Sisters Of St. John

[Domine ut Videam]

I've heard that there is still hope of avoiding a break.

Let us all pray that the meetings in October may be led by the Holy Spirit. I know I will be praying that for a peace-filled and smooth reconciliation as someone who might be entering into discernment with this order in the USA.

[sistersintigo]

[img]http://www.vicariatusurbis.org/Beatificazione/Francais/Monasteres/Cenves/images/WebFormat/Cenves001.jpg[/img]

Kneeling before JPII is Soeur Alix, the co-foundress with Pere Marie Dominique Philippe OP of the Contemplative Sisters of Saint Jean.


Photos of Soeur Marthe are more scarce. I failed in my attempt to link to the following photo. The most I can offer is to link to the homily page, in which the photo is embedded.
[url="http://www.delamoureneclats.fr/spip/spip.php?article147"]Marthe, "Marie-Do', Alix[/url]
In the embedded photo, left to right: a Frere de Saint-Jean, name withheld; Soeur Marthe, novice-mistress; Pere Marie Dominique Philippe, OP; Soeur Alix, co-foundress.
Pere Philippe, for those who are unaware, has been dead several years. I could find no date on the photograph. Careful study of the French homily here will disclose that it was preached, and printed online, well after Pere Philippe had died, as the homilist speaks explicitly of Pere Philippe in heaven watching the aspirants being clothed.
So it is a reasonable guess that the photograph is many years old, especially if, as is stated elsewhere, Soeur Alix is now well into her eighties in age.

Edited August 29, 2010 by sistersintigo

[Sister Andrew]

It's a time to pray for our Sisters.

[sistersintigo]

About the French press and the focus on the contemplative sisters of St Jean. This post is no translation. The following remarks are my opinions based on what I have recently read in French; maybe in a separate post I can put up a link or a reference. If my opinions, and my style of writing, are not to your taste, take this or leave it.

The question is: Are the media making a mountain out of a molehill? Are they following this situation simply to make a profit in their competitive business? Is it more practical, regarding a story that has literally run for years at this point, to be skeptical than to be naive? Each reader has their own personal experience of being disillusioned or shocked, of having their emotions manipulated by some public disclosure. I'm going to let that question stand.

The more closely I scrutinize the diocesan bishop who is expected to take this congregation of women in hand, the more he earns my respect. "Philippe Cardinal Barbarin" is in fact walking a razor's edge between discretion and transparency. Through my eyes, he is walking it skillfully, regardless of disagreement on either side. On one side, you have journalists and editorials in the French mass media, arguing that Barbarin is not sufficiently transparent and is concealing too much. On the other side, you need look no further than this thread, at the posts therein which sympathize with the vowed religious, and which defend the necessity of discretion. No matter what he does or says, or in what manner or with what justification he chooses to do or say it, the Cardinal is going to offend people; and in the case of this situation, some of those people are deeply, intensely emotional about their position.

Historically, regarding the multiple congregations that are called "the community of St Jean," the scrutiny from outside has progressed in stages.
These stages could be divided more than one way. For example, the distinction of the founder and his own participation. The Dominican friar, Pere Marie Dominique Philippe OP, who founded or co-founded each congregation according to a Charism of John the evangelist, has only been deceased for a short time, it is less than ten years ago.
So, it could be said: "what happened while Pere Philippe was still alive;" followed by, "what happened after Pere Philippe died."

When Pere Philippe was still alive, the diocese of Lyon had a series of bishops, naturally. I don't have the exact timing of Cardinal Barbarin's appointment. But when Pere Philippe died, he himself was quite advanced in years; while Cardinal Barbarin is one of the youngest amongst the cardinals, and even for a bishop he is relatively young.
If I get this wrong, do correct me. But it appears that Lyon had a different bishop in place when the Freres/Brothers of St Jean came under fire, when Pere Philippe was still in the middle of the situation; I can't even recall his name but he seems to have been the bishop whom Barbarin would one day replace. This bishop took it upon himself to do an unenviable thing: after a thorough review of the congregation of men, the bishop contributed to a decision -- from Rome? -- to officially tell the congregation's founder, Pere Philippe, to back off from his own creation, to literally put a little distance between himself and the friars, and to stop smothering them!

