sex scandal was earlier than that and Vatican II is getting blamed when it looks like it does not deserve the blame.
I am grateful for mass in the language I understand . Isn't that from Vatican II? Good as far as I and my family are concerned.
Paulette: I never once stated
Paulette: I never once stated that Vatican II was the problem. I think Vatican II was a wonderful thing. Mass in the vernacular? Terrific. You're putting words in my mouth. My point was that young people leave because the Church has no meaning for them. When all you hear of a Sunday is vague sentiments about social justice and criticisms of the hierarchy, why would you want to stay? I left the Church long before the abuse scandals became as widely publicised as they did (although there were always rumours). There was a lot of justifiable anger about the sexual abuse crisis, and I would not take that anger away from anyone, but don't try to tell me that all the anger comes from the sexual abuse crisis. By the way, You're mixing up your sexual abuse scandals. The scandal in Ireland was with the Christian Brothers and other groups, not the Legion of Christ. I wasn't aware of any scandals with the Legion of Mary, did you mean the Legion of Christ?
Yes Legion of Christ (not
Yes Legion of Christ (not Mary) founder abused boys and seminarians ( and some girls as he fathered a daughter), plus he embezzled money too.
These new oaths, irregular creeds, that nuns are now being forced to make, as Catholics in conscience if you are forced to under pressure swear an illegal irregular oath which goes against your conscience canon law Guadium Specs, I am unsure of exact name, says you can swear that oath it does not count against you because you were forced against your conscience.
'Render onto Caesar (Rome) what is Caesar's (Rome's)" to quote Jesus.
The men may have said whatever was needed for their investigation to end so that the seminary visitors went away. The nuns must not be prevented from continuing their good works for the church and community. Rome is being a bully against them as the Vatican old boys club has no interest, respect or use for women, even nuns. Thanks, Paddy, for your comments. from Paulette
As to the history of clerical
As to the history of clerical sexual abuse (year 1644), Karen Liebreich's book "Fallen Order" is an eye-opener. (2004, Grove Press, 841 Broadway, Mew York, NY 10003)
All members of the people of
All members of the people of God have made professions of faith in Baptism in Confirmation and every time we make a Profession of Faith at Mass. Taking a second loyalty oath to the bishops is beyond absurd. Snowdrop, have you even been watching the actions and antics of the most of the bishops lately? Get real! I seem to remember that the Legion of Christ took a loyalty oath never to say anything against their founder and to inform on anyone who did. Neither John Paul II nor their present friends at the Vatican can help now that that everyone knows how way down low that requirement has brought the church.
The one Loyalty Oath I would like the bishops to take is the following -
"DO YOU SWEAR TO TELL THE TRUTH, THE WHOLE TRUTH, AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH, SO HELP YOU GOD?"
No wouldn't that be something?
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