Author Topic: LCWR (Read 3338 times)

poche · « **Reply #15 on:** December 04, 2014, 04:59:33 AM »

On at least one front, the Vatican's perceived war against America's Catholic nuns may have reached a peace settlement.

On Dec. 16 at the Vatican, top Catholic church officials and three American nuns, including one from Michigan, will hold a press conference to publicly reveal the final report of a five-year investigation of congregations of Catholic sisters in the U.S., the Rev. Thomas Rosica, a Vatican spokesman told the Free Press.

The inquiry of nuns, known as an Apostolic Visitation, sparked a vast outcry by many American Catholics, who viewed it as an attack on the workhorses of the Catholic church, the women who taught and ministered to generations of Catholics and help run parishes and social outreach programs to society's poor and marginalized.

Rosica, president of Windsor's Assumption University, said he could not divulge contents of the report, but said it should allay the fears of many Catholic sisters about the investigation.

"It will hopefully be a very positive message for women religious in the United States," Rosica said Tuesday, after he spoke at Detroit's Catholic Cristo Rey High School, where he received hundreds of letters from students inviting Pope Francis to visit Detroit in 2015.

The investigation began in 2009 during the papacy of Pope Benedict XVI when the Vatican's Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life sent teams to mother houses across the country, including the Adrian Dominicans in southeastern Michigan, to quiz them about their practices and beliefs.

"There were a lot of unfounded fears," about the process, said Rosica. He said the report will be made public online and that he expects the Vatican's communication office to formally announce next week about the Dec. 16 conference.

Also on Tuesday, the Vatican's Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life sent out invitations to representatives of American sisters based in Rome for the Dec. 16 conference.

The investigation's conclusion coincides with a declaration by Pope Francis last week declaring the opening of the "Year of Consecrated Life," to put a special emphasis on those who become nuns, priests and brothers.

Still left unresolved, however, is another Vatican controversy involving American nuns.

The Apostolic Visitation report is separate from the ongoing controversy regarding another Vatican office's censure of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), an organization representing the leaders of many progressive congregations of nuns who've been criticized for not doing enough to promote Catholic teachings against gαy marriage, contraception and abortion.

"I have nothing to say" about the LCWR, said Rosica, who will help conduct the Dec. 16 announcement. "It's a completely different office."

But issues surrounding the LCWR controversy can't help but be in observers' minds when the Vatican holds its press conference on Dec. 16. That's because of the American nuns who will be at the Vatican to participate.

The press conference will include Sister Sharon Holland, who helps lead the Monroe-based Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (IHM) congregation. But Holland is also the current president of the LCWR, and is dealing with a Vatican-appointed panel of bishops empowered now to vet the LCWR's writings and speakers at future gatherings.

Holland has experience as a Vatican insider. A church canon lawyer, Holland was one of the highest-ranking women at the Vatican, beginning work in 1988 at the same office which ordered the Apostolic Visitation shortly after she retired in 2009. As a section leader in the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, Holland counseled orders of priests, nuns and missionaries on church law. Holland declined Wednesday to comment.

Holland will be joined at the Vatican press conference, said Rosica, by Mother Agnes Mary Donovan, who leads the Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious. Donovan's organization represents leaders of more traditional congregations and has not clashed with the Vatican. In Michigan, some members congregations include the Felician Sisters of Livonia and the Religious Sisters of Mercy in Alma.

Mother Mary Clare Millea, who led the Apostolic Visitation inquiry for the Vatican, also will be present, said Rosica.

The press conference will include the top two leaders for the Vatican's Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, Cardinal João Braz de Aviz and Archbishop José Rodríguez Carballo.It oversees governance issues for orders of priests and nuns around the world. The Apostolic Visitation investigation began in 2009, under a now-retired leader, Cardinal Franc Rode, who suggested that some congregations had become too liberal and abandoned traditional religious lifestyles.

The process asked American nuns to fill out detailed questionnaires about their practices and beliefs, and sent teams of investigators to a variety of congregations, both traditional and progressive, across the country.

Rosica called Sister Sharon Holland "a great, great woman of faith." And he said that Sister Mary Clare Millea, who led the Apostolic Visitation, is "one of the great women of the church."

