By ELISE HARRIS
VATICAN CITY (CNA/EWTN News) — The Vatican on December 16 published the results of its apostolic visitation examining the quality of religious communities across the U.S. in a report described as realistic yet encouraging.
Voicing thanks to women religious for their service to the Church, the Vatican congregation in charge of religious life also encouraged them to remember to keep Christ at the center of their communities.
The congregation asked the women religious to “carefully review their spiritual practices and ministry” to ensure that they are “in harmony with Catholic teaching about God, creation, the Incarnation, and the Redemption.”
Launched in 2009 to examine the quality of religious communities across the U.S., the visitation included meetings, questionnaires, and visits to about one-quarter of the country’s religious communities.
It involved 341 religious congregations, to which approximately 50,000 women in the U.S. belong.
The survey presented religious communities with several questions concerning religious orders’ vocation promotion, admission and formation policies, and fidelity to and expression of their vows. The reflections also asked respondents about their concerns for the future of their religious order.
It is distinct from the inquiry into the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, a canonically approved body which has over 1,500 leaders of women religious communities as members.
The LCWR has been assessed by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which raised concerns of dissent from Church doctrine on theological topics including homosexuality, the sacramental priesthood, and the divinity of Christ.
Mother Mary Clare Millea, the Connecticut-born superior general of the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, was the apostolic visitor who led the survey of U.S. religious communities along with a team that she hand picked.
Mother Millea was one of a panel of seven speakers on December 16, which also included the prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, Joao Cardinal Braz de Aviz.
She told journalists that although she was initially “overwhelmed” with the task, she maintained a complete and “deep trust” in the congregation’s decision to enact the visitation.
The report, signed by Cardinal Braz de Aviz as well as by Archbishop José Rodriguez Carballo, secretary for the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, recognized that although this visitation was in some ways “unprecedented,” visitations are a normal phenomenon in the life of the Church.
“We initiated the visitation because of our awareness that the apostolic religious life in the United States is experiencing challenging times,” the cardinal told journalists.
He affirmed the need for new vocations, as well as an exploration of themes such as a congregation’s community and spiritual life, their work and apostolate, in light of the modern call for “credible and attractive witnesses of consecrated religious who demonstrate the redemptive and transformative power of the Gospel.”
Report topics range from finances to vocations, prayer, evangelization, and the role of women in the Church. It provides a presentation of the visitation’s findings as well as points of guidance from the congregation at the end of each section.
As to the declining number of women religious in the U.S., the report said that the peak number of vocations seen between the 1940s-1960s was “relatively short-term” and “not typical” in terms of the history of vocations in the country.
Rather, the report said that such a peak would probably not be seen again. The report’s findings revealed that the numbers dropped due to the fact that many sisters left their congregations after the 1960s, coupled with the fact that fewer women have joined communities since.
With the drop in new arrivals, institutes are spending vast spiritual and material means in order to promote vocations.
Interviews with various communities revealed that often entrance candidates seek to live in a “formative community” and be “externally recognizable” as consecrated women, which is a challenge for institutions that don’t observe these practices.
As for the sisters’ spiritual life, the visitation found that institutes generally have written guidelines for receiving the sacraments and strict spiritual practices.
However, the congregation cautioned each community to “evaluate their actual practice of liturgical and common prayer,” and to do whatever is needed to foster each member’s personal relationship with Christ.
The report also noted the refusal of some communities to participate in the visitation’s mandate, which Cardinal Braz de Aviz called a “painful disappointment” for everyone involved.
However, he used the occasion as an opportunity to affirm the congregation’s willingness to engage in a “respectful and fruitful dialogue” with the institutes that were not fully compliant.
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