In the talk, she outlines several ways in which religious communities are changing, different choices that are made. Some accept death and prepare for it. Others accede to what seems to be the current Catholic zeitgeist, which, she notes dismissively, is all about turning back the clock. Jack links to the talk and excerpts the points, and hones in on #3:
The dynamic option for Religious Life, which I am calling, Sojourning, is much more difficult to discuss, since it involves moving beyond the Church, even beyond Jesus. A sojourning congregation is no longer ecclesiastical. It has grown beyond the bounds of institutional religion. Its search for the Holy may have begun rooted in Jesus as the Christ, but deep reflection, study and prayer have opened it up to the spirit of the Holy in all of creation. Religious titles, institutional limitations, ecclesiastical authorities no longer fit this congregation, which in most respects is Post-Christian.
When religious communities embraced the spirit of renewal in the 1970s, they took seriously that the world was no longer the enemy, that a sense of ecumenism required encountering the holy "other," and that the God of Jesus might well be the God of Moses and the God of Mohammed. The works of Thomas Merton encouraged an exploration of the nexus between Eastern and Western religious practices. The emergence of the women's movement with is concomitant critique of religion invited women everywhere to use a hermeneutical lens of suspicion when reading the androcentric Scriptures and the texts of the Tradition. With a new lens, women also began to see the divine within nature, the value and importance of the cosmos, and that the emerging new cosmology encouraged their spirituality and fed their souls.So there you go. And I say...if you're going to be Post-Christian, then be Post-Christian. I don't say that with snark. It's just reality. If you've moved on...move on step out from the protective mantle of identity that gives you cachet: that of "Catholic nun."
As one sister described it, "I was rooted in the story of Jesus, and it remains at my core, but I've also moved beyond Jesus." The Jesus narrative is not the only or the most important narrative for these women. They still hold up and reverence the values of the Gospel, but they also recognize that these same values are not solely the property of Christianity. Buddhism, Native American spirituality, Judaism, Islam and others hold similar tenets for right behavior within the community, right relationship with the earth and right relationship with the Divine. With these insights come a shattering or freeing realization--depending on where you stand. Jesus is not the only son of God. Salvation is not limited to Christians. Wisdom is found in the traditions of the Church as well as beyond it.
Sojourners have left the religious home of their fathers and mothers and are traveling in a foreign land, mapping their way as they go. They are courageous women among us. And very well may provide a glimpse into the new thing that God is bringing about in our midst. Who's to say that the movement beyond Christ is not, in reality, a movement into the very heart of God? A movement the ecclesiastical system would not recognize. A wholly new way of being holy that is integrative, non-dominating, and inclusive. But a whole new way that is also not Catholic Religious Life. The Benedictine Women of Madison are the most current example I can name. Their commitment to ecumenism lead them beyond the exclusivity of the Catholic Church into a new inclusivity, where all manner of seeking God is welcomed. They are certainly religious women, but they are no longer women religious as it is defined by the Roman Catholic Church. They choose as a congregation to step outside the Church in order to step into a greater sense of holiness. Theirs was a choice of integrity, insight and courage.
I have never been one - in case you're a new reader - who makes a game of mocking women religious of any sort, no matter how they dress or do their hair or cover up their hair or not. My question is always about integrity and exploiting the historical memory of the communities you serve and who support you to engage in agendas that actually betray that trust and are purely your own. To put it bluntly: I have worked with more than my share of religious women who, during John Paul II's papacy repeatedly expressed their hope in diocesan-level meetings that the Pope would be dying soon and things would get better and that the Catechism was dangerous ("We don't want people to get their hands on it, because then they'll be comparing our programs to what's in it" - a quote.), and then turned around and disparaged traditional devotions and the desire of parents that their children simply be taught the Church's teachings in schools and religious ed programs.
MIchael once had to send a book for an imprimatur. (This is done by the diocese in which the author resides.) The book was one about nurturing faith in young children, and emphasized, as one would do with young children, the concrete, emphasizing the importance of things - beads, statues, water, pictures...and the value of teaching young children prayers and so on.
The book was sent back with a terse note from the religious sister in the diocese who had read it, "That's all pre-Vatican II. We don't teach those things anymore."
Well, evidently, the purpose of the imprimatur had been lost in translation, the purpose being not whether you enjoy the content or not, but whether it is contrary to Catholic doctrine or not. That said...this was the woman religious in charge of religious education for that diocese (who was not the person to give the imprimatur anyway, of course), and who had been for years.
One could multiply examples - and expand the equation by adding laity and clergy to the list as well - all of us are tempted, when we're given power, to make our agendas the focus, rather than serving the whole.
But my point is that what seems to be coming to a head is too many communities of religous women in this country playing both sides of the coin: Playing up their role and identity as Catholic sisters who did (indeed) contribute much to the growth of the Church in the United States and live a unique, consecrated life worthy of respect, but then seeking to remake the institution according to their own agenda - in a way that would probably horrify the women on whose laurels they rest and whose historical memory they are exploiting.
Harsh, yes. And there are many, many MANY good sisters out there. Not all of whom wear traditional habits or are part of the "new" traditional orders. Lots of women who have been faithfully serving Christ for decades, and who are as probably more pained by the direction of their communities than any of us could ever imagine.
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With all due sympathy to "Chris", I'd remind all of us that on the internet there is absolutely no way of knowing who anyone is, whether what they write about themselves is factual or a work of fiction constructed for the purpose of making one's critics look like heartless louts.
