Review for Religious - Issue 42.4 (July/August 1983)

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Issue 42.4 of the Review for Religious, July/August 1983. ; REVIEW FOR R~.L~c, lous (ISSN 0034-639X), published evcry two months, is edited in collaboration with the faculty members of the Department of Theological Studies of St. Louis University. The editorial offices are located at Room 428:3601 Lindell Blvd.: St. Louis, MO 63108. Rv.vw.w FOR REI.IGIOUS is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute of the Society of Jesus, St. Louis, MO. © 1983 by R~.v~Ew ~:oR REIAG~OUS. Composed, printed and manufactured in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. Louis. MO. Single copies: $2.50. Subscription U.S.A.: $9.00 a year: $17.00 for two years. Other countries: add $2.00 per year (postage). For subscription orders or change of address, write: REVI~:W I.'OR REHC.tOIIS: P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, MN 55806. Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Dolores Greeley, R.S.M. Daniel T. Costello, S.J. Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Book Editor Questions and Answers Editor Assistant Editor July/August, 1983 Volume 42 Number 4 Manuscripts, books for review and correspondence with the editor should be sent to REWEW ~'OR RELIGIOUS; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108. Questions for answering should be sent to Joseph F. Gallen, S.J.; Jesuit Community; St. Joseph's University; City Avenue at 54th St.; Philadelphia, PA 19131. Back issues and reprints should be ordered from REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108. "Oul of print" issues and articles not published as reprints are available from University Microfilms Intergational; 300 N. Zeeb Rd.; Ann Arbor, MI 48106. Trends in Religious Life Today John M. Lozano, C.M.F. On the evening of June 16, in joint sponsorship with St. Louis University's Department of Theological Studies, REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS launched the fi~st of an annual series of lectures and colloquies on a subject of pertinence to religious life as such. The first lecture in this series, the basis of the present article, was given by Father John Lozano, already known to our readers as an author specializing in the history and theology of religious life. Father Lozano has taught at universities both here and abroad; he is presently superior of the Claretian house of studies in Chicago and teaches at the Catholic Theological Union there. He may be addressed at his residence: Claret House; 5540 S. Everett; Chicago, IL 60637. The following reflections are offered as a sort of aerial photograph of the most prominent features emerging on the landscape of the religious life. We will take a look at some of the main trends that seem to be shaping the future .of this landscape, and examine some of the main difficulties that its terrain presents for the religious traveler today. Many of these trends and difficulties seem to be closely interrelated. At the end of our survey we will concentrate on one major difficulty that seems to arise from causes that are more general than is sometimes supposed. I will be speaking mainly from the viewpoint of the northern hemisphere (North American and Europe), but my work in some other parts of the globe (Latin America, Australia and the Philippines) has shown that the same trends are emerging in broad areas throughout the Church. The rapidity of modern communications and the international outreach of books and reviews has tended to hasten the spread of ideas and attitudes from one continent to another. I base these reflections on my personal experience. During the last twenty years, which I have dedicated to studying the religious life and working with a broad spectrum of men's and women's religious communities, I have always striven to relate a theological vision of the religious life to the experiences that I 481 4119 / Review for Religious, July-August; 1983 and those I worked with were undergoing at the time. I have also had to pay close attention to what others were writing on these subjects. Naturally, my nearness to the phenomena I deal with (my own present) has been a somewhat mixed blessing: on the one hand, it has given me the immediacy of an "insider's" experience of these phenomena; on the other, it has been a real test of objectivity, since I had to write about them with a degree of passionate involvement. For this is a history we are all enjoying and suffering together~ In the exposition that follows, I have chosen not to separate trends in theology from trends in life, since common sense and all my previous work have shown them to be intimately related. There is no need to dwell on the particular circumstances that lead us to reflect on the present state of the religious life. It is a well-known fact that it is currently undergoing a serious crisis of growth and adaptation. Many are wondering if it really has a future,~ while a number of religious communities who have felt a sharp decrease in membership are worrying whether they will manage to survive. In view of these facts, it makes little sense to try to lay the blame for them on individual failures. What we are going through is a failure of institutions as such? This is not surprising if we bear in mind the profound technological and cultural changes that have taken place in our society, as well as the rapidity with which they have occurred and will continue to occur. The Second Vatican Council spoke of our times as a new epoch in history and tried to make the Church face up to it. In a memorable address to the Wes~on School of Theology, Karl Rahner stated that "the second Vatican Council is, in a rudimentary form still groping for identity, the Cl~urch's first self-actualiza-tion as a World Church.'~ Thus the third great epoch of the Church's history is beginning to open up, after the. very brief Judeo-Christian Epoch and the Occidental Epoch that started when Paul brought the gospel to the Gentiles and began incarnating it in their culture. The deep changes which this new epoch will bring, although they will surely be of great consequence for the Church, can as yet hardly be glimpsed. If the Church is already witnessing some of these profound changes, then the religious life, which in its various forms has always tried to respond to the needs of the Church, will itself have to undergo a necessary crisis of readjust-ment. That is why we simply have to reflect on what is going on. In dealing with the mosi general trends observable in the religious life today, it seemed appropriate to group them under the following six headings: 1) the centrality of the person, 2) the growing advocacy of women's rights, 3) the predominance of life over institutions, 4) ministerial openness to the world, 5) the reinterpretation of religious life, and 6) the problem of lifelong commitment. Finally, we will consider a single issue of great concern: the scarcity of vocations. 1. The Centrality of the Person The frequency with which certain aspects of religious life are discussed, and Trends in Religious I~fe / 411~ the way in which certain concrete situations are handled, reveal a growing tendency to regard the religious person as a central criterion. This theme has been the object of deep philosophical reflection by Christian thinkers during our century. In France, it was first dealt with by Jacques Maritain and then in a quite different way by Emmanuel Mounier. In Europe generally, the trauma of modern dictatorships--which made party or national loyalty the life-or-death criterion for the individual--also helped us see the dangers latent in the way some religious families viewed issues of solidarity and obedience. The trauma was a salutary one, because both the theoretical authoritarianism of anti-democrats like Charles Maurras and the practical authoritarianism of dictators like Mussolini, Salazar, Franco and Peron had no small influence in some ecclesiastical and religious circles. But since the time of John XXIII, a new definition of the common good has begun to leave its mark on magisterial teachings and statements.4 This definition regards the common good not as the sum of common goals (to which individuals are sacrificed), but as an environ-ment of freedom, peace and solidarity where persons may more readily achieve development and fulfillment. Even in the darkest hours of the past, no matter how much we conformed, somewhere in the back of our memory we could never quite let go of the Loi'd's saying that "the sabbath was made for human beings, not human beings for the sabbath," or of the pastoral axiom that "the sacraments are for persons." But clearly, our more democratic milieu and the institutional images it projects, together with the spread of the new psycholo-gies of personal development in Europe and North America, have made us more sensitive to this theme. 1.1. The Development of One's Own Talents. This is not only an important concern for individual religious, but also figures in a whole series of renewed constitutions. In the past, constitutions ordinarily asked community leaders to watch over the spiritual and physical welfare of their sisters and brothers.5 The new texts ask them to facilitate the overall growth of their sisters and brothers, whether on the level of psychological health, education or professional prepa-ration. 6 In fact, a number of the new constitutions speak of the overall growth of the religious, and make the community co-responsible with the individual in achieving this growth.7 The now-common secretariats and programs for con-tinuing formation and education point in the same direction. But individual religious share this concern. There is a general tendency to affirm oneself and develop one's gifts. This has had its effect on spirituality, which is viewed as a means for achieving one's full potential (holiness/whole-ness), and on the theology of the vows, which are viewed dynamically, as means to personal growth.8 The achievement of personal fulfillment was already a goal in the teaching of Aquinas and Bonaventure, who treated the vows as means for arriving at the perfection of charity,9 although greater stress is laid today on the overall aspect of maturity. One difficulty felt by many religious and frequently echoed in religious chapters and congresses, can be summed up in the question: How are one's 411~ / Review for Religious, July-August, 1983 personal fulfillment and gifts to be related to the common good, aims and ministries of the institute?10 Theoretically, the issue seems clear enough. On the one hand, the members of every religious community share a common voca-tion and have received from God the same charism that was first given to their founder or foundress. On the other hand, each member is a different personal-ity, with different gifts that he or she has a duty to cultivate and make bear fruit. In short, it is a matter of a diversity of personalities being united in communion. We should perhaps note in passing that actual, absolute liberty, that is, the real possibility of developing one's personality to the maximum, simply does not exist. Every adult, even one who is single and free, has to build his or her existence within a limited gamut of possibilities, and always with some attendant sacrifices. No one, let alone a person committed to one or more persons in a family, in matrimony or in a celibate community, can work out his or her own development without reference to solidarity to others. Anyone who persists in trying to evade solidarity will end up psychologically warped or stunted. Individual religious must always be ready to make sacri-rices, and these sacrifices will definitely make them grow. However, on its part, the community cannot pursue its common good or goals through a systematic policy of sacrificing its members. The development and happiness of individual members carries over into the common good of the group. The concrete solution to this problem is to be sought and found in a sense of communion and real dialogue between the group (its representatives) and the individual. 