CNS STORY: Assembly calls women religious to be bold in determining direction

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CNS Story:

LCWR-ASSEMBLY Aug-7-2007 (880 words) xxxn

Assembly calls women religious to be bold in determining direction

By Catholic News Service

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (CNS) -- Women religious gathered at the Aug. 1-4 assembly of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious were called to be bold in analyzing and determining the direction of religious life.

Dominican Sister Laurie Brink in her keynote address reminded her audience that when religious life first emerged and again after the Second Vatican Council it was directed to the edges of society, "which were in desperate need of our compassionate attention. So it is to the margins that religious life must again move, in order to be true to its original and renewed impetus toward holiness."

Also during the assembly in Kansas City, the 750 leaders of U.S. religious communities in attendance approved a resolution calling for members to promote legislation to preserve and renew wetlands and coastal regions and strengthen Louisiana's levees.

A second resolution they approved promotes debt cancellation in developing countries, especially through participation in a 40-day "rolling fast" in September and October promoted by the Jubilee USA Network.

The theme of the assembly was "The Next Frontier: Religious Life on the Edge of Tomorrow."

In her keynote speech, Sister Laurie, an assistant professor of biblical studies at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, suggested possible ways religious orders may reshape themselves, ranging from accepting their demise with dignity and grace to aggressively seeking to reconcile with some of the forces that have contributed to their diminishing numbers and changing roles.

"We have lost our prophetic place on the margins, having gravitated toward the middle of society and fallen off the edge of the church," she said.

Other options she proffered included acquiescing to others' expectations of what religious women should do and "sojourning in a land not yet known," or seeking new directions altogether.

Each of the directions has biblical foundations, she said, but voiced her preference for "reconciliation for the sake of the mission."

"If there is to be a future for women religious that upholds our dignity as reflections of the divine equal to that of our brothers, respects our baptismal promises and honors our commitment to the mission of Jesus," said Sister Laurie, "we must first be reconciled with the institutional church. Such an effort will cost us dearly."

She said that for the last 30 years women religious have slowly removed themselves from the inner circles of the church, because "we have tired of the condescension and we have opted for ministry outside the church."

Women religious are angry, she said, "not about the Eucharist itself -- but about the ecclesial deafness that refuses to hear the call of the Spirit summoning not only celibate males, but married men and women to serve at the table of the Lord."

That has helped put religious women's orders "on the verge of extinction," she said, because in removing themselves from church circles they "failed to recognize when we were no longer needed as a work force that perhaps the Spirit had a new call for us."

Sisters are in "the awkward position between the laity and the clergy," she said. As professionals within the church, "we are the best ones to extend a hand of unity and forgiveness," she said. "I'm not naive. I expect that hand will be bitten on more than one occasion, or at least ignored. But that doesn't deny that the Spirit of God has strategically placed us at this crossroads."

Sister Laurie said congregations that take such a path will need congregationwide commitment as well as "an appropriate attitude of openness, a deep and continual prayer life and formal training in theology, Scripture and ecclesiology as well as methods of peacemaking and reconciliation."

She said if religious orders are immobilized by indecision or unwillingness to take defining steps, others will define who and what they are.

"Not every sister will agree with you," she told the orders' leaders. "But it is your holy task to provide vision and direction for your congregation. Make the hard choices."

In another speech, Sister Mary Dacey, councilor of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Philadelphia and outgoing LCWR president, also touched on the difficult choices women's religious orders are facing.

At a time of diminishing numbers and aging membership, "we face a subtle temptation to turn inward, to focus on our own needs and self-preservation," she said.

While providing for the care of aging members is necessary, "if our own survival, especially our institutional survival, takes precedence over our mission and ministry, we have already determined our future," she said.

If religious are called to be prophetic, to face frontiers and live on the edge, said Sister Mary, then leaders "must say the truth that others cannot hear, you must articulate the hope that cannot be imagined."

Also during the assembly, the LCWR presented its outstanding leadership award to Benedictine Sister Joan Chittister, an author, lecturer and human rights and peace advocate. Members elected as conference president Sister J. Lora Dambroski, provincial minister of the U.S. province of the Sisters of St. Francis of the Providence of God, and they re-elected as secretary Franciscan Sister Jeanne Bessette, councilor of the Sisters of St. Francis of Joliet, Ill.

The LCWR has about 1,500 members who represent 67,000 sisters.

END

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