The Challenges Facing Small, Aging US Women's Religious Institutes with Limited Resources:Findings from Two Focus Groups Jonathon L. Wiggins and Thomas P. Gaunt SJ In February, 2021, Support Our Aging Religious! (SOAR!, a non-profit organization that raises funds and provides grant to aid Catholic religious institutes care for elderly and infirm members) engaged CARA—the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University—to study the challenges that small, aging US women's religious institutes with limited resources face, as well as to discover what solutions the institutes can envision to those challenges. To investigate these topics, CARA conducted two focus groups with major superiors and/or other leaders from such women's religious institutes. This report summarizes the findings from both focus groups. Summary of Findings Findings related to the two most commonly discussed topics among focus group participants—providing for the general wellbeing of their congregations' aging sisters and financing the needs of members—are summarized below. Providing for the General Wellbeing of their Aging and Ailing Members The most common challenges mentioned by leaders are those related to providing for the general wellbeing of their aging and ailing members. The four areas of greatest challenge are: • Providing quality health care to sisters • Finding facilities where ailing sisters can reside • Providing quality mental health care for sisters • Meeting their sisters' emotional and spiritual needs [End Page 223] All participating congregations provide care for their sisters in one of their own facilities, but most say they need to send sisters to an outside facility once the level of care is beyond what they can provide. Not coincidentally, the greatest number of challenges mentioned by leaders concern the provision of care within their congregations, with leaders especially likely to find the following problematic: • Having a hodgepodge of often-untrained sisters and health care personnel (who need to be identified and engaged by the congregation) trying to provide quality wellness care for sisters in what is often an unlicensed unit; especially challenging are meeting the needs of those sisters suffering from dementia • Leaders still having to place the sisters in another facility once they reach a certain point of care beyond the congregation's capacity for care; if the other facility does not allow patients to remain there in different phases of illness, the leaders may need to later locate another facility for the sisters' nursing or hospice care • Members who are sent elsewhere for care are often placed in separate facilities and feel isolated; further, active sisters and family members find it difficult to be present and support their ailing members in multiple locations • Handling the stress that providing care in-house puts on the leaders and other members to provide quality care, especially when the care needs to be 24 hours a day and members must accompany ailing sisters to doctors' appointments and emergency room visits • Affording the care, with congregations having to provide quality health care personnel for sisters' 24-hour care, often not having adequate insurance/Medicare coverage for care provided, and coping with the unpredictable nature of the health care costs that arise Besides providing in-house care, two other models of care are most frequently used by congregations: (1) placing sisters in secular care units and (2) placing them in religiously affiliated care units. Both have advantages over inhouse care in terms of the quality of health care services delivered, but leaders report that sisters are reluctant to be moved into these facilities as they likely will no longer be able to live in community with their sisters. Further: • Secular units often do not offer as much in the way of meeting sisters' psychological, social, emotional, and spiritual needs as the congregations' in-house care does. • Religiously affiliated units provide similar quality of care to secular facilities, but are better at meeting the sisters' emotional, psychological, and spiritual needs. [End Page 224] Leaders suggested the following solutions for addressing the challenges listed above: • Hiring the right personnel to assist leaders and care for members • Having all of their ailing sisters in one facility, from assisted care to hospice care • Collaborating with other congregations for a shared residential care...
