This year the Conference of Major Superiors of Men Religious and the Leadership Conference of Women Religious celebrate their 50th anniversaries. These vibrant organizations include most of the leadership of religious communities in the United States and have served well their members and the church
A well-researched study of the negative dynamic that developed between the Catholic hierarchy and women religious in the United States in the decades following the Second Vatican Council has appeared as Double Crossed: Uncovering the Catholic Church’s Betrayal of American Nuns (Doubleday), by
In your writings on religion, you have given particular emphasis to questions of justice and peace. Do you believe these issues to be at the core of religious belief?Justice is an aspect of compassion that is one of the subjects I write about in The Great Transformation. Justice, if you like, is the
Several journalists have recently weighed in on the status of women’s religious life in recent years: Ann Carey’s Sisters in Crisis: The Tragic Unraveling of Women’s Religious Life (1997); John Fialka’s Sisters: Catholic Nuns and the Making of America (2003); Cheryl L. Reed&r
I have met many LAY Christians who put professional religious to shame by their dedication, their service and their heartfelt love of God. I have encountered many lifestyles that seem much more based on Gospel values than formalized vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. Sometimes religious life f
When traffic on the Midtown cross streets and East Side avenues of New York City is backed up day after day; when police and police barricades appear at intersections, in front of hotels and before public buildings; when lines of black sedans and S.U.V.’s fill entire city blocks and dour men a
Effective Preaching
Camille D’Arienzo, R.S.M., (Preaching: A Ministry [Still] in Distress 9/18) has it exactly right. The church needs better preaching. This seemed especially urgent after hearing Walter Burghardt, S.J., on several occasions and recognizing the impact of great