Cardinal Rodé on the Apostolic Visit to Institutes of Women Religious in the US
(04 Nov 09 - RV) In a statement published Tuesday, Cardinal Franc Rodé, Prefect of
the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life
said that the apostolic visit to the institutes of women religious in the United States,
announced last January, was in response to concerns "on the welfare of women religious
and consecrated life in general."
But what are the motivations that accompany
this statement? Cardinal Rodé responds:
A. - The main aim of the statement
was to clarify the intentions of the dicasteries intentions in the purpose of this
apostolic visit to the religious congregations. There are indeed misunderstandings,
as if it were an act of mistrust of the U.S. women's religious congregations or as
if it were a general criticism of their work. Is not about that. It is mainly to see
the current situation of feminine consecrated life in the United States. It is an
obvious fact that the number of American women religious has dropped a lot, that their
presence in schools, health and other social institutions is greatly diminished. The
question then is: what are the causes for this decline in numbers and this much weaker
presence in the Church and society in the United States?
Q. - The declaration
says that the visit was decided upon following some reports being made here, to the
Congregation. There was therefore the need for such an initiative. There were disciplinary
problems, regarding fidelity to Catholic doctrine?
A. - In a certain sense
one can say that some criticism arrived from United States and an important representative
of the U.S. Church warned me about certain irregularities or deficiencies in the lives
of American women religious. It can be said especially of a certain secularist mentality
that has spread among these religious families, perhaps even a certain "feminist"
spirit. However, the decision for this apostolic visit was taken in 2008, during
a seminar that brought together something like 600-700 religious. There a desire was
manifested to take steps to find a remedy to this situation that many say is not as
good as that of past decades.
Q. – You announced in the declaration that
a report will be published, but did not disclose whether there will be lines of action...
A. - The apostolic visit will have three phases. The first is the preparation
of an Instrumentum laboris, then a meeting with the superior generals to see
the situation of the congregations and then, in the second phase, a questionnaire
to be responded to individually by each religious. The result of all these answers
will then be scientifically studied by an Institute of Georgetown University and the
information collected and presented will be critically studied and then made public.
It will therefore present us with an image, a perspective, I think a quite global
presentation of the situation of female consecrated life in the United States.
Q. - So you do not know yet whether the measures will be decided later, everything
will depend on the outcome of this investigation?
A. -In this moment we
can not obviously talk about actions or final decisions. I can say that we will evaluate
with a great sense of responsibility, the data provided by these individual conversations
with the religious sisters and then we'll see what should be done. It is still too
early to talk about decisions.