A "Golias" feature article this year, in hindsight, observes that said diocesan bishop handled the crisis with the brothers, and their aging founder, firmly and well; the author then goes on to say, that the then-prelate chose not to look into the congregation of contemplative sisters at that point in time. So it appears that while the founder of the Community of St Jean still lived, the contemplative sisters were not closely scrutinized as they have been in the past few years.

Today, of course, what has been done cannot be undone. The St Jean congregation of contemplative sisters have been the subject of feature stories in magazines and newspapers for over a year. The French press could get only so much information, and no more, out of the Catholic authorities involved; in the media coverage, there is only too frequent resort to the quoting of sources who insisted on confidentiality and anonymity, where the diocesan position was concerned.

What appears to have progressed over time is this: once Pere Philippe succumbed to natural causes of death, and the initial period of mourning and memorial, with the inevitable cover stories on the magazines and the front-page headlines, came and went, then there was genuine agitation over the sisters of St Jean. That the media is regarded with suspicion when this happens, cannot be avoided.

Today this crisis has one collective group of people who are themselves fiercely and publicly divided between sides. This group is the families, relatives, loved ones, and fellow Catholics who are outside the St Jean Community, with ties to vowed religious within the community. It surprises no one that the families with a perceived grievance toward the religious congregation, on behalf of those they love, would not only persist in their petitions to Cardinal Barbarin, but would go so far as to air their grievances with statements to the press. The counter-response from family members defending the congregation has become emotional, partisan, and public as well. This defending side of the relatives and friends went so far as to set up a website (the URL was given in the magazine; I failed in every attempt to pull the website up online), taking Cardinal Barbarin to task for removing the former novice-mistress and publicly declaring that the old guard ought to be restored to power in the congregation's general council. Not only within the congregation of vowed religious, but beyond its members, in the world of parishes, families, dioceses, provinces, the division and animosity of the conflict is pitting people against each other.

This is not to deny that the mass media contribute to the crisis, but it is hard to minimize what has happened.

[sistersintigo]

My apologies for factual errors, here is a correction for one mistake.
In France, the Contemplative Sisters of St Jean have their novitiate and motherhouse at Saint Jodard, in the diocese of Lyon. However the Freres/Brothers of St Jean are centered elsewhere, in the diocese of Autun, which is north of Lyon and closer to Paris (possibly Paray-le-Monial?). My report oversimplified the diocesan oversight of the congregations.
When during founder Pere Philippe's final years, the Brothers of St Jean came under scrutiny, it was the diocesan bishop of Autun who did the dirty work; one good reason that the Contemplative Sisters did not get pulled into the investigation, was that their establishment is located in a nearby but separate French diocese.....I'm so sorry.

[quote name='sistersintigo' timestamp='1283193922' post='2165499']
When Pere Philippe was still alive, the diocese of Lyon had a series of bishops, naturally. I don't have the exact timing of Cardinal Barbarin's appointment. But when Pere Philippe died, he himself was quite advanced in years; while Cardinal Barbarin is one of the youngest amongst the cardinals, and even for a bishop he is relatively young.
If I get this wrong, do correct me. But it appears that Lyon had a different bishop in place when the Freres/Brothers of St Jean came under fire, when Pere Philippe was still in the middle of the situation; I can't even recall his name but he seems to have been the bishop whom Barbarin would one day replace. This bishop took it upon himself to do an unenviable thing: after a thorough review of the congregation of men, the bishop contributed to a decision -- from Rome? -- to officially tell the congregation's founder, Pere Philippe, to back off from his own creation, to literally put a little distance between himself and the friars, and to stop smothering them!

A "Golias" feature article this year, in hindsight, observes that said diocesan bishop handled the crisis with the brothers, and their aging founder, firmly and well; the author then goes on to say, that the then-prelate chose not to look into the congregation of contemplative sisters at that point in time. So it appears that while the founder of the Community of St Jean still lived, the contemplative sisters were not closely scrutinized as they have been in the past few years.