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

3. "De Accommodata Renovatione: Between the Idea and the Reality . . .” Occasion and Intent and Consequences of Vatican Council II

67 1 These are “20/20” observations regarding the slightly more than four decades since Vatican Council II concluded. They are chronologically “20/20” because major transitions in religious life can be identified from the conclusion of that Council in 1965 to the work of the Quinn Commission in the mid-1980s (see n. 7 below), and from that Commission ’s final report to the present. These observations are also “20/20” because hindsight is a perspective from which past events are usually much clearer than when they occurred. These observations are distilled from nearly a decade in religious life before implementation of Vatican II began and from slightly more than three decades thereafter. Apostolic endeavors, professional contributions, and experience during these three decades include: canonical consultation for more than two hundred religious communities (women and men) in the United States and abroad; consultation for more than a dozen Three De Accommodata Renovatione: Between the Idea and the Reality. . .” Occasion and Intent and Consequences of Vatican Council II Elizabeth McDonough, O.P. These reflections arise from my being one among thousands of “BC” sisters. “BC” refers to those who entered religious life before or during Vatican Council II and obviously had not a clue about what was on the not-too-distant horizon.1 In January 1959, when “ 68 Elizabeth McDonough John XXIII announced the Second Vatican Council (along with revision of the 1917 Code of Canon Law), my religious community had more than seven hundred sisters, operated two colleges and three high school academies, staffed more than three dozen grade schools and high schools in six states, and owned and operated a small hospital. Having twenty or more novices a year was a common occurrence. Office was chanted in Latin daily. Permission was required to write home (back then you never phoned home). Full habit was worn whether teaching or waxing floors or playing basketball , and “chapter of faults” was held monthly. In 1984, a quarter century after the Council was announced, our prioress sent me to Rome to apologize personally on her behalf to Cardinal Hamer, prefect of the Congregation for Religious and Secular Institutes, because—without her knowledge or permission —one of our sisters had signed the full-page ad published in the New York Times on Pro-Life Sunday (October 7th), thus publicly affirming agreement with others who espoused “a diversity of opinion ” among “committed Catholics” regarding abortion. Our prioress wanted the Holy See to know this action did not represent who we were or what we were about as Dominican women religious in the Church. We were not—she said—in the business of embarrassing the hierarchy and were certainly not among those espousing positions contrary to Church teaching. Recently, this same (former) prioress remarked that a quarter century ago sisters here or there might take stands contrary to Church teaching, but now it is those in leadership who do so, often frequently and often very publicly and often applauding other religious who do the same. About a quarter century after 1984, the religious congregation to which I belonged had one-third as many sisters, operated two arch/dioceses; and consultation on more than forty misconduct cases (one-tenth of which involved religious). They also include: teaching canon law and/or theology at the graduate level to priests, deacons, and seminarians for seventeen years; serving as delegate of the Apostolic See in 1991 for final stages of the merger of the Institute of the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas (see n. 2 below); assisting in the recent Apostolic Visitation of Seminaries ; authoring one book, several book chapters, and more than thirty articles in canonical journals; and (since summer 1990) contributing one hundred successive “Canonical Counsel” essays in Review for Religious as its canonical editor. De Accommodata Renovatione 69 colleges and one academy, and staffed half a dozen schools in three states. In 2008 there were three new professions, and we were one of only fifty-six congregations adequately funded for retirement according to National Religious Retirement Office (NRRO) standards. In early 2009, this religious congregation ceased to exist as it joined six other Dominican congregations in a canonical union.2 This tripled the number of senior sisters, significantly raised the median age, and resulted in less than adequate retirement funding for all sisters involved since the adequate retirement funding for one congregation simply could not provide adequate NRRO retirement funds for all...