Reviewed by: Elizabeth Seton: American Saint by Catherine O'Donnell Sr. Judith Metz, SC Elizabeth Seton: American Saint. By Catherine O'Donnell. Ithica: Cornell University Press, 2018. Pp. xiv + 508. $23.50. In Elizabeth Seton: American Saint, Catherine O'Donnell has produced a comprehensive biography that stands as a worthy successor to Annabelle Melville's well-regarded 1951 Elizabeth Bayley Seton. O.'s coverage from Seton's childhood in a developing nation, to her happy marriage and delight in her role as mother, to her conversion to Catholicism, and ultimately her position as founding mother of the American Sisters of Charity provides many insights into the future saint's life. O.'s command of thousands of pages of letters and documents related to Seton's life is impressive, as is her bibliography. The manuscript is rich in context describing both the social, cultural, and religious milieu of the times, as well as providing an extensive exploration of the cast of characters so integral to Seton's life. O.'s illumination of Seton's early years in New York offers a rich description of her family life both before and after her marriage. The early loss of her mother and baby sister set the stage for Seton's unsettled early years. It was not until her marriage at the age of nineteen that she felt she had a real home of her own. The text describes well the depth of relationships that she enjoyed with her father, husband, and women friends as well as her involvement in benevolent work. One of the strong points of this portion of the biography is the in-depth exploration of Seton's intellectual and spiritual life. O. depicts Seton as a spiritual seeker who enjoyed English poetry and was enamored by the works of Rousseau. Later interest in the sermons of Protestant ministers led her to active participation in the Episcopal Church. A journal Seton wrote as an adult portrays her younger self as loving to read and think, a spiritual seeker who "walked among the Cedars singing hymns. Pleasure in everything, course, rough, smooth, or easy" (39)—enthralled by the Bible, poetry, hymns, and finding God in nature. O. asserts that Seton "was eager to shape the twists and turns of her life into a straight path toward the Catholic Church that others might follow" (24). This statement is troubling in that it is an example, among others, of the author's interpretation and assessment presented as "fact." This type of assertion requires documentation. Eventually family health and business problems led to a voyage to Italy where Seton's husband died and she was introduced to Catholicism. Following her return to New York, O. allows Seton's own words to describe her thoughts, feelings, and reactions to the unfolding events as she entered a long season of indecision before her conversion to Catholicism. Two years of economic and social floundering followed. Here, as elsewhere, O. draws insightful connections, noting that Seton was housed but homeless, just as she had been in her youth. O. here asserts that "Seton created a story of social martyrdom" (183), exaggerating the opposition she experienced due to her conversion. At the same [End Page 216] time O. highlights the climate of anti-popery in New York and documents both the active and passive resistance Seton experienced from family and friends. You can't have it both ways without more explanation or documentation. Seton's move to Baltimore and later Emmitsburg, Maryland, plunged her into both the joys and struggles of overseeing schools and founding a new religious community of women while continuing her role as mother to her children. O. provides a thorough treatment of Seton's circuitous route to the founding and establishment of the American Sisters of Charity. She delves into Seton's relationships with several priests involved with the Community, but also unveils the drama of complicated relationships among them as well as their competing spiritualities and visions for the new Community. Although this aspect of Seton's life is fully covered, the relationships between Seton and the women who joined her are not. This could have been an opportunity to explore the loyalty, trust and...
Reviewed by: In Our Own Words: Religious Life in a Changing World ed. by Juliet Mousseau and Sarah Kohles Sr. John Mary Corbett, OP In Our Own Words: Religious Life in a Changing World. Juliet Mousseau, RSCJ and Sarah Kohles, OSF editors. Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 2018. Pp. x + 238. $29.95. Thirteen consecrated women came together to pray and reflect on the meaning of religious vows and various issues touching the lives of religious sisters today. The fruit is this unique compilation of engaging essays by a diverse group of religious sisters around the themes of the vows, identity, and leadership into the future. This work intentionally contributes unique perspectives on the varied but intersecting experiences of religious women from a diverse group of institutes, including communities from both the Leadership Conference of Women Religious and Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious. Organized with an introduction, thirteen essays each written by a different religious sister, and concluding chapter entitled "Looking to the Future," this volume offers a unique glimpse into the lived experience of each sister's religious life in her own voice. In Our Own Words: Religious Life in a Changing World is a creative response to a felt need for more contemporary reflections on religious life by members of various apostolic institutes of women religious in North America. The genesis of this collaborative work is articulated in the introduction by the editors. Sr. Juliet Mousseau, RSCJ and Sr. Sarah Kohles, OSF, acknowledge the existence of a changing demographic which marked religious life from the 1990's through 2012. This shift includes a division within institutes of those members who have a first-hand memory of the Second Vatican Council and those who do not. The thirteen contributors of this volume are members of the latter group, representing the younger members of their respective institutes, [End Page 214] in their 20s to 40s at the time of the writing. Admittedly, these religious women note that while they have benefited over the years from many standard resources on religious life and the vows, most of these resources were written by religious prior to the Second Vatican Council or shortly thereafter. The desire to express the reality of religious life as it is lived today rather than what it was over fifty years ago for fellow religious and those currently in formation gave impetus to this volume (ix). What are some elements of this changing world discussed by the religious sisters? While the reflections center upon the vows, religious identity, and leadership, additional overlapping themes emerge in the essays. Several sisters reflect on the unique blessings and challenges which disparity of age pose within their communities. What is it like to be a young religious in a community of multiple generations? Two essays speak to the experience of new challenges for young religious in leadership roles who have been called to serve communities reflecting this unique demographic. The cultural diversity within communities and its consequences is also a common thread. The intersection of religious identity and charism with individual sister's unique cultural background is poignantly discussed by Sr. Mary Therese Perez, OP, and Sr. Christa Parra, IBVM, among others. As I read through the chapters, I was also struck by the emergence of familiar conciliar and post-conciliar themes of religious magisterial teaching in the context of the novel insights of these religious women reflecting on their own vocations. While this was done informally in a more personal, candid way, the sisters' voices effectively provide fresh insights on consecration, communion and mission in the context of religious life today. Readers will discover that both differences and commonalities characterize the lived experience of the cohort of religious women in this volume. The various sisters' love for their own vocations shine through in their testimonies. This book will be of interest to a wide audience of readers seeking a glimpse into the concerns and challenges of younger generations of religious sisters. Each essay can stand alone, but a perusal of the entire volume will illustrate the collaborative effort that inspired this undertaking. The reader will get a glimpse into a wide range of charisms and perspectives on religious life from...
