By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Journalist
Mother Mary Clare Millea, ASCJ, Apostolic Visitator for Institutes of Women Religious in the United States, held a concluding workshop last week for the religious who assisted with on-site visits to congregations of women religious, signaling the end of the years-long visitation.
Archbishop Joseph Tobin, CSsR, Secretary of the Vatican’s Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, also attended the three-day gathering where the 58 members of the core team were encouraged to share their personal insights along with the formal reports they will be preparing for submission to the Vatican.
Mother Millea, who will complete a summary report by the end of this year, also invited the team to share personal impressions of their on-site visit experiences, as well as their observations of the common hopes, challenges and concerns that women religious presently face. The group also offered suggestions for further promoting respectful dialogue and collaboration among religious congregations and within the Church.
Brother Paul Bednarczyk, CSC, executive director of the National Religious Vocation Conference addressed the assembly on the Moving Forward in Hope project, which charts a path of renewal for religious life and the promotion of new vocations.
“Archbishop Tobin listened attentively to the heartfelt sharing of the participants,” Mother Millea said at the conclusion of the weekend. “He expressed his deep understanding of our reality and expressed the continued support of the Congregation for Consecrated Life in fostering the ongoing revitalization of religious life in the United States.”
The apostolic visitation has been dogged by controversy since it began with some prominent American nuns refusing to cooperate with the Vatican inquiry because they feared a crackdown on women’s orders. However, defenders of the visitation say steep declines in vocations to U.S. religious orders are evidence that some reform is needed.
The American born Archbishop Tobin has repeatedly assured women religious that they have nothing to fear from the Vatican.
© All Rights Reserved, Living His Life Abundantly®/Women of Grace® http://www.womenofgrace.com