1.2. Freedom. Isaac Hecker, with fine American sense, wrote that "a great and large freedom of action should be the spirit" of the Paulist community.~1 It is significant that the terms "freedom" and "liberty" occur so frequently in revised constitutions.'2 Of course, individual freedom of choice has always been required for acceptance into community. One was--and is--in community, out of a desire to be in community. But community and obedience were commonly seen from the viewpoint of sacrificing one's individual freedom. In the new type of community there is ample room for individual freedom and initiative. We have referred in passing to the disappearance of the disciplinary type of community that began forming in the 19th century, with its peculiar stresses in reaction to the French Revolution: a type of community dominated by uniformity in dress, in timetables and, in lay communities of women and men, in the kind of ministry practiced. The new constitutions contain few disciplinary regulations. The local community can now, ordinarily, determine its own internal norms and make its own decisions. The number of community acts, which were excessive in many communities founded in the last few centuries, has been reduced to a minimum. Not only religious men, but reli-gious women as well, now have to seek out their own ministerial works, rather than receive them passively from the community. Recently a sister told me: "We ourselves have to create our own jobs and living conditions." Obviously, this kind of freedom has its price. A religious must now make a real effort to maintain communion with his or her own group. Today's community tends to Trends in Religious Life / 4115 be seen in the light of unity in essentials, liberty in what does not affect the common values of religious lifeor the charism and spirit of the institute, and a definite effort at establishing a communion of love. Initially, the downfall of restrictive norms and community acts, together with the broadening field for autonomous, individual decisions, left a good number of religious with the impression that community life had all but disappeared. However, after a period of personal search, religious began to feel the need to return to a more intensely lived form of community, this time based on interpersonal relationships. More spontaneous and creative acts of common prayer began to appear. Nevertheless, there are quite a few men and women religious who have kept their liberty without managing to create com-munion. Of course, many religious live in community, in the sense that they come home to sleep under the same roof, share meals together and treat each other with respect. But the number of religious who are living alone, when they could be living in community, is somewhat notable. The fact that more women than men are living alone may be traced to a number of factors. For one thing, the number of men whose work is tied to institutions (parishes, schools, retreat houses) is proportionately greater. Moreover, women religious may have a greater psychological need for living alone. In the past, women's communities were far more restrictive than men's, and thus the reaction of the former has been that much stronger. Besides this, as we shall see in more detail later, all women, and religious women in particular, are struggling to emerge as persons, against the restrictions still imposed on them by the ecclesiastical community. 1.3. Pluralism in Community. This brings us to the subject of pluralism, which was so warmly debated in not a few chapters of renewal. In the past, there was a strong tendency toward uniformity. Everyone studied the same theology and followed the same methods of prayer. Each institute had a uniform theological or spiritual language. Today the great variety of theological positions in the Church is reflected within religious families, and often within the same reli-gious house. This affects the way we view the religious life and its objectives, and these different views are translated into different life-styles. Pluralism can immensely enrich our communities, provided it does not jeopardize essentials, thus weakening or undermining spiritual cohesion. But pluralism has now reached a transitional phase in which it can give rise to considerable suffering. Those who are inclined toward a more traditional type of life, to a distinctive habit, or to a more devotional form of piety, may suffer and feel lost among others who are leading a different type of life. Those who are inclined to a more personal life-style, with a more modem sensibility, often feel that they are the object of suspicion and insinuations. Theological plural-ism, above all for initiates, can cause acute moral suffering. We may some-times be offered an image of Christ, or a paradigm for relationships with Christ, that wounds our feelings. We might do well to recall that pluralism in freedom caused serious prob-lems for the tiny ecclesial communities of Paul, both on the theological level 41~6 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1983 (the role of the Law) and on the practical level (eating food offered to idols). Paul's recommendation was that all should practice a delicate charity toward one another. Those who felt more restricted should respect the conscience of others, while those who felt more free in these matters should exercise their freedom without inflicting unnecessary wounds on those of a different persua-sion. "Each of you should regard, not your own interests, but the other per-son's" (I Co 10:24). There are religious who worry too much about what others are saying or doing. And there are religious who speak and act without regard for the sufferings they may be causing others. After all, what good will our theology or our achievement of practical freedom do us ifthey are done without love? 1.4. Personal Ministries. In the past, congregations with the most priests prac-ticed two different types of ministries: one, institutional, in which the religious collaborated in a common work (schools, retreat houses, parishes), the other, personal (teaching in centers outside the institute, preaching, conferences, books). Lay communities of men or women were limited to working within their own institutions (hospitals, schools). In many women's communities and in some brothers' institutes, there is now a trend favoring personal ministries: counseling, spiritual direction and giving conferences. This has fundamentally modified the type of community life led in these institutes. We read also, for example, that the Franciscan Province of Santa Barbara has adopted, as a criterion of priority in assignments to ministries, the talents and availability of individual members, rather than the needs of existing institutions.13 This trend can be noted with lesser force in institutes that have a greater number of institutions (schools, parishes, hospitals). 1.5. Emphasis on Local Community. Partly because of this affirmation of the centrality of the person in societies and institutions, and partly because of the current stress on the Church as a communion that is realized above all in the local church, greater importance is being attached to the local religious com-munity. Many constitutions have changed the vertical presentation of their governmental structures from the once-common descending order (general government, provinces, local communities) to an ascending order (local, pro-vincial, general),~4 while even more constitutions affirm the primary value of the local community. In contrast with the mainly disciplinary content of former texts, the new ones bring out the theological and ecclesial meaning of the local community as a community of faith, worship and mission, and as the privileged locus of Christian communion.~5 1.6. Small Communities. Starting very soon after the Council, there was a growing emphasis on a trend that had already appeared in religious institutes founded a few decades earlier: the formation of small local communities with a family-like structure. Large communities that staffed various institutions (schools or parishes), or were at the service of some large institution (a univer-sity), began dividing up into small groups. Many factors motivated this shift: a Trends in Religious Life / 4117 desire to establish closer interpersonal relationships, an attempt to lessen the difficulties inherent in large-group interaction, a tendency to live closer to the people, and an endeavor to free the group from quasi-monastic structures. Paul VI dealt with this trend in his apostolic exhortation, Evangelica Testif!- catio,~6 noting that this type of community makes greater demands of its members. For one thing, in this setting the individual constantly emerges in face-to-face relationships that strongly reveal his or her good points and short-comings. Small communities demand better communication, greater respect for individual differences, and a more thoroughgoing effort to adapt oneself to others. In large communities it is easier to avoid communication and, above all, confrontation with certain community members. Interestingly enough, it is not just older persons accustomed to a more institutionalized type of life, but also younger religious less inclined to intimate communication, who prefer to live in larger groups. 1.7. Authority and Obedience. The Second Vatican Council, in its decree Perfectae Caritatis,17 clearly established principles for a deep renewal of the practice of authority and obedience as we had heretofore known it. Doubtless, the concepts expressed in this decree belong to the tradition of the religious life in its richest moments. Nevertheless, the emphasis on certain aspects of this tradition, such as "active collaboration," the service rendered by the commu-nity leader, the recommendation that the leader respect his or her fellow religious as sons or daughters of God and as human persons, the insistence on dialogue as an integral part of the unifying process of obedience (and not just as a last resort in facing difficult decisions)--all of these paved the way for a theological and practical reinterpretation of the leader's role, and of the nature of common obedience.~8 Even those institutes that have not modified their vertical structures of government have had to reread their constitutions with a new sensitivity.~9 The Council stated that the manner of governing religious institutes had to be examined and brought into harmony with the physical and psychological conditions of today's religious, with the needs of the apostolate, with cultural requirements, and with socioeconomic realities.20 The great majority of the revised constitutions of institutes founded in an age when another image of authority prevailed, have modified their systems of govern-ment by introducing dialogue prior to decision making, or have even left certain decisions to the group itself. Some constitutions have made the group the ordinary decision-making body in matters important to the local commu-nity. In Practice, there has also been a tendency to allow a wide margin for individual decisions and initiatives in matters that do not touch upon the life of the group. 