Apostolic Religious Life in America Today: A Response to the Crisis

7. Apostolic Religious Life in the Post–Vatican II Church: Ongoing Challenges of Renewal—Perfect and Imperfect Love

127 Seven Apostolic Religious Life in the Post–Vatican II Church Ongoing Challenges of Renewal— Perfect and Imperfect Love Kurt Pritzl, O.P. Perfect charity or complete love, the divine reality signified by the opening words of the Decree on the Appropriate Renewal of the Religious Life of the Second Vatican Council (Perfectae Caritatis), provides the theme of this essay.1 This theme is pursued insofar as love, as it ranges in human life from earthly mortal love to charity, constitutes the practical basis and effective engine for meeting ongoing challenges of renewal of apostolic religious life. The Council’s 1 The Decree on the Appropriate Renewal of the Religious Life, referred to hereafter by its Latin title, Perfectae Caritatis, and cited as PC, was promulgated on October 28, 1965. All documents of the Second Vatican Council are cited and quoted from Walter M. Abbott , S.J., general editor, The Documents of Vatican II: All Sixteen Official Texts Promulgated by the Ecumenical Council 1963–1965 Translated from the Latin, intro. Lawrence Cardinal Shehan, translations directed by Joseph Gallagher (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1966), by section and page number. 128 Kurt Pritzl Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (Lumen Gentium) had earlier forcefully made the point that charity, “the first and most necessary gift,”2 is the ultimate guide and engine of holiness for all the faithful, and in a special way for religious: “For charity, as the bond of perfection and the fulfillment of the law (cf. Col 3:14; Rom 13:10), rules over all the means of attaining holiness, gives life to them, and makes them work. Hence it is the love of God and of neighbor which points out the true disciple of Christ.”3 After more than thirty years of momentous and unexpected change in the world, the Church, and religious life since the Council, Pope John Paul II’s post-synodal apostolic exhortation Vita Consecrata emphasized the same principle, writing of “the grace of this special communion of love with Christ” and “this special grace of intimacy which, in the consecrated life, makes possible and even demands the total gift of self in the profession of the evangelical counsels.”4 One instance of the dynamic of charity at work in the founding of a religious order is given in the acts of canonization of Saint Dominic: Frequently he made a special personal petition that God would deign to grant him a genuine charity, effective in caring for and obtaining 2 Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, §42 (p. 70); hereafter referred to by its Latin title, Lumen Gentium, and cited as LG. This decree was promulgated November 21, 1964. 3 LG §42 (71). This quotation regards the universal call to holiness; specific reference to the fundamental role of the perfection of charity in consecrated life is abundantly given in chapter 6 of the decree, where §44 (74) gives one early instance: “The faithful of Christ can bind themselves to the three previously mentioned counsels either by vows, or by other sacred bonds which are like vows in their purpose. Through such a bond a person is totally dedicated to God by an act of supreme love, and is committed to the honor and service of God under a new and special title.” See further in §44 (74–75) and at §45 (76): “For by that practice [of the evangelical counsels] is uniquely fostered the perfection of love for God and neighbor.” See also §46 (77). 4 Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation “Vita Consecrata” of the Holy Father John Paul II to the Bishops and Clergy, Religious Orders and Congregations, Societies of Apostolic Life, Secular Institutes, and all the Faithful on the Consecrated Life and Its Mission in the Church and in the World (Vatican City: Vatican Press, 1996), §§15–16 (24), promulgated on March 25, 1996. All citations and quotations are from this volume by section and page number, hereafter cited as VC. See also VC §42 (72): “Love led Christ to the gift of self, even to the supreme sacrifice of the Cross. So too, among this disciples, there can be no true unity without that unconditional mutual love which demands a readiness to serve others generously, a willingness to welcome them as they are, without ‘judging’ them (cf. Mt 7:1–2), and an ability to forgive up to ‘seventy times seven’ (Mt 18:22)” (emphasis in the text). Ongoing Challenges of Renewal 129 the...