Follow up Questions: CMSWR and LCWR

[[Hi Sister Laurel, you wrote about the CMSWR and said.[[. . . they are not pushing the envelope in any way and are more typical of the form of religious life the Vatican approved in 1900 with Conditae a Christo and made canonical in 1917. It is a form of religious life which is definitely less prophetically oriented and more supportive of the institutional status quo. They are involved in corporate apostolates, but generally not on the margins of society with ministries to the disenfranchised where Sisters of the LCWR are often found. This allows them to live community in the sense most of us recognize as common in the early to mid 1900's but in the main not to live where the poorest of the poor actually reside and require help.]] Are you saying that such congregations are not prophetic? Are you saying that only LCWR communities ARE prophetic? Can you clarify this for me because I could not agree if you were drawing such a black and white distinction?]]

Thanks for your questions. I received several of emails on this matter. Yours was the only one that asked me to clarify what I actually said, or, in fact, actually quoted or characterized what I said accurately. For that reason, if you don't mind, I will use your questions to answer all of these. Note well that I used the phrase "less prophetically oriented". I did not say, "not prophetic", "less prophetic", nor did I say they were unfruitful or unimportant for the proclamation of the Gospel. I tried pretty hard NOT to draw things in black and white or either/or terms, and I stayed away from "conservative/ liberal" or "traditionalist/progressive" kinds of distinctions (dichotomies) and labels. That was ONE of the reasons I used only CMSWR and LCWR as designations. (The other was that the questioner used those in his/her question.)

There is no doubt that I find the LCWR group more diverse than the CMSWR, but that is, as I noted in the post you quoted, because the CMSWR itself only recognizes ONE expression of non strictly-cloistered religious life as valid while LCWR does not. Thus, LCWR has Sisters who wear habits and those who do not; they have Sisters in corporate apostolates, and those who are not, Sisters living community in corporate settings, and those who live community in other ways. The CMSWR does not. I do think the LCWR is more helpful in reflecting the nature of ministerial religious life in the US than the CMSWR, because they are more diverse and have adopted a less narrow view of religious life and view of the nature of the church which is more in line with the image emphasized by Vatican II. On the other hand, I noted very explicitly that BOTH leadership conferences are necessary for a complete picture of religious life. I did not say x is right, y is wrong, for instance. (More about this below, however.)

Now, for your specific questions. What do I mean when I say that one leadership conference is more prophetically oriented than another? I mean, as has always been the case with prophets, that they work to proclaim the Gospel or will of God in season and out, whether it is opportune or not, and whether it conflicts with the religious institutions and state which hold power at the time or not. I mean that they stand on the margins, not only with regard to those they minister to, but in terms of the institution precisely because they seek to proclaim a Gospel which threatens those in power and gets real disciples crucified by the religious and political status quo. They proclaim a Gospel which is principally concerned with the Kingdom of God, and therefore, less so with partial and proleptic expressions of that Kingdom or with simple preservation of the status quo. Wherever the Kingdom of God is truly proclaimed, as Mary's Magnificat recounts, religious and political systems are overturned along with the security, power, and insularity they necessarily foster and protect.

I mean too that such groups work for portions of the Gospel that have been forgotten or even forsaken. For instance, one comment I have heard recently decries women religious working for the good of the earth. But in fact, our own stewardship of the earth is part of the most original commission to humanity; it is, simply put, the will of God. In the New Testament, as Paul makes very clear, the message celebrated is that regarding a new Creation, a new heaven and a new earth --- not, pie in the sky by and by, but the re-making of God's creation so that heaven and earth completely interpenetrate one another and God is "All in all." Commitment to follow a God who becomes enfleshed will necessarily mean treating all that he has assumed as holy --- and that does mean the dust of the earth as well as the stuff of heaven. Literally and figuratively it is ALL star stuff.

It will mean recovering ministries and a way of doing ministry which reach(es) the marginalized --- those truly on the margins both politically and ecclesially. This in turn will mean less emphasis on large corporate apostolates and smaller targeted ministries with fewer Sisters -- and those living right with those they serve. To some extent it requires "becoming all things to all people" as Paul himself claimed was necessary to truly follow Christ, and at the same time it will mean, "having no place to lay one's head" in the sense of insulated religious preserves marked by enclosure and some sort of "convent mystique." (Habits might fit here as well.) In other words, it means searching for, finding and proclaiming God right in the midst of the situation in which the person finds him/herself and in the terms the person really NEED to hear because this is CENTRAL to a Gospel which says God came to ALL and made ALL holy in that coming.

These are SOME of the things I mean by being prophetic, and a prophetic orientation means adopting and sacrificing for the sake of this prophetic activity and identity BECAUSE it is what one discerns God is calling one to. Those who do not adopt such a perspective may simply not be called to it. They may (like Jonah) even believe it is wrong-headed and so go the other way. And in this they may be right or wrong. They may still find themselves acting as prophets in other ways, but for them it is not a full-time or overarching perspective to which other things and ways of living are subordinated. So, yes, I am saying that in general, CMSWR institutes are not prophetically oriented, nor can they be given the nature of the ecclesiology and theology of the vows they have adopted. (Other ecclesiologies and/or theologies allow for the prophetic better and sometimes even require it.) But then, there were relatively few Prophets in the OT, and relatively few exercising a formal prophetic role in the NT and subsequent Church history. There are other vocations after all.

I hope this helps. Again, thanks for the questions.