2. The Emancipation of Women Closely related to the preceding theme (the value of the person as such), another trend has had a growing impact on religious life: the progressive 41111 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1983 emergence of the religious woman, and her assumption of a public mission in the Church and in civil society. We are touching here on a painful topic: the struggle of women (and the Holy Spirit with them) to liberate themselves from a situation of confinement and subordination. No need to go into the details of Mary Ward's way of the cross, or the fate of the Ursulines after the death of Angela Merici, or the changes forced upon the Order of the Visitation, or the tremendous difficulties that Louise de Marillac and her Daughters of Charity had to face. As late as the 19th century, especially in France, every women's institute was forced to have a male ecclesiastical superior with powers equal and sometimes superior to those of the mother general. Some institutes were arbitrarily divided, and some foundresses were practically expelled from their own communities (Clara Pfaender, Bonifacia Rodriguez, Maria Rosa Zangara), or deposed (Jeanne de Lestonnac, Alix Le Clercq, Alfonsa Cavin, Rafaela of the Sacred Heart). Fortunately, circumstances have changed radi-cally and will continue to do so, as we shall see. 2.1. Emancipation. A large number of religious women are more or less fully committed to the feminist movement, and still more are deeply affected by it.2~ In the past every religious woman, upon reaching maturity, had to bring her femininity to bear on her milieu so to speak implicitly, by letting it shine through in her life and work (think of Teresa's influence on her theologian friends, or the changes Jeanne de Chantal brought about in Francois de Sales). Nowadays, however, the condition of women is explicitly posited and vindi-cated. In affirming their identity, religious women are bringing a new dimen-sion into spirituality and religious life in general: the feminine perspective?2 They not only are setting up a feminine symbology to counterbalance the overstated male symbology of religion (a function always at work in women like Clare of Assisi, Catherine of Siena, Teresa of Jesus and Margaret Mary Alacoque), but are also discovering the feminine aspects of God (something rarely done in the past, although one can always point to the example of Dame Julian of Norwich). The arrival of large numbers of women in the once segregated halls of theology is bound to give rise to deep changes in the task of interpreting the experience of God. The theology of the religious life will surely have to take much more serious note of this phenomenon. 2.2. The Revision of Constitutions. Today, religious women are revising their own constitutions, sometimes with the help of outside experts, both men and women. We are getting farther and farther away from the days when men could write rules for women (Pachomius, perhaps Augustine, Caesarius of Arles, Leander), or when women had to adopt and adapt rules written for men's communities (Benedictines). There is an exquisitely feminine style and sensibility in not a few of the new constitutions. 2.3. Personal Ministries. With growing frequency, women are taking on per-sonal ministries not connected with their own institutions. They are teaching in outside centers, writing books, doing spiritual direction, directing retreats and Trends in Religious Life / 489 spiritual exercises, counseling, ministering in parishes, and so forth. Their influence is beginning to be strongly felt in male formation communities, by the balance they bring to young men who receive their information in an otherwise strictly masculine environment. This gives these men a more positive and educative,perception of the feminine image. 2.4. The First Apostolic Community. In our judgment, the women religious of North America have built the first fully apostolic feminine community in history. Many of them live in small groups not bound to institutions, and are dedicated to personal ministries. While men religious are frequently tied down to an ecclesiastical institution (parish, college), women religious, by the very fact of being non-ordained ministers, enjoy a greater freedom of movement. 2.5. Economic Dependence. This freedom is very relative, however, because many women religious are faced with the anguishing problem of economic dependence. Adding to the painfulness of this situation is the fact that the work they do is usually underpaid. Moreover, those women who do not have their own institutions must either depend on other institutions, or else become free-lancers at the mercy of fortune. A few.years ago, one mother general told me that her institute was unable to implement an option for the poor and the marginated because they depended for their sustenance on the salaries they received from the diocese, which did not allow enough for it. 3. Life Over Institutions Another clearly perceptible trend in today's religious life seems to be a distinct prevalence of a concept and an experience of a life lived simply, freely and creatively, over against more institutional forms of living. Significantly, the first schema on religious life submitted to the Second Vatican Council was overloaded with canonical-institutional vocabulary, reflected in its title: status religiosus--the religious state. It had obviously been drafted by.a group of conservative canonists and theologians. When this text was brought to the floor for discussion, the Council gave it h change of direction and chose to speak of the religious life, understood not as a sort of entity that could be classified and regulated, but as a life that is really lived. This trend is more apparent in Perfectae Caritatis (October, 1965) than in Chapter IV of Lumen Gentium (November, 1964~). But even in Lumen Gentium, the basis stated for both the religious state and form of life are the charisms of the Spirit,23 and the movement leading a Christian to consecrate his or her life to the service of God is described in similar terms.24 Perfectae Caritatis describes various con-crete aspects of this life which must be renewed and adapted to conditions as they really exist. This has been a recurring trend throughout history, especially during peri-ods of creativity. Basil and Macrina created fraternal groups, free of the unwieldiness of the Pachomian institutions that had formed in Egypt. Francis of Assisi was very traditional in his concept of the religious life ("to live 490 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1983 according to the Gospel"), yet he launched a project of profound renewal by distancing himself from existing monastic institutions. The Dominicans origi-nally followed this same trend. The first Jesuits and the Daughters of Charity, each in their own way, were simply Christian companions committed to serv-ice. A few decades ago, the Little Brothers and Sisters of Jesus returned to this simplicity, to a lived life and to creativity. The phenomenon we have been describing is now appearing under various forms. 3.1. The Fall of Structure. In most communities many structures have disap-peared. The 19th century left us a legacy of methods and detailed regulations for prayer, for the organization of our day, for work, etc. In Europe,.a number of founders went so far as to include a basic menu in their constitutions. As the monks of Solesmes had striven to unify liturgical rubrics against a welter of national liturgies, religious superiors strove to unify religious life with regula-tions and timetables. In today's ~onstitutions and community discussions, the emphasis is on the quality of life. Religious are concerned about the extent to which their real life constitutes a witness, now that neither uniform habits nor characteristic buildings nor special timetables distinguish them from the rest of the citizenry. Religious tend to "value more the influence of their life attitudes and personal witness than they do the impact of service to an institution.'~5 To put it another way, there is a sort of diffuse Franciscanism in our times, representing a desire to connect with the original and fundamental sense of the religious life: a life-style that is significant in itself. 3.2. Prayer. This same trend can be felt in the prayer life of religious. In the not-too-distant past, communities imposed numerous acts of community prayer, many of them devotional in character. Even personal meditation and spiritual reading were made into community acts. Some quite detailed methods of meditation were very popular. Apostolic communities have largely done away with these numerous community acts and have returned mental prayer to the responsibility and initiative of the individual. Initially, more than a few religious felt left in the lurch by all of this, so that one often heard the complaint, "We aren't praying anymore!" Others, on the contrary, looked upon the new approach as a license to improvise, and began to forget the lessons of the spiritual masters, lessons that were themselves the fruit of pro-longed experience. We believe that this situation has been largely corrected. Left in greater liberty, religious themselves have had to face up to their respon-sibility. But even here, some exaggerations exist. One sometimes gets the impression that some people regard prayer as a strictly private responsibility, despite the fact that constitutions clearly represent it as an essential life-trait for all members of the institute. Our prayer-life is a commitment we make to the community, and other members of the community have every right to be concerned when we give the impression that we are failing in prayer. 3.3. A New Understanding of Law. Another commonly observable trend is the new way in which the revised constitutions and rules of life are presented. A Trends in Religious Life / 491 little background may clarify this trend. In many texts submitted to the Holy See by 19th-century founders and foundresses, there was an overload of asceti-cal exhortations and a dearth of canonical structures. In reaction to this, the Roman Curia, around the turn of the century, issued its Normae secundum quas, excluding all these ascetical passages and adding the necessary structural sections.26 This had the unfortunate effect of reducing most constitutions to the bare bones of a canonical and disciplinary text, containing an abundance of precise norms on how to do things, on the practice of mortification, and on rules for cloister and silence. We were left with a code of precepts. In the new constitutions and rules of life, few norms remain, and those that do are canon-ical, almost to the exclusion of those of a purely disciplinary nature. In con-trast, these new texts give us a description of the vocation and spirit of the religious who belong to each institute. We have passed, so to speak, from a "decalogue" code of observances to a "beatitudes" rule of life; from a minimum we must observe, to a maximum toward which we must strive. Instead of observance, we now tend to speak of growing fidelity. Saint Thomas observed long ago that the twofold gospel precept of love (with all one's heart) is not something we fulfill here and now in an instant, but is rather a goal toward which we must constantly strive and tend. This is the evangelical vision to which the new rules of life invite us. Hence, for all their dearth of precepts, these new rules are on the whole more demanding. 3.4. Individual and Community Discernment. The greater freedom allotted to individuals and to local communities, the reinterpretation of the fundamental law as a description of vocation and spirit, and the relative absence of discipli-nary norms have all placed a greater burden of responsibility on local com-munities and their members. Local communities must frequently assume the role of discerning what is here and now God's salvific will for the group and its members. In this respect, the 32nd General Congregation of the Society of Jesus has set a good example for us all. Speaking of the mission of the Jesuits today, the Congregation stated: "We must undertake a thoroughgoing assess-ment of our traditional apostolic methods, attitudes and institutions with a view to adapting them to the new needs of the times and to a world of rapid change. All this demands that we practice discernment, that spiritual discern-ment which Saint Ignatius teaches us in the Exercises. Moreover, discerning will yield a deeper grasp of the movements, aspirations and struggles in the hearts of our contemporaries."27 A little later, the decree restates the same idea: "What is required is not so much a research program as a process of reflection and evaluation inspired by the Ignatian tradition of spiritual discernment."