By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Writer
For the first time, the woman appointed by the Vatican to review women’s religious orders in the U.S. has revealed that the process will include an examination of “the soundness of doctrine held and taught” by the women.
Mother Mary Clare Millea, superior general of the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the apostolic visitator charged by the Vatican with directing the visitation, sent a letter dated July 28 to the heads of women religious congregations, along with an Instrumentum Laboris, or “working paper.”
This working paper outlined the next phases of the investigation, which include filling out a questionnaire relating to the life and operation of the order and an on-site visitation to selected congregations.
The questionnaire seeks clarification in areas such as identity; governance; vocation promotion; admission and formation policies; spiritual life and common life; mission and ministry; and finances.
The Instumentum Laboris states that during the Apostolic Visitation, “Particular attention will be given to the significant witness of the vowed commitment given by women religious within the heritage of each institute’s charism and in fidelity to the Church’s teachings and to the renewal indicated by Vatican Council II and post-conciliar documents.
“It will examine, for example, promotion and retention of vocations; initial and ongoing formation; the concrete living out of the evangelical counsels; common life and religious houses; the structures and practical application of internal governance; the soundness of doctrine held and taught by the religious; the nature and variety of apostolic works; and the overall administration of temporal goods.”
The working paper also said that information about the congregations will be sought from local bishops.
The Vatican investigation was initiated last December by Slovenian Cardinal Franc Rodé, who heads the Vatican’s Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life. It will involve 341 religious institutes of women in the United States which contain approximately 59,000 women religious. Communities of cloistered, contemplative nuns are not officially part of the study.
A second investigation has also been opened into the umbrella leadership organization of U.S. women religious known as the Leadership Council of Women Religious, which is well known for its dissent from the Magisterium.
The heads of the women’s orders are scheduled to receive their questionnaires in September and will be asked to return them by Nov. 1. Visitations are scheduled to begin in early, 2010.
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