Reviewed by: Beyond the Crossroads: Religious Life in the 21st Century by Amy Hereford Rev. Vien V. Nguyen, SCJ Beyond the Crossroads: Religious Life in the 21st Century. By Amy Hereford, CSJ. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2019. Pp. xvi + 176. $22.00. As the title indicates, the book explores the "contemporary movements" and "emerging currents" (x) in religious life today in North America. It continues the conversation on religious life started in Religious Life at the Crossroads: A School for Mystics and Prophets by Amy Hereford (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2013) and highlights the evolving forms of religious life emerging in the twenty-first century. The book comprises seven chapters, bookended by an introduction and a conclusion. In Chapter 1, H. engages with Pope Francis's encyclical Laudato Si' to focus on humanity's interrelatedness and [End Page 210] interdependence with every living thing in our common home. The encyclical provides the framework to contemplate the evolution of religious life, focusing on collaboration and community. Chapter 2 examines how social movements and ecclesial changes have shaped and colored the identity of religious life, particularly the evolution of religious life from the pre-Vatican II phase to the Vatican II phase to the current post-Vatican II phase. Amid these evolutionary changes, religious life remains resilient and manifests itself anew. Fundamental to the resilience and the social cohesion that draw and unite people are community, spirituality, and mission. In each phase, women and men religious strive to live the Gospel radically and their call with integrity. In Chapter 3, H. discusses the vows in the context of archetype, a notion based on philosophical, psychological, and sociological literature concerning observable, socially constructed patterns of human behaviors (43). The evangelical counsels of obedience, poverty, and celibacy are also archetypes that will continue to evolve in their meanings. Chapter 4 is H.'s dialogue with In Our Own Words, edited by Juliette Mousseau, RSCJ, and Sarah Kohles, OSF (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2018). The book is a collection of reflections by young women religious from various religious communities in North America who entered religious life in the last few decades. H. highlights how these women's religious life experiences resonate with her own and how they collaboratively strive to "give voice to their common experience" (64) of religious life in today's rapidly evolving society. Aspects of religious life reflected and shared include the vows, community life, charism, culture, identity, mission, and leadership. Chapters 5 and 6 give attention to the topics of vocation and formation. New and smaller cohorts of men and women entering religious life come from diverse cultural backgrounds and life experiences. Vocation recruiters and formation directors are at the forefront of religious life renewal and transformation by inviting, accompanying, and mentoring those discerning religious life (87). This entails openness to the movement of the Spirit and a sharpened awareness of the shifts in expectations and assumptions of millennial vocations. In each stage of initial formation, the formation directors assist a candidate in navigating the transition from independence to interdependence in community, spirituality, and ministry. Since today's new entrants to religious life come from different spiritual, educational, cultural, and ministerial backgrounds, it is necessary to tailor a coherent but adaptable, individualized formation plan to meet their particular needs and provide a more positive experience for candidates and formators (109). In Chapter 7, H. discusses the characteristics and implications, opportunities and challenges of the evolution of religious life. As a new generation of religious is stepping up to re-imagine and live the Gospel faithfully but radically, the way forward entails collaboration and community. [End Page 211] This reflective and engaging book is written mainly for active, apostolic women religious in North America, but the insights presented also apply to men religious. Readers are challenged to read the signs of the times with courage, discern where the Spirit is leading, and commit themselves to ongoing renewal and conversion of heart. For a community to be viable, H. suggests that we give each other space and time for relationships. Those in community who have well-established social support networks acquired over decades of living, praying, and working with others are called to create space...
Abstract:When a general chapter is convened, the capitulars face numerous challenges. Therefore, this article begins by highlighting the pivotal ones raised by Pope Francis and continues by emphasizing the elements that help a religious institute stay focused on its charism when making decisions. After establishing that two-fold framework, this article looks at the general chapter and the implementation of the outcomes. Concluding remarks underscore the transformative power that is at work in the life of an institute when all the members embark on the journey to the fringes of society.