~s The Ignatian practice of spiritual discernment, once largely restricted to circles of the Society of Jesus, has now become generalized to the point that it is present in all schools of spirituality. Recent bibliography abundantly bears out this development,~9 and we should all be glad of it. 3.5. A Blurred Image of Church. As we round out this section, we can hardly 492 Review for Religious, July-August, 1983 avoid mentioning one painful fact: the disinterest or distaste that some reli-gious feel toward the ecclesiastical institution. Francis of Assisi, who was called to rebuild God's tottering house, was distinguished from other leaders of poverty movements in his day by his fidelity to the Church's leaders.3° Saint Ignatius Loyola, another great religious reformer, recommended that we "feel with the hierarchical Church.TM Today, although most religious are strongly attracted to the Church as communion and mystery, a number of them tend to experience the Church institution as something alienating. The fact is that the image of the Church projected by Leo XIII, Pius X1 and Pius XI1 has largely disappeared, and new images are struggling to emerge. There is a significant amount of writing on various "models of the Church."32 We all know that institutions, in this earthly phase of things, are as necessary for the Church's presence and action as the body is for the self's. We must of course take care of the body and control it, since here, too, an overly heavy body can impede the action of the individual spirit. 4. Ministerial Openness to the World Another group of factors that seems to constitute a characteristic trend in today's religious life is the positive reevaluation of the world and of the reli-gious life as service to the Church and the world.33 Isaac Hecker introduced a typically American sensibility into spirituality by underscoring the positive character of the encounter of grace with our humanity, and by consistently speaking of this encounter in positive terms.3a The classic synthesis of Thomas Aquinas began to reappear with new accents. In the United States today, there are many spiritualities which evaluate the created world positively, and asso-ciate spiritual progress with overall progress (holiness/wholeness). In Europe, Louvain accustomed us to a theology of earthly values.35 In France, where great stress had always been laid on the Incarnation, a high value was placed on Christian presence among the masses (the priest-worker movement). Vati-can II, above all in Gaudium et Spes, gave us a realistic vision of the world that was rich in positive traits. John XXIII's Pacem in Terris decidedly opted for democratic social values. All of this has had its impact on the life of the Church. Secular Institutes are precisely secular institutions that aim at enliven-ing the human and civil "world" from within. The charisms of the religious life are now spoken of, not as gifts to help us flee from the world, but rather as gifts that enable us to penetrate the world more deeply, in order to transcend it. We no longer speak of afuga mundi, but rather of a penetration of the world, in order to induce it to return to its Creator, and transcend itself. Thomas Merton personified this "return to the world" movement in almost paradigmatic fashion. His early works, written at a time when he regarded the Abbey of Gethsemani as "the only real city in America,"36 reflect the critical reactions of a convert, as well as a somewhat elitist monastic theology. In Seeds of Contemplation (1949), the theme of a holy person's positive outlook on the world alternates with a negative view of the secular city from which the Trends in Religious Life / 493 Christian must strive to escape.37 In The Inner Experience (1959), his attitude toward contemplatives is more realistic, and the possibility of a lived expe-rience of God in the world emerges more clearly,as One can notice an effort to situate contemplation in the living context of everyday life. Contemplation means an indepth look at reality not in order to evade it, but in order to transcend it;39 it supposes a reading of events.4° The new chapter, "Solitude is Not Separation," added to New Seeds of Contemplation,4~ reveals at last a total contemplative openness to the world. Thomas Merton would soon become a prophet of peace and justice. The contemplative--as Teresa of Jesus had experienced long before Merton--is someone who brings the world, its agonies and its ecstasies, before God.42 This phenomenon has occurred frequently in the course 0~" history. We might, in fact, speak of a phasic alternation between periods of Incarnation and periods of Transcendence, although we should add that each swing toward the Incarnational pole has left us definitively closer to the world. The 12th century witnessed a cultural rebirth in which "nature" began to lose its sacral, symbolic value and gained some measure of autonomy.43 The married laity ceased being referred to as "children and weaklings who simply cannot embrace celibacy" (an oft-repeated phrase in earlier ecclesiastical texts),4~ and were instead spoken of as persons who profess the "common rule," that is, the Gospel. The Third Orders of the 13th century owe their existence, in part, to this change of mentality. In an early Franciscan legend, Madonna Povert~ (Lady Poverty) asks a group of Friars to show her their cloister. They lead her to the top of a high hill and show her the whole world, telling her: "This, Lady, is our cloister.-45 Then came what we generally call "the Renaissance," and we fell in love with the philosophers, writers and heroes of the Greco-Roman world. A positive and overly innocent view of the world infiltrated our con-sciousness. Jesuits made their residence in the midst of cities. More than a few institutes of the time chose not to take vows (Oratorians and Eudists). The Daughters of Charity dispers+d through the streets in peasant garb; for them, the world was the space in which the sons and daughters of God were suffer-ing. But there was also Luther's teaching on our "corrupted nature," and Bishop Jansenius and the Port Royalists held the dark view that every human value not explicitly elevated by a supernatural intention is simply sinful. Jansenism, with its excessive moral demands, had a baneful influence on the spirituality of religious. Finally, the trauma of the French and socialist revolu-tions filled religious leaders with fears and misapprehensions, so that they tended to stress the deep incompatibility between the Church and modern society. We were in urgent need of a return to the world. 4.1. A More Positive Vision of the World. For religious, too, the world is the ager dominicus, the Lord's field. It is the creation wounded by our sins, yet fundamentally good; the place where we must live our faith, hope and love, and in which we must work and suffer. This more positive, yet realistic vision of the world has positive consequences and gives rise to its own problematic. 494 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1983 The distance between the religious and secular worlds has been shortened. The barriers of habits, special buildings and institutions filled with religious sym-bols, have largely fallen. This explains a number of recent developments. In the past, new forms of religious life inexorably fell under the influence of forms that had a longer and more prestigious history: Pachomians and Basilians became monks; canons regular and mendicants adopted a monastic or quasi-monastic way of life; apostolic congregations of women imitated cloistered nuns, etc. In our times, the trend seems to be running in the opposite direction: the traditional forms of religious life are getting closer to the life-style of secular institutes. We are referring here not merely to the absence of habits or the irrelevance of details that were once considered very important in Europe (such as not being allowed to enter a movie-picture theater), but to such truly important items as the near absence of community life or its reduction to a minimum, and to the growing trend toward working in secular institutions. The fact remains, however, that religious life, precisely because its witness is aimed at helping the world transcend itself, must not only incarnate itself in secular culture, but also act as a counterculture.46 Religious life accomplishes this essentially by actualizing the charisms that distinguish it as a form of Christian life: celibacy and community, with a public witness of poverty. Note that we say celibacy, not bachelorhood or the single state, since celibacy is understood as an exclusive commitment to the concerns of the Lord, and as a life lived for the love of the Lord. And this is extremely demanding. So also is the radical self-divestment which characterizes the Christian poverty of a reli-gious: a self-divestment that makes no sense at all except as an act of solidarity with the poor and the outcast. All of this must be reflected in our life-style, attitudes and options. 4.2. An Open Community. Our communities have opened up. The practice of hospitality has been greatly enlarged. Religious are praying and working with groups outside the community proper, thus creating a network of relation-ships. Many of us belong to prayer groups (charismatic or otherwise) or to pastoral teams.47 Monastery guesthouses, especially in the United States, are usually filled with other religious and laypersons who come there to pray. Some contemplative monasteries have opened up to share their prayer life with others on a more permanent basis. The Trappists of Our Lady of Guadalupe have established a Center for Contemplative Studies. The Carmel of the Resurrection in Indianapolis has opened its prayer life to a group of the faithful who pray there. Many small apostolic communities practice an aposto-late of presence by living among the poor. This is something that the mendi-cants strove to do in the 13th century, and which the Little Brothers and Sisters of Jesus reintroduced some decades ago. Obviously, such groups have to manage the difficult task of balancing their openness toward the rest of the Church with the special communion of charism and spirit they must keep among their own members. Trends in Religious Life / 495 4.3. Celibacy and Friendship. One effect of this more optimistic vision of the world and of the human person in the world has been the rediscovery of the positive and fully human vision of celibacy expressed in the New Testament. Although Jesus, in his logion about eunuchs (Mt 19:12), was defending a spiritual impotence caused by a strong commitment to the Kingdom, Paul tells us, .in a positive way, that being celibate for the sake of the Gospel consists in living lives exclusively dedicated to the concerns of the risen Lord (his Church, his poor), and for his love (1 Co 7:32-34). Celibacy is both a commitment and a relationship of love in which we can grow, and not simply a state defined by non-bonding to another person in matrimony,as The focus of today's religious has shifted, significantly, from chastity to celibacy as a way of life. From yet another point of view, the modern notion of the human being has highlighted (sometimes excessively) our sexual condition. Sexuality is rightly understood as a positive reality,49 in which affective balance plays an important part. Thus conceived, sexuality is being incorporated into a positive and inclusive vision of celibacy. It might be noted, in passing, that religious, like others in this rich culture which is concerned with overeating, also engage in sports and look after their body and physical appearance. But it must be admitted ihat the fall of barriers in this context (locked doors, permissions to go out, opened mail, the habit, etc.) also eliminated a series of social pressures aimed at protecting celibacy. Just as the permanence of marriages is now left to married couples themselves (since urban and indus-trialized society, unlike rural societies of the past, undermines rather than upholds the stability of marriage), so celibacy is left to the grace of God and the responsibility of the individual. The community can offer little help to those in crisis, except prayer and friendship. A positive evaluation of friend-ship has important consequences in this area. The husband-wife relationship is beginning to pale as the only model for male-female relationships. Friendships between religious and persons of the opposite sex (whether priests, religious or laity) are now more feasible and frequentP° This is, of course, not something completely new: a good number of saints, especially founders and foundresses, seem to have come in pairs. But now there is a greater awareness of the implications and values of friendship as a help toward celibate balance, which it indeed can be. But this is still fragile ground, because of the possibility of being "carried away," and because the word "friendship" often covers a number of relationships of diverse intensityPI The celibate is committed to live exclusively for the concerns of the Lord and for his love, and this rules out not just physical relationships, but also exclusive affective commitments. This means that certain affecfive needs of the celibate cannot be satisfied directly, but must be diverted into channels of loving service. 