You can run, but you can't hide . . .

They say you can run, but you can't hide. And that is true for me. I think one reason I wanted to live with the Sisters was because the church as I have been living it is driving me crazy. I became a Catholic because I love the Church. And I have based my life on that choice. My identity is Catholic. There's no place else where I can be me. But it isn't always easy to live with the shifting currents of ecclesiastical politics - and we are living right now in a time when it sometimes feels that the aggiornamento of Blessed John XXIII is being crushed by a conservative/restorationist movement within the church. Sometimes it seems like others are drawing lines to define who can "be Catholic" in such a way that they draw me out . . . and these issues followed me from Forks to Minneapolis.

In April of this year, the LCWR, or Leadership Conference of Women Religious, which represents the leadership of 80% of American sisters and nuns was presented with a Doctrinal Assessment of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious by the Vatican's Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith.  The LCWR came into being in the 1960's at the request of the Vatican office for religious life. It is made up of the leadership of the major congregations of nuns and sisters in the United States - representing about 80% of all American religious women.


Since then there has been a great deal of conversation (furor) concerning this doctrinal assessment and it's purpose, meaning, legitimacy, etc. on the national level. There has been a great deal of pain in my heart over this controversy.
One of the reasons I have been drawn to want to be with religious sisters, to stand with them in their mission and life-style, is that I see them "being church" in the way I believe the Spirit has led us in our time - to inclusiveness, to empowerment of the roles of the laity in the church (and nuns and sisters are considered laity), to "engagement with the world," to the "spirit of Vatican II," -- all that captivated and drew me to the church in the early 70's. Since I have founded my whole life since 1974 in the church, these tensions within the church are very significant to me. I didn't "inherit" my Catholic identity - I chose it. I believed everything I learned at that time about what it meant to be a member of the Body of Christ, a part of the People of God, and a lay person called to full participation in the Church, to a "lay apostolate." And I bought into it whole-heartedly.

It seemed logical to me, after Don died in March of 2009, that I should renew my self-offering to God - and that started something I didn't anticipate. Knowing full well that I am entirely too old to be a consecrated religious sister, I began to long for that anyway. And so began my "vocational adventure" which has led me to two different expressions of that hope. Knowing that there was no way I could become a Visitation sister, I still wanted to experience what it would be like to live this monastic life-style, embedded in a poor - and violent - neighborhood of North Minneapolis. So I came for the "monastic immersion experience." And I hope to find some permanent relationship with the IHM sisters after that.

There have been two key experiences for me this summer which are at the heart of my adventure. I was privileged to attend the Mass of

Newly elected President Jane Herb
installs the new Vice President,
Sharon Holland.

Transition of Leadership this summer at the Motherhouse of the Immaculate Heart Sisters in Monroe, MI. I was very touched by the great wisdom, spirituality, and the charisms manifested in that event - and by the homily given there by Bishop Howard Hubbard of Albany in which he gave great encouragement to the IHM Congregation (and to me): that they have done exactly what they were asked to do by Vatican II -- and that they are carrying forward the spirit of that church council. His talk has left me with renewed hope.

The IHMs have been part of LCWR from the beginning, and several of their members have served as Presidents of that organization. I was encouraged by what the retired sisters had to say about me concerning this issue of conflict between the hierarchy and the nuns. They stand confident in what their lives have meant and why they traveled the road they have traveled in the last 50 years. They believe that the Holy Spirit has and will continue to lead the church. I left Monroe encouraged and my spirits lifted by the spirit and stories of these great women of the Church.

(borrowed from their website)

Then I came to Minneapolis to stay with the Visitation Sisters - who share a similar confidence in the guidance of the Holy Spirit. They left their cloisters in traditional Visitation Monasteries more than 20 years ago to found this urban monastery - under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, with the documents of Vatican II and its emphasis on the "engagement with the world" in mind (and a document issued from the U.S. Bishops concerning the "preferential option for the poor")  and through a process of mutual discernment with their own Visitation leadership. Their Federation of Visitation Monasteries helped them to found their work here.

I had the opportunity to join them on a trip to the College of St. Benedict in St. Joseph, MN to attend a "Study day" for LCWR's Region 11 (which includes North and South Dakota and Minnesota). Dr. Richard Gaillardetz, of Boston College, was the speaker. He is a historian who focuses on the history of Vatican II and the use of authority in the Catholic Church. His presentation was wonderful for me - since Vatican II ended before I became a Catholic, and I know its history mainly through watching TV and reading newspapers and magazines during the time of the Council. So what I learned was illuminating and helpful. (And I am now reading the books I picked up there: Gaillardetz and Clifford's, Keys to the Council, Massimo Faggioli's, Vatican II: The Battle for Meaning, and Yves Conger's huge My Journal of the Council. (Whatever topic engages me, I dive in all the way - I want to know what I'm thinking about, talking about.)

There were about 3-400 sisters present at the conference (based on my mental math: 40 tables of 7-8 persons at each table). I felt very privileged to be part of their day - to listen to their speaker, to listen and share in their table conversations between sessions - and to observe their graciousness and lack of rancor, their deep faith.

Some of you may have been following the "Nuns on the Bus" as Network, an organization of religious women who work to lobby for social justice in the political arena. (I missed seeing them when they came to Detroit and Monroe, but a friend is sending me one of their T-shirts!) These Nuns impressed me because they spent their energies SUPPORTING the bishops in their lobbying of congress for a budget which will provide adequate care for the poor and the marginal. Click below to hear Sister Simone Campbell explain.


This one below of Pat Farrell, President of LCWR responding in an NPR interview on Fresh Air is crucial to understanding the difficulty that exists if there is not to be real dialogue:  (It is audio only - and lengthy - but full of crucially important information.






It is clear to me - after reading the Doctrinal Assessment - and listening to Sister Pat Farrell speaking above - that if any real dialogue is going to occur, someone better notice that the "real" LCWR views have been misrepresented in the assessment. My own bishop, Archbishop J. Peter Sartain heads a committee of three bishops appointed to supervise the "reform" of the LCWR. The other two: Bishops Leonard Blair of Toldeo and Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, IL have already made it clear that they aren't interested in dialogue. Sartain has a reputation of being pastoral and of being a listener. God help him. He's got his work cut out for him.

And - great irony - my psychotherapist, Fran Ferder, who helped me to survive a personal crisis prompted by the pedophilia scandal in my own parish, has written this article about some of the dynamics that appear to be operating in the way this is being handled.

For a person who's been a Catholic only a little more than half my life and who has lived it out in an obscure outpost in the north woods (i.e St. Anne's Parish in Forks, Washington), I am sooo enmeshed in these ecclesiastical politics! I need to be with the sisters at this point - to stand with them in solidarity - and to watch them live the Gospel of Jesus in the Spirit of Vatican II. Thank God for his kindness in giving me this milieu in which to live through these times . . .

So I go to prayer four times a day - and chat the psalms and do the readings - and gain some distance and needed perspective. They meet Jesus at the door sill, invite Him in for dinner, peel potatoes, have meetings, pray for special needs of friends and strangers. And it all seems quite all right. I'm glad I am here.

*NOTE: There is another group of religious superiors, the CMSWR or Congregation of the Major Superiors of Women Religious which split off from the LCWR early on and which represents a smaller group of American women religious who have a very different vision for religious life.


Note: I am also helped by reading Notes from Stillsong Hermitage -