Vatican II Revisited

D éjà vu all over again,” as Yogi Berra put it, is an apt description for the apostolic visitation of institutes of women religious in the United States that is now taking place. Many commentators have expressed puzzlement over what occasioned the visitation and why it is directed solely at sisters in the United States. The population of women religious has been declining in North America for the past 45 years; the most precipitous declines occurred decades ago. The aging of women’s religious communities is an unsurprising result of the overall drop in numbers, as is the increased strain on their financial resources. These realities are not news. So why a visitation now? Trying to find proximate causes of the Vatican’s decision is at once fascinating to observers of ecclesial politics and frustrating to proponents of a more transparent style of church governance. Putting the project into a larger historical and theological context, however, can help to situate that sense of déjà vu.

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