4.4. The Poor: the New "Desert. ,~2 Religious feel a lively interest and concern for the world of which they are part. This is quite apparent in questions of justice. In a host of ways, religious have been associated with works of charity 498 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1983 throughout history. But today there is a clearer consciousness that not a few evils have social roots, and that religious in a democratic society have a great opportunity to work collectively and individually in defense of the weak and the oppressed. Most of us (even religious dedicated to social works) inherited a vision of poverty that did not have much of an express or lived relationship to the poor of the world. It was a poverty fit for a neoplatonic or neopythagorean community: a poverty understood as a form of personal purification and as a means for arriving more readily at contemplation. The important thing was dependence on the superior, and great individual austerity. On an analogy with the Synoptic saying of Jesus, "Sell what you have and give to the poor" (Mk 10:21 and par.), one might say that the monks of the desert, who worked hard to support the poor, fulfilled the second part of the saying ("and give to the poor"), whereas later religious stressed the first part ("sell what you have"). In Evangelica Testificatio, Paul V1 brought the Church's teaching on religious poverty back to its origins by beginning the section on poverty with a call to hear "the cry of the poor.'~3 If all Christian poverty is a descent with Christ into the hell of human suffering--a participation in his kenosis (cf. 2 Co 8:9)54--then the testimonial poverty of religious should signal an abandonment of the world's logic and a crossing over its borders into the new desert which, especially in today's materialistic society, is constituted by the poor. A number of religious have abandoned their houses in middle-class neigh-borhoods and have gone to live with the poor in ghettoes. Whole institutes have declared in their chapters a preferential option for evangelizing the poor. Religious men and women have joined other Christians in their struggle for the liberation of the poor, especially in Latin America and the Philippines. In the United States, some religious have run for national or state office in defense of minorities, while others have been appointed to posts of particular social significance. Many U.S. religious are committed to a variety of social causes: disarmament, human rights in the Third World, the fights of the unborn, the rights of homosexuals, ecology, the struggle against a capitalism that would sacrifice human lives for economic gain (the Nestle boycott), and so forth. Here again, there are problems and difficulties. For one thing, it is easier for those living in well-to-do environments to protest abuses (as they must) than it is to protect themselves against the contagion of a consumerist society. Those who are truly and deeply committed to the defense of the poor know that they can carry out their work only by becoming poor themselves. Our poverty is also a protest against a materialistic interpretation of life, and hence must be manifested in personal and collective simplicity and austerity. Those who personally commit themselves to poverty run the risk of mere improvisa-tion, or of being manipulated by others. One thinks of the way certain reac-tionary thinkers have tried to use Mother Teresa of Calcutta, proposing her as an example of what all religious should be doing--which they interpret as "athering up the dying from the sidewalks (which is undoubtedly a heroically ~eautiful act of Christian love), and then leaving the world to the powers that Trends in Religious L~fe / 497 be (which would undoubtedly be an act of unChristian cowardice, since the one behind the "powers that be" is often Satan, the first murderer). Manipulation, though, is also practiced from a revolutionary viewpoint. There is a danger of becoming involved in partisan politics that pursue a determined type of society. The religious and the Christian as such do not have a distinctive political model, but only a set of fundamental principles (Pacem in Terris), according to which they raise their voice in protest against all forms that oppress and manipulate the sons and daughters of God. Great maturity is requi~ed for a commitment of this kind. One must be prepared to lose one's life: witness the example of our martyrs in Central America. 4.5. Serving in a Secular Milieu. With growing frequency, religious men and Women are making a commitment in various types of human service that are not specifically religious in nature, and are performed in a secular environ-ment. We are r~ferring here mainly to those religious who are engaged in the investigation and teaching of profane disciplines. Religious have been doing this for centuries, of course, but as an integral part of a ministry of Christian edui:ation that was meafit to culmin~ite in catechesis. Now, we encounter a new element in that these services are being carried on in the heart of secular centers. The impact of this environment and the great demand for professional preparation it calls for can profoundly affect the spirit of a religious. This is perhaps most true of religious who practice psychotherapy in its various forms. Here,/he "secular environment" is internal. The religious has to operate with a series Of symbols, vocabularies and techniques in which religious experience is often treated either in the Context of psychological aberration, or else (as with .lung) in that of a psychic activity that neither includes nor excludes grace. Helping one's neighbors in their psychological problems, or contributing to their overall growth as persons, is just as religious an activity as helping cure their bodies, but it can create difficulties for religious therapists. Oftentimes they are living in an environment quite different from a traditional religious community, which was pervaded by religious symbols and community acts. In such cases, religious will often have to struggle in order to integrate their professional service into the framework Of their community's proper spiritual-ity. Service also tends to change meaning for religious who work as medical or nursing personnel in modern hospitals, with their intense activity and the difficulties they present for establishing personal relationships with the sick, since there are so many to attend, and the turnover is so rapid. 5. Religious Life Reinterpreted 5.1. A More Profound Notion of the Religious Ltfe. The Second Vatican Council, by setting its teaching on the religious life squarely in the context of the life of the Church and of the universal call to holiness, forced theologians to rethink this particular vocation. A significant index of this rethinking is reflected in a change in the bibliography on the religious life. During the first half of this century, it focused on canon law and ascetical conferences or 49~1 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1983 retreats for religious; from the Council onwards, bibliographical entries of a theological character began to multiply. New Testament exegesis began to put question marks after the texts on which some founders had based their move-ments. Often enough, disturbingly, exegetes answered these questions in the negative: "This is not what these biblical texts were saying." Moreover, the full incorporation of the secular laity into the life and holiness of the Church obliged us to rethink the relationship that exists between the call to the reli-gious life and the general call to perfection, as well as that which exists between religious life and secular life. In more than one case, the Council had felt obliged to use categories drawn from Scholasticism, in a clear effort at expanding its teaching. Concomitantly, however, scholars were at work compiling critical studies of the sources of the religious life (Pachomius, Basil, Augustine, the anonymous author of the Regula MagistrL Benedict, Francis, early Jesuit texts, etc.). These historical investigations have given us a much better knowledge of the development of the religious life. The works of Tillard, Boff, Sebastian, Moloney and others, as well as the publications of the Religious Life Institutes in Rome and Madrid, and those of the Claret Center for Resources in Spirituality (to all three of Which I have made my personal contribution), are developing a work of synthesis that has become necessary. 5.2. Religious Life: a Parable of Discipleship. In Lumen Gentium and Perfec-tae Caritatis, the Second Vatican Council abandoned the notion of "state of perfection," which had somehow crept into Sacrosanctum Concilium (the Constitution on the Liturgy), written in the period before the council began to reflect expressly on the religious life.55 All Christians are committed to growth in the perfection to which they are called in baptism, confirmation, the Eucha-rist and reconciliation, and (for some) eventually in matrimony. The religious life is no longer to be thought of as the only state in which one professes to be tending toward perfection. In Discipleship: Towards an Understanding of the Religious Life, I tried to demonstrate how religious life is a form of disciple-ship, and that the significance of the religious life consists in its being a living parable of the Gospel for all. As a form of life, the religious life is summoned to remind all Christ's disciples of the demand to follow him. It is a type of prophetic life, neither more nor less. This leaves room for secular Christians to achieve the full stature of their incorporation into evangelical spirituality. For the important thing is not the parable, but the lived life of the Christian way, to which the parable points. 5.3. Return to Charism. Another important aspect of contemporary religious life is the fact that, thanks mainly to the invitation of Perfectae Caritatis, religious institutes, especially in their chapters of renewal, have set about reflecting on their own charisms. These institutes now seem to have a far better knowledge of their vocation and spirit in the Church. The Church itself is enriched by this variety of charisms. The popes have frequently referred to this Trends in Religious L~fe / 499 theme in discussing the identity of religious families. 