Friday, June 15, 2012

Fr. James Martin, S.J. On The Rebel Nuns

For the Vatican, the rebel nuns present a delicate challenge. In the U.S., many nuns find themselves politically on the opposite side of the church hierarchy, for instance during the health care debate, when they lent support to President Obama’s policies. Though nuns don’t have a formal position within the Vatican’s ranks — unlike, say, priests, they are considered laypeople — they are nonetheless an important part of the church’s public and popular face. And since their orders are nearly always self-funded, the Vatican has little traction, outside of theological condemnation, in reining them in. At issue is not only the role that nuns should play within the greater dialogue of the Catholic faith, but what direction the church itself should be headed, with Pope Benedict XVI one of the primary advocates of rolling back reforms in favor of a return toward traditional Catholicism. “The critique of the LCWR is a microcosm of a larger phenomenon in the church, specifically over how deeply the Second Vatican Council represented a break with the past,” says James Martin, a Jesuit priest and contributing editor at America, a Catholic magazine.
Link (here) to read the full article at Time Magazine


7 comments:

Maria said...

Here is what faith and humility looks like in women religious who are the real McKoy:

Sisters of Mercy doctors say LCWR is injecting politics into dialogue
by Kevin Jones

Alma, Mich., Jun 14, 2012 / 02:15 am (CNA).- Physicians who are also Religious Sisters of Mercy of Alma are criticizing the Leadership Conference of Women Religious and its defenders for using an impoverished “language of politics” instead of “the language of faith” in the dialogue with the Catholic hierarchy.

“There is no basis for authentic dialogue between these two languages. The language of faith is rooted in Jesus Christ, His life and His mission, as well as the magisterial teaching of the Church,” said the physician-sisters’ statement, which was issued after a June 2 meeting on the contributions of religious women in the healing ministry of the Catholic Church.

“The language of politics arises from the social marketplace,” they said. “The Sisters who use political language in their responses to the magisterial Church reflect the poverty of their education and formation in the faith.”

In April 2012, the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith released the results of a four-year doctrinal assessment which determined that the Leadership Conference of Women Religious exhibited a “crisis” of belief and “serious doctrinal problems.” The audit also found that letters from conference officers suggested the presence of “corporate dissent” from Church teaching on issues like the ordination of men to the priesthood and homosexuality.

The conference is made up of leaders from 1,500 women’s religious congregations. Those sisters represent some 57,000 American women religious.

In response, the conference’s board members charged that the assessment was “based on unsubstantiated accusations” and used “a flawed process that lacked transparency.” They said the report “caused scandal and pain throughout the church community, and created greater polarization.”

Critics of the Vatican assessment have found sympathy in major media outlets, some of which have depicted the action against the leadership conference as an attack on all religious sisters and nuns.

But the Religious Sisters of Mercy of Alma see things differently.

Sr. Jane Mary Firestone, RSM, an internist at Sacred Heart Clinic in Alma, Mich., who helped write her religious congregation’s statement, spoke about it with CNA. She said that there is no issue with people representing their perspective to the Church and stating where they see problems.

Maria said...

Part II

However, she said that critics of Vatican’s assessment are taking their action into “a political arena of demonstrations” and are “garnering support in a political sense.”

“That doesn’t feel very appropriate,” Sr. Firestone said June 13. In her view, the social marketplace uses “the language of majority rule” and does not necessarily have “a regard for authority.”

“They’ve taken this into the public political arena and it no longer stays in the dialogue of faith. Representation is always possible, dialogue is always possible, but it’s with the reverence towards the hierarchical Church.”

She said that the “language of faith” expresses belief in the Church and the authority of the Church. Catholics believe that when the bishops speak, they have “a different degree of authority” than when someone else does.

“In other words, the magisterial Church does direct for us the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives as religious women,” she said.

Sr. Firestone said that while Catholics do not believe the bishops are canonized saints, they are “not just ‘a bunch of men.’”

Those who live as religious women should, “live in the dimension of faith all the time” and recognize when they fail to do so, she said.

