The Vatican: out of touch like a fox

Predictably, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious is now stuck in a Mexican standoff with the two departments of the Holy See determined to uncover what our consecrated women believe and do. Just as predictably, everyone has an opinion.

Some, recalling LCWR member Sister Laurie Brink’s proud boast that many religious communities had evolved into something "post-Christian," are giving thanks that Rome is finally showing these naughty near-nuns the back of its hand. Only the sternest intervention can prevent them from turning religious life into one never-ending Lilith Fair.

Others, like Sister Sandra Schneiders, professor emerita of New Testament and spirituality at the Jesuit School of Theology, fear that the Vatican will reduce educated, dedicated women to a dronelike "ecclesiastical workforce." ’Ware boarders, ladies! The rallying cry goes. They want us stuck in the convent, barefoot -- or at any rate, discalced -- if not pregnant.

These two sides can duel to the death without me. To be sure, the LCWR has made statements that would force the most indulgent supervisory body to release the hounds. For example, LCWR President Sister Mary Whited, CPPS once likened the institutional Church to the pharaoh who enslaved the Israelites, and her own outfit to the Israelite midwives who saved the race by countermanding his orders. The last time I called anyone "Pharaoh," I woke up the next morning with a swollen jaw and a concussion, and knew I deserved them.

Yet, it’s equally clear that the Church has not, lately, been the most indulgent of supervisory bodies. Inquiring into American sisters’ "quality of life," Mother Mary Claire Millea’s stated goal for her so-called Apostolic Visitation, looks like a very sheer veil for the threat: prepare to be micromanaged. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s project -- quizzing sisters on their views regarding homosexuality, women’s ordination, and the Church’s role in saving souls -- could mean the bum’s rush for some very talented people.

Whether or not Rome is right to do what it’s doing, I have to admit it at least knows what it’s doing. At this point in history, depriving itself of American religious sisters, either by dismissing or alienating them, couldn’t hurt it less. To put it bluntly, women religious are already stuck in the margins. For one thing, membership in American women’s religious communities has declined to 60,000, from 180,000 in 1965, according to the New York Times. No longer central to Catholic education, sisters occupy themselves mainly with social services -- the very social services that the Church, given the economy’s parlous state, might be obliged to cut anyway.

Then there’s the fact that the sisters -- at least the ornery ones -- aren’t getting any younger. According to a 1999 study taken by Georgetown University’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, the average age of American religious sisters was between 65 and 70. Even if they do perform tasks the Church considers useful, they must be performing them with declining vigor.

By contrast, the women now entering religious life are much more likely than the older generation to act -- and dress, and think -- the way Rome would want. A newly released study from Georgetown’s CARA found that the practices and attitudes of the Vatican II generation, born between 1943 and 1960, differ sharply from those of the so-called Millennial generation, born after 1982. Compared with their elders, the Millennials are more likely to say they entered consecrated life out of a desire to serve the Church, and to select communities known for their loyalty to Church teachings. They’re also better disposed toward authority, more likely to wear habits, more likely to attach importance to the Liturgy of the Hours and Eucharistic adoration, and less inclined to participate in non-Catholic ministries.

With young saplings like these sprouting up, the Vatican has nothing to lose by clearing out deadwood.

Some other findings from the same study offer at least one hint why. Of new women religious, 21 percent are Hispanic, and 6 percent are African American. It’s no surprise that the older sisters’ zeal to confront and reform -- largely a white, middle-class thing -- is alien to this younger, more diverse set. If the Pew Research Center is right in predicting that America’s Catholic population will be more than half nonwhite by 2030, we should expect to see the composition in women’s religious communities change accordingly.

Within our own lifetime, white, liberal nuns may become as much a curiosity as white, liberal heavyweight boxers.

I confess, chewing over these numbers is causing me real anxiety. Born in ‘72, I’m sort of an ecclesiastical ‘tweener. To me, the New Agey leanings and the social-justice fetish of the Vatican II generation sometimes seem as charming and quaint as Coke in glass bottles. But these Millennials, with their simple certainties, are complete strangers. I can’t imagine how I’m going to enjoy being ministered to and rebuked by them.

Wherever my conscience might be, as I watch the members of LCWR totter off to the barricades, my heart goes with them. For theirs is a truly quixotic enterprise. I’m sure they know as well as I do, these tough old birds, that Rome shall have its way -- because the young folk shall have their world.