5.4. Turning Toward Others. Nevertheless, something new is happening. A few years back, religious institutes often gave the impression of being overly exclu-sive in promoting their own interests. There was too much insistence on "our own." Today, religious communities collaborate with one another in common novitiate programs. There are theologates (the Central Theological Union in Chicago and the General Theological Union in Berkeley are obvious exam-ples) in which students from various institutes study, pray together and inter-relate in many ways, thus mutually enriching one another without losing their identity. And there are numerous religious institutes collaborating in apostolic works, both with one another and with lay team members. The sense of belonging to the one Church of Christ is thus manifested in a forceful manner. 6. Lifelong Commitment One aspect which involves considerable suffering for many religious, and which is brought up with some frequency in public meetings and private conversations, is the meaningfulness of a perpetual commitment to the reli-gious life, and even the legitimacy of norms that impose this sort of commit-ment toward the end of one's initiation or formation. Obviously, the discussion of this theme is less related to the influence of any specific philosophy than it is to the fact that our society seems to be much more sensitive to change than to continuity. In our society, for several different reasons, it is not rare for persons to change careers at a certain age. Even marriage seems to be becom-ing more fragile.~6 6. I. A Personal Commitment. In contradistinction to a one-time or short-term commitment to do some thing, a commitment to a type of life is a personal project that requires a certain amount of time to make. Human beings develop gradually. A promise or decision to be celibate or to live for the love of someone else for just a fewdays or weeks would really be tantamount to a commitment to do some thing, rather than a life decision to be a determined type of man or woman. The commitment to love is, of its very nature, indefi-nite as to time. It tends to be projected over a whole lifetime. The fact is that, when a human being loves or chooses to give himself or herself on a deep level, he or she cannot include the idea of a temporal limit in such a choice (although there may be an implicit recognition of the possibility of failure), since this would be restricting one's love or self-gift. By making a commitment of one-self, a person aims at putting his or her love above time and its changes. 6.2. A Commitment to God. A commitment to the religious life entails a commitment to build one's life with an orientation toward certain religious ideals: living in a particular way, in celibacy and in community. Here, the depth of human commitment is at its greatest, since it is gauged by a relation-ship with God. In this case, understandably, our intention must exclude every temporal limit, even when we are making a temporal commitment. We want 5lll~ / Review for Religious, July-August, 1983 to be this type of Christian and human being on the deepest level, before God and in the Church. This is a quite different kind of commitment than that made by a person who would simply like to be associated with the life, spirituality and ministry of a religious community for a set period of time. One thinks, for example, of the existing practice in Thailand whereby all boys, as a sort of analogue of military service, must spend several months in a Buddhist monastery. This sort of procedure might well be adopted, in a more systematic way, for certain types of associates of Christian religious communities. But this kind of temporal commitment, even when made on a more conscious and voluntary basis, would never suffice to constitute the person making it a religious. Our temporal vows are truly vows, to the extent that the person making them has the intention of orienting his or her whole life in this manner. 6.3. A Statement of Commitment. The real problem here refers to the public formulation of this intention to make a perpetual commitment. To express ourselves publicly and socially is an essential trait of our human nature, which never exists in a vacuum of pure interiority, but tends to unfold itself in explicit relationship with others. We already made our perpetual commitment when we responded to our vocation, before entering a community. We made it with a certain tension, with some misgivings, and sometimes even with anguish; yet we entrusted our weakness to the grace of the God who called us. On profess-ing, we renewed this response to God, but this time we did so publicly, before God and through the community, we committed ourselves to God through this community. Our commitment, then, took on an ecclesial character. This was normal and as it should be because promising to be celibate, to live in evangelical poverty and in community is not just an act that relates us directly to God. Rather, it is an act that relates us to God in his Church. Celibacy is not just the love of God, but also a great love of his sons and daughters. This does not rule out our foreseeing possible failures, or even the hypo-thetical possibility that certain experiences and circumstances might make us change. This commitment is made by human persons, with the understanding that they are expressing their actual intention, in the hope that this intention will perdure. But since fidelity in this matter is the work of grace, we place all our forces in God's hands. A religious vow or promise is at once a manifesta-tion of our intention and a petition for grace: "This is what I intend to be, so help me God." The person who makes a vow can change, can fail, or can discover that this was not to be his or her permanent vocation. There are canonized saints who, after years of profession, left their communities when they discovered that God was calling them along another way. For all these reasons, the Church wisely grants dispensations from these commitments. A dispensation dissolves the canonical aspects of one's commitment, leaving the person with his or her responsibility before God intact. Upon receiving their dispensations, these Christians remain in God's presence, just as they did at the time they believed Trends in Religious Life they had received a call from God and answered it. 7. A Prophetic Minority? The aerial photograph we promised at the beginning of this survey is not yet complete. We still need to include in it one of the most visibly preoccupying concerns for many religious and for the Church's ministers: the scarcity of vocations to the religious life which we are presently experiencing. There is no need for us to go into statistical details. All we have to do is to look at the inexorably upward trend in the median age of the members of most religious communities in the northern hemisphere. We can only suppose that what we are looking at is precisely a lack of vocations (God is calling fewer men and women to the religious life), and not a lack of correspondence to a wider call. We must suppose this, both because we do not have access to the heavenly archives, and because we find it hard to believe that human beings are cur-rently putting up a greater resistance to grace than they did in the days when our houses were filled to the rafters. One fact confirms us in our rejection of an unduly pessimistic view of the present generation: the growing number of vocations to the ministry outside the clergy and outside religious institutes. People continue to cite a whole litany of causes in order to explain the current dearth of candidates for the religious life: economic reasons (greater opportunities exist elsewhere today); social reasons (secularized environment, lowered prestige of the religious state, easier relations among young people of both sexes, sexual liberation, smaller families of the "one girl-one boy" type); psychological reasons (the identity crisis of religious makes religious life less attractive; pessimism or a lost sense of belonging leads religious to work less at promoting vocations); theological reasons (the religious life is not the only state for attaining Christian perfection). We would not like to indulge in a discussion of the many reasons alleged to explain this phenomenon. We would, however, like t.o point out that we are not talking about a scarcity of persons who want to enter a religious community, but about the considerably smaller number of persons who show clear signs of having a true vocation to the religious life. All you have to do is run a few ads in the right publications, and you will soon be swarming with requests. Some of these aspirants very soon reveal data that indicate their unfitness for the religious life. A few more serious cases must be rejected somewhat later, either after psychological testing or afte~ a few days of shared life. Present-day religious life requires stronger and more balanced personalities than was the case in the past. Formerly, less well-balanced personalities could be kept in line by a tougher practice of authority and by the more disciplinary type of community that then prevailed. Permit me to make a few observations. Until two or three decades ago, becoming a priest or a religious was the only route that enabled a Christian to consecrate his or her life to ministry in the Church. Of course, there were many Christians who were dedicated to charitable Works and catechesis on a part- 502 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1983 time basis. But if they wanted to orient their whole life to one of these minis-tries, they had no recourse but to become priests or religious. The need was even greater in the case of women, since they did not have a choice between secular priesthood and the religious life. Any woman who wanted to commit her life to a ministery of charity or catechesis, had to become a religious. The call to one was automatically interpreted as a call to the other. But today it is possible, though at times difficult, for a Christian to be committed to a minis-try without becoming a priest or a religious. In the past, every time a new form of religious life, better adapted to the conditions of the time, appeared, there tended to be a diminution of candidates for the forms that had prevailed up to that time. Before the 12th century, Europe had numerous monasteries; next, it witnessed the rise of whole armies of mendicants; at length, the mendicants had to share the scene with clerks regular. Also in Europe, until about the middle of the last century, there were cloistered convents in most middle-sized towns. But with the foundation of numerous apostolic congregations for women, the number of cloistered con-vents diminished considerably. Today, secular institutes and other associations of Christian life have appeared on the scene. Moreover, the Church has begun to open up its ministries to laypersons who have no connection with any institution. This must necessarily lead to a reduction in the number of candi-dates for the religious life. Hence, we should not be talking about a lack of vocations in an unquali-fied way, because the Spirit of the Lord is continuing to call Christians of all sorts to a whole gamut of commitments. We should joyfully accept the Spirit's will. It is quite possible--given our inveterate resistance in this respect--that the only way the secular laity will be able to take their rightful place in the Church's ministry will be through a considerable reduction in the number of priests and religious. Hard as some of us may find it to accept these persons on equal terms, despite their manifest charisms and responsibilities, the Spirit of the Lord may oblige us to accept them out of necessity. Does this mean that religious life in its traditional forms is destined in the future, even more than in the present and the past, to become a minority life-style? That is certainly a possibility, although we would not like to hazard such a prediction. Because history has passed through so many ups and downs, turns and returns, visions and revisions, it ill becomes a historian, who has a hard enough task sorting out the vagaries of the past, to presume to know the future. But if things did happen to turn out in the way we have hypothesized, there would be nothing to be surprised at. After all, we have described the religious life as a prophetic calling. And isn't a truly prophetic mission always and essentially a minority calling? Trends in Religious Life NOTES ~Thomas Dubay offers one answer in What is Religious ~fe? Questions Religious are Asking (Denville, N.J.: Dimension Books, 1979), pp. 32-34. See C. Maloney, "Evangelization and Social Change," Religious and the Evangelization of the World, Donum Dei Series, no. 21 (Ottawa: Publications of the Canadian Religious Conference, 1974), p. 63. See also B. Boyce, C.SS.R., "A Sociological Appraisal of the New Trends," New Trends in Religious L~fe, Donum Dei Series, no. 14 (1969), p. 135. 