Catholic Transcript Online

BLOOMFIELD – While the media have paid much attention to the leaders of several American women’s congregations who are reluctant to cooperate with a Vatican inquiry into the state of religious life in this country today, relatively little has been said about the sisters who support it.

That’s, in part, because some sisters have been told not to talk about it, or feel intimidated enough by their leadership that they keep their thoughts to themselves, even within their own communities, said Ann Carey, who moderates a Web discussion group that helps such sisters find their voice.

The group, which can be found at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SistersSupportingApostolicVisitation has grown steadily since the start of the year and is heading toward adding its 100th member.

"I had talked to enough sisters to know that some of them who support the visitation felt very marginalized and isolated in orders where the leadership was not cooperating with the visitation," Mrs. Carey wrote in response to questions from the Transcript sent by e-mail. "And that has been confirmed in many of the messages that are posted, with the sisters often remarking that it is good to find other sisters who share their beliefs.

"Some sisters have made it very clear that they feel they cannot talk to their leadership about this issue because they fear retribution from the leadership, and that is certainly very disturbing. A couple of recent posts by sisters even talked about their leadership acting like ‘thought police,’" she added.

Because some sisters also have complained that their orders are not making all of the information about the visitation available to them, Mrs. Carey said, she is using the group to disseminate information on the visitation, including links to articles, documents and Web sites.

In her first message on the site, Mrs. Carey writes, "Don’t forget that the Apostolic Visitation Office still welcomes and encourages letters from individual sisters who wish to share their experiences and hopes for religious life." It also includes the postal mail address in Hamden for the office, which is headed by Mother Mary Clare Millea, superior general of the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Since it was first announced on Jan. 30, 2009, the Apostolic Visitation has been met with a wide variety of responses ranging from excitement to acceptance to hostility.

News stories have quoted sisters who questioned the motives and purpose of the visitation, or have said their orders are not answering fully a questionnaire that the visitation office distributed.

Mrs. Carey is the author of Sisters in Crisis: The Tragic Unraveling of Women’s Religious Communities and has written extensively about women religious. She said in her e-mail that a sister and she came up with the idea of creating the Yahoo group, which allows members to post messages anonymously if they so choose.

The group has attracted sisters who describe themselves as young and old as well as priests and laity who believe the visitation is a good idea and want to support the sisters.

"Some sisters in the group have written to say that they are very grateful that the group lets ordinary Catholics know that many sisters do support and welcome the visitation, something the folks in the pew may not know since so much publicity has been given to high-profile sisters who have been critical of the visitation," Mrs. Carey wrote in her e-mail response.

One sister’s message on the Yahoo group reads in part, "Though we are by no means in the minority (and are, perhaps, even a silent majority) we are not the ones with power, so our concerns go unheeded. Apostolic religious life certainly needs a ‘shot in the arm’ from the Vatican or whoever else may be able to get us back on track."

Another sister’s message urges women religious who are afraid or unhappy to get in touch with Mother Clare’s office:

"Ann’s forum is a great first step. Meeting each other for support is a possible second step. But the most important is letting the right people know that something good has become dysfunctional at best. That we have been silent too long and that must no longer be the case."

Mrs. Carey wrote in her e-mail that a former president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR, which represents more than 90 percent of American women religious), had sent her an e-mail on Jan. 6 saying that the Yahoo group is divisive and that perhaps Mrs. Carey should rethink its existence.

"It’s hard to imagine how anyone could be divisive by supporting an initiative of the Holy See, but some sister leaders use that term for anyone who disagrees with them," she wrote.

(The LCWR itself is the subject of a separate "doctrinal investigation" by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.)

Topics in the Yahoo group’s messages include social justice, relativism, rituals that replace liturgy, the slow but steady deterioration of congregations into "corporations," and possible canonical repercussions against an order that refuses to cooperate with the Holy See. There are empathetic words of support and expressions of prayerful hope that the apostolic visitation will bring about reform.

Mrs. Carey said the apostolic visitation is timely and necessary.

"The visitation is needed now because a religious order is, by its nature, erected and approved by the Catholic Church. However, some orders of women religious have not only discarded the specific characteristics of Catholic religious life, they’ve also started to operate outside the doctrinal and liturgical life of the Catholic Church," she wrote. "These orders claim that they are being ‘prophetic’ and ‘birthing’ new forms of religious life that the all-male hierarchy doesn’t understand. They may be ‘birthing’ something, but it certainly does not appear to have the fundamental characteristics of religious life as the Catholic Church understands it."

She wrote that she expects the visitation to be helpful for congregations who cooperate with it.

She said the noncooperation of congregations is telling. She would like to ask those congregations "what it is that they do not want the Apostolic See to know," she wrote.

"Religious orders are by their very nature canonical. For sisters who do not wish to remain canonical, it seems that the honest and honorable thing to do would be to depart their religious orders and leave in peace the sisters in their orders who do want to maintain their canonical ties with the Church," she wrote.