Case in Point

Making a comeback

A little excerpt from a story that appears in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel on post-Vatican II religious life. It is filled with the kind of nonsense and cliches you'd expect to find in a piece covering a liberal nun who will have a hand in drafting the official response to the Vatican's call for certain religious sisters in the U.S. to be more, well, Catholic.

Changes after Vatican II

Like the sisters of her era, [Sister Florence] Deacon began religious life in a long, black habit and expected to live a more insular life than she does today.

But the Second Vatican Council changed that [NO IT DIDN'T!!], urging women religious to re-examine the original charisms, or missions, of their orders, and to find new ways to apply them in the contemporary world. For Deacon, as a Franciscan, that charism stressed a care for all creation.

"We began to see new needs that were not being met - the homeless on the streets and prisoners behind bars," she said. "Sister moved out to new, social ministries to meet the needs of the marginalized."

Many shed their habits - derided by some as a portable cloister - to be closer to the laity. And today, sisters, who once worked primarily as nurses and teachers, are parish administrators, social activists, social workers, lawyers, academics, presidents of hospitals and universities, and more.

First of all, I find it incredibly offensive and arrogant to portray traditional life in a convent, a way of life that has existed for well over 1,500 years, as antediluvian and inadequate to a fulfilling, complete life as a person. To suggest that, by breaking free from the walls of the cloister and shedding the habit, women religious are, only since the 1970s, truly finding their place in the Church and world is so myopic and condescending. Give me Teresa of Avila!

Young people are not going to give up everything and commit themselves to a vocation for the rest of their lives if a particular order is bending over backwards to be just like the laity and everybody else, blurring the line that distinguishes them as a distinct order and a unique way of life. What is the point of joining an order or signing onto a way of life if that basically means joining in order to blend in with the laity? This is why liberal orders like the one in the story are fading faster than Obama's prospects for reelection, while more traditional orders that embrace their ancient customs, like full habits, etc., are being bombarded with new vocations.