2Thaddre Matura, O.F.M., The Crisis of Religious l_zfe (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1974). 3Karl Rahner, S.J., "Toward a Fundamental Theological Interpretation of Vatican I1,~ Theologi-cal Studies 40 (1979), p. 717. 4John XXIII, Mater et Magistra, AAS 53 (1961), p. 417. Gaudium et Spes, no. 74, Vatican Council I!: The Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents, ed. Austin Flannery (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1975), p. 981. ~Constitutions S.J., ch. IV, 10, no. 5; Claretian Constitutions (1865), I, no. 31. sViatorians (1979), no. 52; de La Salle (1976), no. 140. I; Precious Blood Sisters, O'Fallon, p. 54; Combonians (1979), no. 103; Christian Brothers, (E. Rice), no. 247. 7Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word, no. 26; Marianists, Rule of l_zfe (1981), no. 39; Stigmatines (1977), no. 17. See especially Sisters of Mercy, Covenant, Fellowship and Total Growth, pp. F 4-5; Combonians, no. 42. 8This idea forms the background for the sections on the vows in many revised constitutions. 9St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 2-2, q. 184 a 3; q. 188 a 2; St. Bonaventure, Apologia Pauperum, ch. 3, no. 3. See Lumen Gentium, no. 44, Flannery, pp. 403-.404. ~0The theme of varidus personal gifts appears frequently in the new constitutions. See Sisters of St. Joseph, Core Constitutions, no. 38; Combonians, Rule of Life, nos. 38. I, 42; de La Salle (1976), p. 36; B.V.M., no. 3; Marists (1968), no. 51; Stigmatines (1977), no. 17; St. Joseph of Peace (1981), p. 6; Ursulines of Belleville (1982), no. 33; Sinsinawa Dominicans, no. 10. ~Cited in Paulist Provisional Constitutions (1970), no. 9. ~2Society of the Precious Blood, no. 39; Sisters of Mercy, Core Constitutions, p. 27; 31st Congre-gation of the Society of Jesus, Decree 17, no. 7 (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1977), p. 161. ~3Quentin Hakenewerth, S.M., ~lllustrations of Fundamental Choices and Their Consequences," Religious Life Tomorrow, Donum Dei Series, no. 24 (1978), p. 187. ~4Claretians, no. 102 ff.; Piarists, no. 131 ff.: Combonians, no. 105 ft.; School Sisters of Notre Dame, II, no. 8 ff.; Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, no. 25 ft.; Society of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, no. 138 ff. ~Scalabrinians, no. 10; Society of Mary, no. 34 ff.; Society of the Precious Blood, no. 6 ft. 16No. 40, Flannery, pp. 698-699. 17No. 14, Flannery, pp. 619-620. ~SThe vocabulary of the revised constitutions on this theme, and the very horizons on which they move, reveal a new sensibility. When one compares them to the relevant sections in Petfectae Caritatis, one sees that the latter opened but a single door. A smaller number of constitutions chose to remain within the limits in which the conciliar decree moves. tgSee Jesuits, 31st General Congregation, Decree 17, pp. 157-166. z°Perfectae Caritatis, no. 3, Flannery, p. 613. 2~J. Doyle, B.V.M., "Choose Life," Religious Life Tomorrow, Donum Dei Series, no. 24 (1978), pp. 28-31. ~2See M. Linscott, "The Religious Woman in the Church,~ Way Supplement 19 (1973), pp. 45-62. 23No. 44, Flannery, pp. 402-403. ~lbid., pp. 403-405. Z~Hakenewerlh, art. cit., p. 186. 26"Normae secundum quas S. Congregatio Episcoporum et Regularium procedere solet in approbandis novis lnstitutis votorum simplicium." Published by Ladislaus Ravasi, C.P. in De Regulis et Constitutionibus Religiosorum (Roma: Desclee, 1958), pp. 188 ft. To be excluded 504 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1983 from the constitutions: quotations from the Holy Scriptures, Councils and Fathers. (n. 27), ascetic instructions, spiritual exhortations, mystical considerations (no. 33). 27Documents of the 31st and 32nd General Congregations of the Society of Jesus (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1979), Decree 4, nos. 58-59, p. 413. 2sPoid., no. 74, p. 436. ~9Scanning the bibliography on discernment during the last 15 years (published by the Religious Formation Conference), I have counted I I articles in REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, ! I in Way Sup-plement, 3 in Sisters Today, and 2 each in The Way and Spiritual Ltfe. 30Saint Francis of Assisi, Rule 1221, Foreword and Cho 19; Rule 1223, ch. I; ch. 9; Testament. See Writings and Early Biographies (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1973), pp. 3 I, 46, 57, 63, 67. 3~Saint Ignatius of Loyola, "To have the true sentiment which we ought to have in the Church Militant," Ist Rule. See David L. Fleming, The Spiritual Exercises (Saint Louis: The Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1978), p. 230. 32See Avery Dulles, S.J., Models of the Church (Garden City, NY, Doubleday, 1974). 33Cardinal Suenen's The Nun in the World (Westminster: The Newman Press, 1963), an invita-tion to the renewal of women's religious life issued during the Council, started with a chapter on the world, followed by a chapter on women and their emancipation. The book was highly successful in its time. ~See Martin Kirk, C. M. F., "The Spirituality of Isaac Thomas Hecker: Reconciling the American Character and the Catholic Faith" (doctoral dissertation, Saint Louis University, 1980). 3~See Gustave Thils, Theologie des Realitbs Terrestres (Bruges: Desclre de Brouwer, 1946). An epoch-making book. By the same author: Christian Attitudes (Chicago: Seepper, 1959), 96 pp. 3rThe Secular Journal, April 7, 1941, (New York: Noonday, 1977), p. 183. 37Seeds of Contemplation (Norfolk: New Directions, 1949), pp. 20-23; 60-61. 3gTexts from the Inner Experience published by William H. Shannon, Thomas Merton's Dark Path, The Inner Experience of a Contemplative (New York: Farrar-Straus-Giroux, 1981), pp. 136-141. 3gIbid., p. 131. 4°Ibid., p. 124. a~New Seeds of Contemplation (New York: New Directions, 1974), pp. 52-63. 4~Saint Teresa of Jesus, Way of Perfection, 1,2; 3, I; Mansions, Epilogue, 4. 43M.-D. Chenu, O.P., Nature, Man and Society in the Twelfth Century (University of Chicago Press, 1968). 44See John M. Lozano, C.M.F., Discipleship: Towards an Understanding of the Religious Life (Chicago: Claret Center for Resources in Spirituality, 1980), pp. 49-53. *s Sacrum Commercium, no. 63, St. Francis of Assisi: Omnibus of Sources (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1973), p. 1593. 46John F. Kavanaugh, S.J., has given particular attention to this theme in his Following Christ in a Consumer Society (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1981), pp. 131-142. ~TThe Constitutions of the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first chapter, contain this significant text on the new attitude: "Since we participate simultaneously in various communities--the world community, the Christian community, the entire B.V.M. community and the local community--it is the responsibility and privilege of each sister to'contribute to each of these communities according to her gifts and circumstances" (no. 3). ~See Lozano, op. cit., pp. 142-170. ~9Marc Oraison, The Celibate Condition and Sex (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1967). See D. Goergen, The Sexual Celibate (New York: Seabury, 1975); K. Clarke, O.F.M. Cap., An Expe-rience of Celibacy (Notre Dame, IN: Ave Mafia, 1982). ~°Also significant is the number of articles published lately on friendship between religious and persons of the opposite sex they are oriented to. In Sisters Today, M. Neuman, O.S.B., has published two articles (October 1974 and November 1976), and J. Becker has published one (May 1979). In REVIEW FOR RELIGIOrdS. 1 counted four: C. Kiesling (July 1971), T. Dubay (November 1977), B. O'Leary (March 1980) and V. Peter (March-April 1982). There is another by Y. E. Raguin in Way Supplement 19. Trends in Religiou~ Life / 505 s~Some constitutions and complementary statutes now speak positively of the relationship between friendship in general and celibacy: Marianists, Rule ofl_zfe, 11, no. 2.4; Piarists, no. 57; Sisters of Charity of the B.V.M., no. 33; Sinsinawa Dominicans, no. 13; Sisters of Saint Joseph of Lagrange, Working Document (1979), no. 42. Some texts treat of the relationship between celibacy and friendship with Christ: Jesuits, 31st General Congregation, Decree 15, no. 8, p. 152; Combonians, no. 26.1. Or they speak of friendship as the fruit of celibacy: Jesuits, op. cir., pp. 152-153; Brothers of the Christian Schools, 5d. Or they view friendship as a defense of celibacy: Jesuits, ibid. Other texts restrict their remarks to friendships within the community: Stigmatines (1982), no. 15; Holy Cross (men), no. 65; Scalabrinians, no. 80. s2Sce A. Cussianovich, S.D.B., Religious Life and the Poor (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1979). S3Evangelica Testificatio, no. 17, Flannery, p. 688; Sacrosanctum Concilium, nos. 98, 101. ~See Lozano, op. cir., ~Poverty and the Kenosis of Christ,~ pp. 191-192. ~SSacrosanctum Concilium, no. 98, 101 (December 4th, 1963), A. Flannery (pp. 27, 28) translates "religious. ~ ~6On this theme, see T. Matura, O.F.M., op. cit., pp. 72-78. The Religious as Witness The new society of love cannot be built in the future if the quality of love does not change. You are the privileged sign of this new love destined to change the world. Your love, "different" from other loves, is the image of God's love. And so your life, evangelically lived and donated, becomes, through your sincere and pure love for mankind, a convincing witness of the love of the Father who is in heaven. Here is your role in the Church. your most authentic vocation. And it is in this way that you, like Mary who believed in the word and the love of the Lord, contribute to the mission of Jesus to create the new world. And that you may live and give Christ's charity more fully, the Church exhorts you to return to the authentic spirit of the founders, to their intentions and to wholesome traditions.