Rosica paid tribute to the nuns – members of the Sisters of St. Joseph and the Religious of the Sacred Heart, who taught him when he was growing up in Rochester, N.Y. Rosica is a member of the Basilian order of priests, who locally sponsor Novi Detroit Catholic Central High School and co-sponsor Cristo Rey high.

"I can't imagine my religious life, my priesthood, without the presence of women religious," said Rosica.

Rosica said he was among the people who visited various U.S. congregations as part of the investigation.

"It was one of the most moving experiences of my life. I owe my vocation to the presence of sisters in my life,'' said Rosica. He added that meeting so many sisters across the country was also a "very positive way of saying thank you" for the impact nuns had on his choice to become a priest.

http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2014/12/03/american-catholic-nuns-investigation/19856767/

It sounds like they are going to praise the sisters and they are going to criticize the LCWR.

poche · « **Reply #16 on:** December 17, 2014, 12:57:25 AM »

Expressing “profound gratitude” for the “dedicated and selfless service of women religious,” the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life has issued its long-awaited Final Report on the Apostolic Visitation of Institutes of Women Religious in the United States of America.

“This Congregation asks the members of each institute to evaluate their actual practice of liturgical and common prayer,” the report stated as it called upon religious institutes to engage in further dialogue and self-assessment. “We ask them to discern what measures need to be taken to further foster the sisters’ intimate relationship with Christ and a healthy communal spirituality based on the Church’s sacramental life and sacred Scripture.”

“This Dicastery calls upon all religious institutes to carefully review their spiritual practices and ministry to assure that these are in harmony with Catholic teaching about God, creation, the Incarnation and the Redemption,” the report continued.

Under the direction of Mother Mary Clare Millea, the visitation took place from 2009 to 2012 and involved 341 institutes.

78% of superiors general “voluntarily engaged in personal dialogue with the Visitator,” Archbishop José Rodríguez Carballo, the Congregation’s secretary, said at a press conference.

“We are aware that the Apostolic Visitation was met with apprehension by some women religious as well as the decision, on the part of some institutes, not to collaborate fully in the process,” said Cardinal João Braz de Aviz, the Congregation’s prefect. “While this was a painful disappointment for us, we use this present opportunity to express our willingness to engage in respectful and fruitful dialogue with those institutes which were not fully compliant with the Visitation process.”

The report acknowledged the declining number of women religious and suggested that the decision of some institutes not to adopt the wearing of a habit is a barrier to religious vocations:

Today, the median age of apostolic women religious in the United States is in the mid-to-late 70s. The current number of approximately 50,000 apostolic women religious is a decline of about 125,000 since the mid-1960s, when the numbers of religious in the United States had reached their peak.

It is important to note, however, that the very large numbers of religious in the 1960s was a relatively short-term phenomenon that was not typical of the experience of religious life through most of the nation’s history. The steady growth in the number of women religious peaked dramatically from the late 1940s through the early 1960s, after which it began to decline as many of the sisters who had entered during the peak years left religious life, the remaining sisters aged and considerably fewer women joined religious institutes …

Many sisters expressed great concern during the Apostolic Visitation for the continuation of their charism and mission, because of the numerical decline in their membership … Vocation and formation personnel interviewed noted that candidates often desire the experience of living in formative communities and many wish to be externally recognizable as consecrated women. This is a particular challenge in institutes whose current lifestyle does not emphasize these aspects of religious life.
At the press conference, the heads of both the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, which was critical of the visitation, and the Conference of Major Superiors of Women Religious, whose members emphasize fidelity to the Magisterium, spoke.

Describing the visitation’s purpose as “troubling,” Sister Sharon Holland, the president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, said that “today we are looking at an affirmative and realistic report which, we know, is based on the study of written responses and on countless hours of attentive listening.”

Sister Agnes Mary Donovan, the coordinator of the Conference of Major Superiors of Women Religious, said that “within the 125 communities of CMSWR members, nearly 20% (almost 1,000) of the sisters are currently in initial formation (in the years prior to final vows). The average age of sisters is 53 years -- well below the overall trend.”

“There is cause for wonder, here, and gratitude,” she added. “Our culture can be quite antagonistic towards the faith, and skeptical at best towards religious life, and yet from this milieu the Lord is surprising women with His love, His mercy, and the possibility of a new and beautiful life consecrated by public vows.”

http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=23528

CathInfo.com

Author Topic: LCWR (Read 3338 times)

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LCWR