Just a little more for those interested on the “Sisters Report” from the Vatican this morning (which can be read here). (I live-tweeted some at @kathrynlopez.) Mother Mary Clare Millea, who ran the process, outlined some of the main findings of the process:
The Apostolic Visitation provided many opportunities for reflection, dialogue and communion among women religious in the United States as well as with the Church’s pastors and lay faithful. Congregation leaders, including those who expressed resistance initially to this initiative, have shared that the process has yielded surprising positive results, such as:
– honest confrontation with the transformative power of the Word of God,
– deep spiritual conversations with our sisters about the life, witness and message of our foundresses and founders,
– earnest delving into Church documents about consecrated life,
– increased solidarity among women religious and renewed desire to move beyond attitudes which prevent us from being in communion with one another,
– a wonderful outpouring of loving gratitude expressed to women religious by bishops, clergy and lay persons which has sparked new energy and resourcefulness among us and has awakened a renewed interest in the promotion of vocations to the religious life.
During the press conferences this morning, Mother Agnes Donovan talked about how the Visitation was a first experience of the solicitude of the Church universal, coming into to the daily lives of religious sisters.
One of the most powerful images from this morning in Rome was the women leaders in the Church presenting the fruits of the Apostolic Visitation. They represented both the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) and Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious, the two leading groups coordinating communications among women religious, and sometimes with to the rest of us on various issues. There’s been a bit of a sense that one is the “Left” group and one is the “conservative” one. But these distinctions in the Church shouldn’t be, as Pope Francis often says. As I alluded to earlier, this report on women religious in the United States is a piece of an ongoing renewal in the Church, one that involves some deep healing from ideological divides that are not so much about Christ but our human struggles with sin and the pain and misunderstandings that can come from it.
(There are ongoing, doctrinal questions involving some in the LCWR before a different Vatican congregation.)
Sister Sharon Holland was particularly frank about the fears some sisters had when the Visitation came calling on them. But as all three sisters pointed out this morning, in the end, the process and report are not a matter of controversy but challenge. Mother Agnes Donovan declared the true goal:
It is a beautiful time for religious life in the Church and we look to all Religious Sisters in the United States that together, we may give witness and encouragement to one another as we follow in the footsteps of Jesus, in the pattern of Our Lady, in love and ever increasing holiness.
Read Sr. Sharon’s statement here. Mother Agnes’s here. And Mother Clare Millea’s here.