The final report of the Apostolic Visitation to the religious sisters of apostolic communities in the US (the LCWR) has been issued. You can read the full text here. I have had a quick read of it, I hope to get time for a more in-depth study later, but at first glance it seems fairly harmless.
It seems the cracks are beginning to appear in the liberals's relationship with the Holy Father. I think it's actually starting to dawn on them that he is not going to give in to their demands and jettison Christ's teaching and Catholic doctrine and replace it with their permissive agenda. The bulb which has shed light on this is the Holy Father's continuing call to the dissenting organisation the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (USA) to come into line with Catholic teaching. As you know Cardinal Muller responded to their accusations that they were being unfairly treated by CDF. Speaking in the name of the Holy Father, the Cardinal pointed out that these ladies in the LCWR are doing what they were reported to be doing, and what they are doing and saying directly contradicts the teachings of Jesus Christ.
To be fair to the Holy Father, when it comes to religious life he has quite traditional views in terms of the vows: poverty chastity and obedience. He expects religious to live simple, humble and even penitential lives. This was the life he lived as a religious and as Archbishop, and as we know he has been urging a similar lifestyle on cardinals, bishops, priests and religious ever since his election. I think he sees religious life as being prophetic through its poverty, simplicity and obedience to Christ and his Church, rather than in embracing and pushing liberal causes.
Papal Nuncio Archbishop Charles Brown has delivered a wonderful homily at the closing Mass of the Novena to Our Lady of Knock yesterday. Entitled "The Future of the Church in Ireland" he pointed out some of the wonderful things that are happening now, from the Eucharistic Congress to the new priests being ordained, the presence of a number of faithful priests working away in Ireland, to the many ordinary people, many of them men, making the annual pilgrimage up Croagh Patrick or the young attending the annual Youth 2000 conference in Clonmacnoise. The Church in Ireland may have many difficulties, but there are good things happening.
I am particularly taken with one paragraph in the Nuncio's homily:
"So what is this future going to be like? Before all else, I would say that the future needs to be authentically Catholic if there is to be a future. We need to propose the Catholic faith in its fullness, in its beauty and in its radicality, with compassion and with conviction. We need to be unafraid to affirm the elements of the Catholic way which secular society rejects and ridicules."
As the Holy Father has pointed out, the Church will not be renewed or reformed by dissent, by denying Catholic teaching or by changing it so it fits in with the mores and fetishes of the age. As has often been said, if the Church marries herself to the spirit of an age, she is soon widowed. Indeed what the Church offers is so much more wonderful and beautiful than what the spirit of an age offers. It is time for us to take courage and begin to show this to the people of Ireland. At the end of the day, our mission is about salvation - the "reality of salvation" as the Nuncio calls it.
I must say I am impressed with the new Nuncio - he is a remarkable man. We are used to Nuncios being remote figures who mix with the bishops and rarely appear at events, and when they did they were well protected and, to be honest, isolated. Archbishop Brown is out there meeting the people as they are without any "filter" and this is good. He takes an interest in what is happening at grass roots level and sees the new groups which are helping strike small sparks of renewal in Ireland - his encouragement can help fan those little flames into a temendous fire. In a sense, Archbishop Brown reminds me of St Patrick, the bishop sent to the Irish to proclaim the Gospel again. His presence reminds us that to be Christian is also to be Roman - we are children of Rome, as Patrick told us, and we must maintain unity with Rome. I think he will be a great support in these difficult years. Thank God!
If you haven't read this, I would recommend it: John Allen's interview with Cardinal Levada of CDF concerning the ongoing controversy with the American LCWR. The Cardinal is very direct in his answers and he even goes so far as to suggest what might happen if the leaders of the LCWR do not cooperate.
I also note that he stresses the need for obedience: these ladies are consecrated religious with a vow of obedience - a vow which is ultimately made to the Pope. Some sisters might dispute this. I remember discussing this with an Irish sister who insisted that her vow of obedience was to her community and congregation, not to the Pope - he had no authority over them. Well, he does.
Interestingly Cardinal Ouellet said something similar in his homily at the Statio Orbis: he spoke of the Pope as our spiritual father and reminded us that we must be obedient to him. Obedience is seen as a negative by many in the Church today, and yet when we look to Jesus we see One who was utterly obedient to his Eternal Father - obedient to the point of giving up his life on the cross. If Jesus was prepared to lay down his life in obedience, then consecrated religious, who are supposed to modelling their lives on Christ's, must be prepared to do the same, although the most they will be asked to do is to die to self.
