Our friend Robert Mickens, Rome correspondent for the London Tablet, sent us this news brief:
ROME -- The official that initiated the Vatican's investigation of women religious in the United States admitted this week that the enquiry was fueled by concerns that American nuns had become overly secularized and influenced by feminism.
Cardinal Franc Rodé told Vatican Radio on Wednesday that his office decided to launch the investigation -- officially called an apostolic visitation -- after hearing "critical voices from the United States". The cardinal, who is prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, indicated that "an important representative of the Church in the United States" was among the critics.
He said the representative -- whose identity was not revealed -- had "alerted" him "to some irregularities or deficiencies" in the way the religious sisters were living. "Above all, you could speak of a certain secularist mentality that has spread among these religious families, perhaps even a certain 'feminist' spirit," the cardinal said.
Cardinal Rodé's comments, which were given in an Italian radio interview, were sharper than a more carefully written English-language statement he issued a day earlier as a response to the "many news reports" that have criticized the Vatican visitation. In that text he never mentioned secularism or feminism. He said the purpose of the investigation was to "to identify the signs of hope, as well as concerns, within religious congregations in the United States".
Cardinal Rodé on Wednesday said the final decision to hold an apostolic visitation was taken in September 2008 during a symposium on religious life at Stonehill College in Easton, Massachusetts. Nearly 600 people attended that event, including some bishops, priests, lay people and religious. Many of the speakers were critical of develops that have appeared in religious orders in the forty some years since the Second Vatican Council.
"There a desire was expressed to look for a remedy to this situation [of women's religious life], which many say is is not as good as that of past decades," the cardinal said in this week's interview.
For more background on the Stonehill College symposium and its relation to the current apostolic visitation, see Tom Fox's article at NCR: http://ncronline.org/news/women/stonehill-symposium-played-role-women-religious-study --Robert Mickens
Do you not know any families? or close-knit groups of friends?
Can you imagine a loving family member who would NOT scrutinize the activity and health of other members of that family, (specially when things are PATENTLY not going well for that other member)?
Only addicts and adolescents whine, "You don't trust me!" when one tries to intervene when they are doing themselves an injury.
You rhetorically ask what Blessed Theresa of Calucutta's (Mother Theresa's) secret was, but you fail to compare her sacrifice to the lack of sacrifice of those who sit in judgment of the many women who do not quite attain her level of self-denial in the service of God. It seems quite out of place for these men to be examining the mentality of the many women who do sacrifice more than they who sit in their pretty robes indulging in religious ritual in Rome.
There is a Sister who works in my parish, a wonderful woman, who belongs to one of the congregations most likely feeling the heat right now. She never wears make-up and drives a used car (although it is a later-model used car as I would expect for someone who has to travel long distances). Her clothes are well-made and attractive but not flashy. She resides with one other religious in an apartment, which I have never seen, but I presume it is fairly modest. This is her lifestyle, and it is simple as it should be. Nevertheless she and the other Sisters in her congregation live in the lap of luxury compared to 95% of the world. I would never suggest to her that her sacrifices and way of living her vow of poverty are not as "good" as Mother Theresa's or Cardinal Rode's. The cross is given to each of us in a different way, but we all must carry the cross.
When you begin any phrase with the words "Given his age," and then proceed to make assumptions about someone's values and attitudes, it is roughly the same as opening up with "Given his skin color." People recognize the latter is wrong, but ageism skates under...