Joan Chittister Recommends Lcwr Secularize

[Skinzo]

[quote name='Papist' timestamp='1336908844' post='2430205']
[url="http://www.ncregister.com/blog/tim-drake/when-reverend-mothers-cease-being-motherly"]http://www.ncregiste...-being-motherly[/url]

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[/quote]

A very good article especially this quote:
"
Pope Benedict XVI, in [url="http://blog.adw.org/2010/12/the-pope-reflects-on-mystery-of-iniquity-and-the-need-for-the-church-to-be-sober-about-it/"][i]Light of the World[/i][/url] recalls that after the mid-1960s ecclesiastical penal law was no longer applied.
“The prevailing mentality was that the Church must not be a Church of laws but, rather, a Church of love; she must not punish. Thus the awareness that punishment can be an act of love ceased to exist,” said the Pope in his 2010 interview.


Read more: [url="http://www.ncregister.com/blog/tim-drake/when-reverend-mothers-cease-being-motherly#ixzz1ukYHSGia"]http://www.ncregister.com/blog/tim-drake/when-reverend-mothers-cease-being-motherly#ixzz1ukYHSGia[/url]


S.

[jumpfrog]

I think people are getting confused about what 'secularizing' means in this context. It just means that the LCWR itself, as an organization will simply become a private organization with no canonical standing. This will not affect the canonical standing of individual congregations, communities, or individual religious. It would just mean the LCWR doesn't have any 'official' canonical status with Rome, so they are out the reach of reformers. Of course this doesn't mean they are out of the church or anything like that! No one is proposing some kind of mass apostasy!

As Sr. Marie has mentioned, if this happened it would not really affect individuals or communities in any big way. As a secular organization, the LCWR would still be able to provide the same level of practical support to communities. Goofy conference programing aside, I don't think the main problem is the dissemination of goofy non-Catholic weirdness from the conference. That stuff just makes for eye-catching headlines and a few incredulous laughs. A bigger, more pressing problem is that religious life has become very secluarized, along with the rest of the culture. The leadership probably should have been more focused on this over the years...

As a slightly off-topic aside...

I am not a religious, but I know a number of missionary and parish-working religious here in Korea, where I live and work. Relgious life in Korea is changing with the times, and I imagine that the experience here is something of a replay of what might have happened in North America in the last 30-40 years.

Sisters serve in many areas of social service and parish life, teaching etc, but what happens is that the growing demands start to impinge on their consecrated vocation as women religious. They are expected to put in extremely long hours, which necessarily takes them away from their prayer time and community life. This is especially true, believe it or not, of sisters who work directly for a parish or diocese. There is often little concern or respect shown to their consecrated vocation...they are treated like any other worker, except they are expected to be more docile and less demanding of decent working conditions and basic respect. Secular clergy often have little idea of the demands of religious life...their own life as secular clergy is rather privileged. Clergy are put on pedestals here, but women religious do a huge percentage of the work that is behind parish ministries. Some women get very tired of this kind of BS, and leave their communities. It is extremely tough to live a religious vocation when faced with relentless demands from the secular world, and for some women it is not what they signed up for, and they leave.

Anyway, if you are wondering why some of the leadership of North American women religious seem to be on strange paths, it may be that work demands of their aposolate have eroded their spiritual life, over many years. It may have seemed like a proper trade-off in the moment; less prayer time, but more time in their aposolate. For some, it has perhaps resulted in being spiritually drained, and this has left a void that they have attempted to fill in strange ways, since their core spirituality has been eroded. Maybe they got little support in living their vocation in a secular society, which is what I see happening for some Korean religious now.

my $.50...

[dominicansoul]

I find it interesting how many excuses are made for what is happening to the LCWR. I find it equally interesting in the fact that there are numerous communities who have remained loyal, faithful to the magisterium, and popping at the seams with happy, young vocations, despite all the "terrible treatment" religious women have faced in the Church. The elderly in these orthodox communities who have lived through all the "oppression" of being women in the Church, didn't seem to get the memo to become bitter, angry and heterodox for all the times they were never appreciated.

There are several responses to the reform that I find repeated in interviews with the leaders of the LCWR (and those who support their agenda):

---The all-male dominated clergy "protected" abusive priests and didn't do enough to stop it. How dare they try to reform a group of liberated women!

---X,Y,Z occurred and that is why these religious women have every right to be bitter, angry, mad, heterodox, disobedient, dissidents, pro-choice, rabid

---Lets secularize the organization, that way Rome won't have the power to reform us.

For a group of women religious wanting to be treated with greater respect, none of these seem very mature, educated nor charitable responses.


...I find it hard to take them seriously at all.

[dominicansoul]

[url="http://www.catholicworldreport.com/Item/692/postchristian_sisters.aspx"]http://www.catholicw...an_sisters.aspx[/url]


This is a good article on the history of the LCWR's dissension...


I'm praying very much for this issue, as it is a matter very close to my heart. I also know a few sisters who are "trapped" in LCWR communities who are tired of the "prayer" services with sticks, stones, rocks, earth, yoga, hindu meditations, etc. These sisters don't have much say in what is happening to their communities, because they have no authoritative positions. They are a very very small minority, definitely not the majority. When they do speak up, they are labeled "uncharitable trouble-makers," and are bullied into silence...