And in other news: as we were celebrating the Statio Orbis, in Nepi in Italy a new Beata was being raised to the altars, the young Blessed Cecilia Eusepi, an extraordinary young woman who was a member of Catholic Action and died at the age of 18. She was a Third Order Servite.
Cecilia was born in Monte Romano on the 17th February 1910: just over a month after her birth her father died. A paternal uncle assisted her mother Paolina in raising the little girl. When she was five they moved to Nepi where she began her schooling under Cistercian nuns. In 1922 she joined Catholic Action and discerned a vocation to the Servite Third Order, being clothed in the Order's scapular on the 14th February 1922 and taking the name Sr Maria Angela.
In 1923 she entered the Mantellate Sisters Servants of Mary, but due to bad health she had to leave after three years. In 1926 peritonitis and inflammation of the lungs were diagnosed and Cecilia began her vocation of suffering. At this time she meta Servite priest, Fr Gabriele Roschini who, recognising her holiness, became her spiritual director and guided her in the last years of her life. In obedience to him she wrote her autobiography which she titled The Story of a Clown.
Developing intestinal TB, Cecilia succumbed to it on the 1st October 1928. Her remains were interred in the burial chapel of the Gregori family and her tomb soon became a place of pilgrimage where many graces were granted through her intercession. She was declared Venerable by Blessed John Paul II on the 1st June 1987 and beatified last Sunday.
Like St Therese, Blessed Cecilia's life was short, hidden and yet extraordinary. She grew in virtue and impressed all who knew her. Like Blessed Chiara Luce Badano, Blessed Cecilia prove that holiness can be attained by all, even the young. May she intercede for all of us and we pray that the Lord will soon grant a miracle through her intercession so she may be enrolled among the Saints soon.
Given the subject of the first part of this post, I would suggest that Blessed Cecilia offers the sisters of LCWR a wonderful example of dedication to God, dying to self, obedience to Christ and his Church, and that humility which opens one's heart to God's grace making one a shining example of holiness for all to see.
Two related stories. First the Vatican's recent report on its Apostolic Visitation of the LCWR in the US. The report, as you know by now, identified serious theological problems and, in a nutshell, rampant dissent among the sisterhood in that organisation. As expected, the sisters are appalled, hurt, feel rejected, misunderstood (etc, etc). They claim that the accusations made against them are unsubstantiated. "What?" I hear you say as you choke on your midnight corn flakes snack. Indeed - "unsubstantiated". These ladies have been voicing their dissent for years, and they offer this as their defence. The only thing I can say, in charity, is that old age is getting to them and they have become rather "forgetful".
Second story: the issuing of a Notification by the CDF concerning Mercy Sister, Sr Margaret Farley's book Just Love. Published in 2006, the CDF has spent the last couple of years in dialogue with Sr Margaret concerning her views. Even a quick dash through the book will reveal very quickly that this lady does not think with the mind of the Church - she dissents against the Church's teaching in the usual areas of morality. So the CDF point this out. Sr Margaret responds in a way, which seems to me, to be purely arrogant, accusing the CDF of missing the point of her book. I think not. She rejects the Church's teaching on sexual ethics and yet tries to wrap her opinions in a mantle of Catholic respectability.
Meanwhile her superior rushes to her defence. Sr Patricia McDermott expresses regret at the CDF's decision, saying, "[Sr Margaret Farley] assiduously attempts to present the Catholic tradition as formative of her own rich experience while recognizing the ecumenical audience she often engages. While being faithful to her own faith tradition and commitments, her sensitivity to the varied circumstances, realities and needs of her students is the context she consistently honors." With all due respect, her position cannot be regarded as being faithful to the faith tradition of Catholicism, it is not even within an ass's roar of it.
However these two statements are like gifts fallen into the lap of the Vatican - proof that the LCWR's complaint that the findings of the Apostolic Visitation were "unsubstantiated allegations" is false and I might even say disingenuous. These poor women are certainly deluded, they cannot see that what they do is obvious to the world and to the Church, and while they may engage in denial wrapped up in their cocoons, the rest of us are not so stupid.