Her comments echoed the Religious Sisters of Mercy of Alma’s broader statement. It said that a religious community’s charism is given to “enrich the Church” and the Catholic hierarchy must determine its authenticity. A woman religious participates in this charism and “cannot separate her work from the Church.”

The sisters praised “the generosity and service” of the religious women who preceded them and foresaw “great hope” for the future of religious life in the Church.

They said that this hope rests in remaining within “the deposit of faith and the hierarchical structure of the Church.”

“We cannot separate ourselves from sacred tradition or claim to advance beyond the Church.”

The sisters’ June 2 meeting also addressed statements from the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, various news agencies and other organizations. The Sisters of Mercy said these have created “confusion, polarization, and false representations about the beliefs, activities, and priorities of a significant number of women religious in the United States.”

The Religious Sisters of Mercy of Alma have about 100 members who work in hospitals and teach in seminaries and primary schools. The order, which was founded in 1973, runs clinics in Michigan, Minnesota and Germany.


PS Unlike Sr. Carol Keehan of the "Little Sisters of Limousine Liberalism, I suspect that they aren't earning a million dollars a year. They certainly aren't campaigning for the virtues of homosexual beavior, contraception and women's ordination. They are truly liberated in by their love for God and their assent to to the faith. Funny, how the truth and love always end up in the same neighborhood.

Well done, Sisters. Well done.

Anonymous said...

It seems like the RSM are fully politicized themselves. Check out their website.

Maria said...

Here is the link to the Religious Sisters of Mercy:

www.rsmofalma.org

The goal of the Institute is the praise and worship of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit for the boundless mercy which has been revealed through the works of creation, redemption, and sanctification. The Sisters profess the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, as well as a fourth vow of service.

The unique gift of consecrated life"Life consecrated through profession of the evangelical counsels is a stable form of living, in which the faithful follow Christ more closely under the action of the Holy Spirit, and are totally dedicated to God, who is supremely loved. By a new and special title they are dedicated to seek the perfection of charity in the service of God's Kingdom, for the honor of God, the building up of the Church and the salvation of the world. They are a splendid sign in the Church, as they foretell the heavenly glory" (Canon 573, 1).

You are right~This is radical~living religious life as it was intended ;)

FYI--They are memebers of the Institute on Religious Life (IRL):

www.religiouslife.com

IRL was founded by John Hardon SJ. Surprise, surpries. All those orders are faithful, flourishing and in, oh, habits.

Maria said...

Here is the link to the Religious Sisters of Mercy:

www.rsmofalma.org

The goal of the Institute is the praise and worship of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit for the boundless mercy which has been revealed through the works of creation, redemption, and sanctification. The Sisters profess the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, as well as a fourth vow of service.

The unique gift of consecrated life"Life consecrated through profession of the evangelical counsels is a stable form of living, in which the faithful follow Christ more closely under the action of the Holy Spirit, and are totally dedicated to God, who is supremely loved. By a new and special title they are dedicated to seek the perfection of charity in the service of God's Kingdom, for the honor of God, the building up of the Church and the salvation of the world. They are a splendid sign in the Church, as they foretell the heavenly glory" (Canon 573, 1).

You are right~This is radical~living religious life as it was intended ;)

FYI--They are memebers of the Institute on Religious Life (IRL):

www.religiouslife.com

IRL was founded by John Hardon SJ. Surprise, surpries. All those orders are faithful, flourishing and in, oh, habits.

Anonymous said...

Burkas, right?

Christina Reyes said...

no, given the fact that the "leadership group" plans to have new age guru Barbara Marx Hubbard address their assembly, one might say they don't differ from Catholics in politics, but in dogma.

IF anyone bothered to google Hubbard's website, she and her group are planning to evolve to a new plane of evolution this December, and you too can join them if you buy her tapes.

Such things are familiar to those of us who work late at night and listen to Coast To Coast Am or similar conspiracy/ufo sites, but could I suggest that the sister leadership group is (how can I say this nicely?) nuts...or to use the technical term, in a folie de deux...

Has anyone bothered to poll the ordinary sisters sitting in nursing homes about this? Most sisters have already given their judgement by leaving these orders to become laypeople...