I don't think this post was about ordinary Catholics in the pews, Chris. Amy made that clear several times. People in the pews have all sorts of troubles.
It's about people who LEAD AND TEACH IN THE CHURCH'S NAME. And who have no use for the Church - who would, for example, tell you outright that your act of going to confession was nice if it was therapeutic for you, but probably pointless other than that. Who would essentially tell you that there was nothing of value or objective truth or salvific value in your Catholic faith or Jesus Christ, but then turn around and play the role of Catholic sister/father/former altar boy to the hilt, and to their own benefit.
So if your story is true - if this is who you are - know that there is not a soul here who doesn't have troubles and questions.
The point is that as Catholics, we come to Christ with those troubles and questions, and those who are the subject of this post are teaching us that there is no reason to go to Christ - that they, themselves, have moved beyond him.
You haven't. And no one here thinks that.
Dearest Chris,
Christ, who said "I have come to seek and save the lost," does not hold you to be unredeemably evil. You accuse yourself of sins and of having alienated God: God awaits you, with His forgiveness, in repentance.
Trust. Ask Christ for forgiveness for what afflicts your conscience. Ask Christ, through St. Michael, to protect you from any malignant spirit.
Go to a priest. Tell him what you wrote here -- about your fear of alienating God and about the 'spirits.' Ask Christ to help you through that priest.
Make an act of contrition, heart-felt, and trust that God has already forgiven you. Your part, then, is to go to Confession so that this forgiveness may be complete.
God desires not the death of the sinner but that he be converted and live. God desires you, Chris. You must believe this.
Nothing -- I repeat -- _nothing_ puts someone beyond God's love nad forgiveness unless that person refuses to ask for that love and forgiveness.
Chris, listen to me. You are not lost, so long as you call to God.
In the Lord,
George
Dear Chris,
I read your post with interest because my best and longest-standing friend is a woman with schizoaffective disorder. She has shared with me time and again the struggles she's had with being sensitive to what others cannot see or hear, and how difficult imagination is for her. I've always admired her for keeping her faith through many dark times (including hospitalizations), and how moving towards God in Christ, not away from him, has been her key to a stable and successful life.
Don't give up, and don't ever think it will simplify your life to leave God behind. So don't neglect the sacraments. I don't hear in your post you've anything to confess...but the blessing of absolution can be so healing.
Take care and I'll be thinking of you.
Blessings,
Rose
+J.M.J+
Is it really such a good idea for us to come down so hard on a progressive Catholic like Chris? Look, I disagree with the progressives as much as anyone here, but basically telling someone "You're not a REAL Catholic" - what right have we to say that? If Chris is baptized Catholic and not excommunicated or in some formal schism or such, then isn't s/he most likely a Catholic, even if s/he holds heterodox notions?
Isn't it possible that many, many uninformed Catholics throughout the centuries have had a defective understanding of the Faith, perhaps throughout their entire lives, but died in communion with the Church and made it to Heaven? Yes, it would have been much better if every single Catholic who ever lived, down to the last illiterate peasant, had a thorough comprehension of Catholic theology on the level of a grad student and fully assented to all the official teachings of the Church. Sadly, that's just not the reality, even today among lots of Catholics around they world. And yet, many of those uninformed Catholics with their heterodox notions and borderline superstitious ways were able to receive the Anointing of the Sick at the end of their lives and made it to Heaven, because they remained within the Church who clasps even sinners to her bosom in the hopes of saving some of them. Salvation came to these people by grace, not through knowledge.
I'm not saying I agree with the progressives, and I certainly appreciate the problem when self-styled "post-Christian" nuns use their position in the Church to lead others astray by saying "You can still be a good Catholic and believe X, Y and Z!" I encountered such teachers in my Catholic high school and fully recognize both the deception involved and the ugly fruits of such lies. But I don't know whether Chris has such a position or intends to use it, so I don't know whether the threat is the same.
Should we cast persons like this out of Christ's Church, outside of which there is not salvation? Do we really have the right to make them "walk the plank" off the Barque of Peter? Isn't that what we do when we say things like, "You really are no longer a Catholic"? Wouldn't it be better to "correct that one in a gentle spirit, looking to yourself, so that you also may not be tempted" (Galatians 6:1)?
I admit, I've engaged is the same kind of sanctimonious triumphalism on these blogs many times over the last seven years or so. I regret it now. I regret the possibility that some may have been driven out of the Church in part by my words - mea maxima culpa. How many bruised reeds have I callously broken, without even realizing it? Self-righteousness is a sin even for those in the true Church.
In Jesu et Maria,
One thing that I have not really seen discussed whenever the topic of dissent from Church teaching in the name of "inclusiveness" or "liberation from the patriarchy" is highlighted, is the effect that it has on men, and I think especially laymen. While examples like this Sinsinawa Dominican nun may be rarer and rarer as time passes, unfortunately her philosophy has chronically infected the Church with the result being that men, inasmuch as they have a manly nature, are deemed to be not really needed in the Church.
I realize that there is something that goes against the grain by my saying that someone needs to defend the men of the Church. In general, most men don't like to acknowledge they need defending. Perhaps it is helpful to look at it this way: Men are capable of putting up an adequate defense when they are in a fair fight. But men of our day have been pulled from the fight, and are now being devoured in an abyss of irrelevance. We see this in all of Western society, with strong and painful permeations into the Church.
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