It has been a busy few days here, and in Ireland it has been an eventful week. More revelations concerning the Cardinal and the media has been bursting a gut to make the most of it. It has been a difficult week for the Church here, once more we were bombarded from all sides with accusations, anger (rage even), protestations, inertia, bigotry, opportunism - at this stage it all just congeals into one big ugly tumour. God help the poor victims at the heart of all this. One also wonders how we can kick start the reform of the Church here in Ireland with all this. Would a complete clearing of the decks help?
One thing which struck me was the hypocrisy at the heart of the media campaign. I accept that Christians who fail to live up to Christ's teachings frequently fall into the category of hypocrite - that is why Jesus in his wisdom gave us the Sacrament of Confession. But the "holier than thou" attitude of the media is sickening. While RTE has been exposed, they are still jumping on the bandwagon and throwing stones. The recent BAI report on the Prime Time Special Mission to Prey was damning - the National Union of Journalists are not happy with it and are challenging it. I notice in their defence of the journalist involved, the NUJ are using arguments not too dissimilar from those the Cardinal is using to defend himself: interesting.
The reporter at the heart of the whole affair has finally resigned - it took her long enough: if she was a Catholic bishop she would have been hounded out long ago. Given that RTE is calling for episcopal resignations all over the place, in this libel case they have been slow to clear the decks. Some minor shuffling around took place, but I am inclined to think that that was merely cosmetic.
Meanwhile the politicians are breaking their own demand for separation of Church and State by demanding, albeit in a cautious way, the resignation of the Cardinal. They preface their remarks with the phrase "in my personal opinion" - who would ever think that "personal" would become such a dirty word? I see the Minister for Education is trying to use the situation to push his agenda to get the Church out of education: he is not comfortable with the Cardinal being the head of the Church in Ireland when the Church has the patronage of so many schools. Meanwhile Enda Kenny, our Taoiseach, has said that it is not up to him to determine who leads the Church. It's a pity he didn't adopt that attitude last July when he attacked the Pope.
Personally (if they're all using it, so will I!) in my view I think they are very concerned over who leads the Church - an erastian puppet denomination would be much more favourable to the current administration here in Ireland than an independent universal communion. After all with abortion and gay marriage, among other things, being lined up, a supportive native Irish catholic church is the preferred option. Some have even suggested to me that certain political figures are in dialogue with certain religious figures to see if such an institution could be created and "the Vatican" airbrushed out of Irish Catholicism. Is that possible?
In other news: the dissenting nuns in the US LCWR are reacting to the recent report from their Apostolic Visitation - they are not happy. Reading their response I am reminded of an incident from the life of Blessed John Paul II concerning the disciplining of a nun who was ardently pro-abortion and had herself elected to a legislature. The Vatican had been in dialogue with her for some time pointing out that her position was not in keeping with the teaching of the Church, but she dug her heels in, refused to resign her office in the legislature (priests and religious are not allowed present themselves for national/civic election) and maintained her position on abortion, publicly promoting the “pro-choice” position. The Pope finally had enough and sent a representative for a final chat to see if she could be persuaded to back down: she refused. So she was asked that if it came to choice which would she choose: her position as a consecrated religious or that of an advocate for abortion? Defiant as ever she maintained her position. The papal representative reached into his briefcase and took out a document: it was a dispensation from her vows, already signed. Having made her position clear, she was being dispensed of her vows and free to go wherever she liked. The nun was stunned.
The LCWR representative is Sr Brigid McDonald and she's lashing out in good old dissenting fashion. Her reaction goes to prove the truth of what the Visitation found. Like the sister above, Sr Brigid, it seems, is pro-abortion. Is it not time for an official to pop over to the US from Rome with a briefcase?? Here's an interesting article on obedience from Fr Bevil Bramwell. He notes: "Interestingly, people who have trouble with obedience to the Church will still obey their boss and the weatherman or the cop on the beat and not note the inconsistency." I would go further and say, from my own experience, that those who reject obedience to the Church demand obedience from those under them and they can be tyrannical superiors.
Anyway, to cheer us all up on this Bank Holiday Monday, some music. Today is an easy day for many, another day of rest - not here - I have a funeral later and lots to do. But sit back and enjoy a little piece of Mozart - always puts you in the right mood! From The Marriage of Figaro, this is Figaro's fantastic aria at the end of Act One, "Non piu andrai". It was the piece I used for auditions when my heart was set on an operatic career. "Sometimes I wish....." Ah no, stop now, Father, serving God is better.