I also have another acquaintance, a very young lady who actually entered one of these communities with teh hope to reform them. That is not something that is recommended for anyone to do. You don't enter a wayward community to change them. Most likely they change you, or, you are subjected to mental anguish for going against the very nature of your beliefs of authentic religious life... last I heard, she was about to take first vows and was asking to wear the habit. I believe they were willing to allow it. My prayers for her and for others who feel the need to take the "bull by the horns" so to speak and bring reform and healling in the Church...

Edited May 13, 2012 by dominicansoul

[mantellata]

Edited May 13, 2012 by mantellata

[Sister Marie]

[quote name='dominicansoul' timestamp='1336677096' post='2429506']
Its not about you, Sister, as much as it is my concern with most of the posts concerrning the LCWR. Anyone who shares legitimate concerns about their heterodoxy are somehow labeled as not being charitable, nor spreading love. Never have I mentioned that we should yank these sisters by the hair and drag them screaming against their wills to reform. This is probably what they feel like, but the Church isn't doing that. This call for their reform is a very loving charitable action. I know that they don't recognize it for now, but hopefully, with continued prayer, they will see it as it truly is.

When I was a Sister, my community and I watched a mini-series on St. Teresa of Avila. God called her to reform a very laxed Carmelite Order. That was NOT received well at all by the Carmelites! There were riots in the convents by the sisters! It was even worse for the male branches, where the Carmelite reformers were always beaten and even almost killed! So I can understand the sensitivies that pervade throughout the boards when it comes to such a subject.

I, myself am never right. God is always right. His righteousness is what saves souls. His righteousness is what lives and breathes through our Holy Mother Church, and it is His righteousness working through his ministers that brings souls to salvation.

I believe the Holy Spirit chose Bishop Sartain to head this reform, and he, along with the LCWR are in great need of prayers. I pray that the Holy Spirit possess all involved and that His will be done.
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DS, thank you for responding to me. I'm sorry I didn't respond sooner but I was away. I hope that when you say "anyone who shares legitimate concerns... is labeled as not being charitable" you are not referring to me labeling you. I was not labeling you as uncharitable and so if you feel that I was I apologize. I thought made it clear in my first post that my comments were being made in light of what I have read around the internet, not just on this website.

These are just general comments, not particularly to DS.

Anytime I have labelled something as uncharitable it hasn't been about [i]what[/i] a person said but [i]how [/i]they said it (and again I'm talking all over the internet, not just here). There are ways that we express ourselves that are helpful and ways that are unhelpful and there are a lot of unhelpful things being said around the internet right now. There is a lot of name-calling and a lot of demeaning comments being made about these sisters and that is wrong - no matter what they have done - making fun of them, making them the butt of a joke, and calling them names doesn't help anyone and it is not fitting for a Christian. On here, more than anything else, I've been trying to caution against it because I've seen it happen on here too before... a smart flip comment here, a joke there, an offensive name here... it isn't right and it all adds up into a big party of pharisees who are thanking God that they are right not like the dummies "over there". Again, I'm talking in general not about anyone in particular or any site in particular.

Regardless of your beliefs or mine those sisters are real sisters. They made vows which were accepted by the Church. The way they live right now in their communities is written in their constitutions which have been approved by the Church. If they aren't wearing a habit, its in the constitutions and they have been approved by the Church. If they aren't living together, it is in their constitutions which are approved by the Church. If they don't pray together, it is in their constitutions which were approved by the Church. Why did the Church approve them? I don't know, but if we are truly obedient to the Church that decision should have been respected too. We don't get to pick and choose so when people start saying sisters are disobedient (or even worse, that they aren't real sisters) because they aren't wearing their habits... well it's just not true. For some reason, the authority of the Church approved that choice for that community in the form of their official constitutions. It isn't for you or me to say why or whether they should have.

I was never making excuses for anyone's incorrect theology or behavior either. I thought it was clearly stated in my posts but I'll say it again. I'm trying to understand what happened, along with everyone else, because I can't believe that thousands of women religious sat down and decided one day, "hey, forget the church, let's do our own thing from now on and see what happens." It's too simple. I believe that a lot of factors contributed to where we are now and they are relevant to fixing the situation. These aren't excuses. They are important pieces of what happened to religious life. I think that when looking for solutions to problems it helps to look at the causes and not just the problem itself.

Prayers,
SM

[Papist]

Many, in and outside the Church, were duped by the popular philosophy/psychology of the time. Here is a good article giving a little glimpse, [url="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/kathyschiffer/2012/04/william-coulson-and-the-lcwr-we-overcame-their-traditions-and-their-faith/"]http://www.patheos.com/blogs/kathyschiffer/2012/04/william-coulson-and-the-lcwr-we-overcame-their-traditions-and-their-faith/[/url]

Dr. [color=#000000]Coulson later regrets what he did and discussed the damage to the religious orders in an interview on EWTN, [/color][url="http://www.ewtn.com/library/priests/latinm.txt"]http://www.ewtn.com/library/priests/latinm.txt[/url]