Power of Sisterhood: Women Religious Tell the Story of the Apostolic Visitation ed. by Margaret Cain McCarthy and Mary Ann Zollmann (review)

Editors Margaret Cain McCarthy and Mary Ann Zollmann, BVM, have rendered a valuable service in gathering these chapters about the Vatican’s 2009-2011 Apostolic Visitation (AV) of U.S. congregations of women religious, written mainly by sisters who have led their communities. Zollmann, a former president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), sets the stage by tracing visitations from the early church through the Second Vatican Council. She observes that many sisters felt that the AV violated that council’s ideals of collegiality, communion, and mutuality.

Patricia Walter, OP aptly characterizes the AV as part of “the contentious process of receiving the Second Vatican Council” (24) and notes matters still at issue, including the theology of religious life and the significance of feminism. In a chapter on primary sources, Jean Wincek, CSJ describes the chronology of the AV process, discussing statements from Cardinal Franc Rodé, CM, who initiated the investigation, as well as from LCWR, the Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious (CMSWR), and other sources. She mentions that official documents were posted on the website, www.apostolicvisitation.org, and describes the four phases planned for the process, which was coordinated by Mother Mary Clare Millea, ASCJ.

In 2010 a “Grassroots Group” of eight sisters in leadership commissioned a sociologist, Margaret Cain McCarthy, to design a survey to ascertain how sister-leaders had experienced the visitation. Although CMSWR congregations declined to participate, 143 members of LCWR completed the survey, and McCarthy analyzes these results in two chapters. Of particular interest is the fact that the majority of communities responding had sent their constitutions to Millea instead of answering the detailed questionnaire, indicating that these documents, already approved by Rome, covered the material requested. Although most respondents said that their reactions to the announcement of the AV had been negative, they were “repeatedly complimentary regarding interactions with, and the leadership of, Mother Mary Clare Millea” (86). Still, McCarthy notes that a “common thread” among 93 percent of those answering her survey was “continued questioning of the rationale behind the Visitation and belief that the Visitation was unjust, unnecessary, or wrong” (89).

Marcia Allen, CSJ then describes how women religious were supported in their experience of the AV by various individuals, organizations, and events. She finds that the experience “tightened bonds among the sisters” (129) and strengthened their resolve “to endure this suffering and persecution from the church with integrity” (144), as sisters had done in earlier times of tension with the hierarchy. Addie Lorraine Walker, OP then reflects on the visitation as an experience of women’s marginal status in the church, as well as one of community, collaboration, and struggle. Donna Day, SL and Cathy Mueller, SL also conclude that sisters gained a sense of solidarity from the experience and “emerged stronger” (175) as a result. Finally, Zollmann observes that the AV exposed a “gap between our own self-definition and the official church’s expectations of us,” and that all the Roman officials associated with the AV had retired, resigned, or been reassigned within five years of its announcement. She also recognizes that more of the story remains hidden, insofar as a number of sisters understand their vocations differently than those leaders who responded to the survey conducted by McCarthy, and it will be a continuing challenge to overcome the “division between two valid expressions of religious life” (194), represented by the differences between LCWR and CMSWR.

As a whole, this book succeeds very well in analyzing how a significant number of sisters experienced the AV. The chapters are very well researched, clearly written, and insightful. They express an inspiring degree of faith and charity. They do not attempt to resolve the theological issue at the heart of the controversy, namely whether the gender-based imbalance of power in Catholicism that...