--John Pdul 11, To the Women Religious in Albano, 19 September, 1982. L'Osservatore Romano, 11 October, 1982, p. 5. Constitutions and the Revised Code of Canon Law David F. O'Connor, S.T. Father O'Connor is Chairman of the Department of Church Law at The Washington Theologi-cal Union. He resides at Holy Trinity Mission Seminary; 9001 New Hampshire Ave.; Silver Spring, MD 20903. On January 25, 1983, Pope John Paul II promulgated the revised Code of Canon Law, effective as the universal law of the Church for the Latin Rite on November 27, 1983, the First Sunday of Advent. While the revised Code contains nothing startling or surprising in its treatment of the consecrated life, it does bring a needed stability with its clearly stated practical ecclesial expecta-tions concerning post-Vatican II religious life. The canons reassert many of the things stated already by the Fathers of Vatican 11 and in the documents of the post-Conciliar Church. An examination of the canons and their b~i~kground manifests a fidelity to the theology of these ecclesial documents. The 1983 revised Code states in canons 578 and 587 that the constitutions must faithfully express and preserve the mind of the Founder, the spirit and character of the institute, its nature, purposes and wholesome traditions, as part of its patrimony. The constitutions must also contain those fundamental norms required by the Church for the governance of the institute, the discipline of its members, the content of the vows, as well as those norms necessary to express the formation and incorporation of its members and the proper order-ing of the institute. They should fittingly combine both spiritual-ascetical ele-ments with the practical-juridical ones (canon 587 § 3). Once approved, this fundamental code can not be changed without the consent of the proper ecclesiastical authority (canon 587, § 2). Ecclesial Approbation of Religious Institutes and Their Constitutions Through the formal ecclesial approbation .of the constitutions or funda- 506 Constitutions and the Revised Code / 5117 mental book of each institute, the authority of the Church brings into existence the institutes as an ecclesial body or confirms it if it is already established. Constitutions have always been of great importance to institutes because they are particular and specific to each religious family. They help articulate the identity, mission and life-style of the institute and its members. Unfortunately, in the early part of the century this uniqueness was often overshadowed and submerged when constitutions were forced into an excessive conformity with other norms. As a result, there was an inappropriate similarity between many of the constitutions because they were saddled with details, secondary ele-ments, minutiae and multiple regulations which made them all somewhat identical in style and content and overly rigid in form. This was due principally to the Normae of 1901. Consequently, constitutions appeared to be only a verbatim repetition of those norms so that their individuality was lost. This pattern was altered by the Vatican II revisions required by Perfectae caritatis, 3 and 4, and Ecclesiae sanctae, If, 6-11. Fundamentally the revised Code reaffirms the place of religious institutes as progeny of the Church and gifts of the Holy Spirit (canons 575 and 577). In accordance with Lumen gentium, 43, the Code states that it is the authority of the bishops which, recognizing the work of the Spirit, brings into ecclesial existence the various religious institutes (canon 573). It is the right and duty of the pastors of the Church, the bishops, to interpret the evangelical counsels and determine how they are to be practiced and lived by those in the conse-crated life (canon 576). It is this hierarchical recognition which guarantees that the members are living a gospel life which contributes to the building up of the Church (canons 576 and 577). Historically, those groups of pious and well-meaning people who did not receive, or lost ecclesial approbation, often ended up in some form of spiritual aberrancy, schism or heresy, such as the followers of Peter Waldo or the Fraticelli of the middle ages. Today, those religious who are inclined to question the necessity of their affiliation with the pastors of the Church may risk a similar fate. Effect of the Revised Code With the revised Code going into effect, the 1917 Code and all other general or particular disciplinary laws of the Church which are contrary to or treat the same matter as the 1983 Code are abrogated (canon 6, § l) as of November 27, 1983. Therefore, many of the things which were in the 1917 Code no longer are part of the revised Code and are not required to be in the constitutions or the proper law of institutes. For example, nothing is required regarding a period of postulancy, a dowry, or the necessity to have the local Ordinary or his delegate at the election of certain superior generals, as was required in the 1917 Code. This means that institutes will have to determine for themselves whether or not they want to retain some of these things as part of their own law. The retention of some period of"postulancy" may seem to be a prudent and wise one. However, each institute is free to determine this for 508 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1983 itself. If an institute decides to do so, the matter becomes what canonists refer to as praeter ius, something that is required by the proper law of the institute which goes beyond the requirements of the universal law of the Church. Competency of the Roman Congregations Even though the 1983 Code abrogates all existing disciplinary law when it concerns matters which are treated in the revised Code, this does not imply that the dicasteries of the Apostolic See cease to enjoy a certain authority to make requirements not contained in the universal law. For example, the Sacred Congregation of Religious and Secular Institutes could require some-thing the 1983 Code does not require. In the approval of new constitutions, the SCRSI can require that the essential profession formula of an institute appear in the proper law of that institute. Simply because the universal law does not require this to be done does not imply that it is beyond the competence of SCRSI to do so. Also, the SCRSI certainly retains some competence to make exceptions to requirements of the universal law. Possibly, even though the new Code requires that religious profess vows and not promises (canon 607, § 2), the SCRS1 may be able to grant an exception to a particular institute which can make a good case for retaining a practice which it had during the post- Vatican II period when experimentation was permitted. The Principle of Subsidiarity and the 1983 Code of Canon Law One of the outstanding characteristics of the revised Code is its application of the principle of subsidiarity. As a principle, subsidiarity means that matters should be treated and decisions made at the level which is the most appropriate one. The most appropriate level may not be the lowest one. Whatever level is judged to be the most appropriate will also be the level of responsibility and accountability. The revised Code, therefore, unlike the 1917 Code, very fre-quently states that certain matters are to be determined by proper law. In regard to institutes of the consecrated life, the canons of the Code often state that a specific matter be treated in the constitutions or in the ius pro-prium, the proper law, of the institute. While the proper law will often be, in fact, the secondary or complementary books (Directory, Statutes), the term proper law does not exclude the constitutions or the fundamental book. There-fore, when the canons state that the proper law is to determine the matter, it means that the institute can decide to treat the matter in the constitutions and/or the directory. However, when the canons state that the matter is to be treated in the constitutions, it must be in the constitutions, even though it also may be elaborated upon in the directory. What follows is my paraphrasing of excerpts from the canons of the revised Code from the section on Institutes of the Consecrated Life (Book II, Part III, Section I, Titles I and II, ChaPters 1-6), which require, or leave the option for, complementary legislation in the constitutions or the proper law of-an institute. They are meant to be of aid to those religious institutes which are Constitutions and the Revised Code / 509 preparing their constitutions for submission to ecclesiastical authority for approbation, as well as those institutes which have their constitutions apiaroved already, but may have to make adjustments to bring them into harmony with the revised Code. The reader is advised that these do not attempt to paraphrase the complete canon in every case, but only that part which refers to material which must or may be treated in the constitutions or proper law. Canons Requiring Complementary Legislation in the Constitutions or Proper Law 1. Canons Concerning Norms Common to All Institutes C. 578. The mind of the Founders and their plans, ratified by the competent ecclesiastical authority, about the nature, purpose, spirit and character of the institute and its wholesome traditions, all of which constitute the patrimony of the institute itself, must be observed faithfully. (These are among the things which must be in the constitutions according to c. 587, § 1.) C. 581. The constitutions are to determine the competent authority who may divide the institute into parts, join parts, erect new ones or make other such arrangements. C. 587, § 1. In order to protect more faithfully the particular vocation and identity of the institute, the constitutions or fundamental code of an institute must contain and preserve, besides those things stated in can. 578, the fundamental norms about governance of the institute and the discipline of members, the incorporation and training of members, and the proper object of the sacred bonds. C. 587, § 3. Spiritual and juridical matters are to be suitably joined together; moreover, norms are not to be multiplied unless it is necessary. C. 587, § 4. Other norms established by the competent authority of the insti-tute may be appropriately collected into other books which are to be reviewed and adapted to the needs of times and places. C. 596. The authority of superiors and chapters is to be defined in the consti-tutions as well as by the universal law of the Church. C. 598. The constitutions are to define the manner in which the evangelical counsels of chastity, poverty, and obedience are to be lived in the institute. Members are to live the counsels according to the proper law of the institute. 2. Canons Concerning Religious Houses C. 609, § 1. Religious houses are erected by the competent authority as deter-mined in the constitutions, after having received the consent of the diocesan bishop in writing. C. 613, § 1. A religious house of canonical regulars and monks under the authority and care of its own superior is autonomous, unless the constitutions state otherwise. C. 616, § 1. The suppression of a religious house by the Superior General must ~i10 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1983 be done according to the constitutions and only after the diocesan bishop has been consulted. 3. Canons Concerning Government in the Institute C. 617. The role of a superior is determined according to the proper law of the institute, as well as the universal law of the Church. C. 622. A superior general has power over the whole institute, its provinces, houses, and members, exercising it according to the proper law of the institute; other superiors have power within the limits of their roles. C. 623. In order that members be validly nominated or elected to the office of superior, it is required that they have a fitting time after perpetual profession in the institute as determined by proper law. For major superiors, it is determined by the constitutions. C. 624, § I. Superiors should be constituted as such for a certain and con-venient period of time according to the ~aature and necessities of the institute, unless the constitutions determine otherwise for the Superior General or superiors of autonomous houses. C. 624, § 2. The proper law of the institute should provide suitable norms so that superiors constituted for a definite period of time do not continue for a long time without an interruption in offices of governance. C. 624, § 3. Nevertheless, superiors can be removed from office during their term or transferred to another office for reasons stated in the proper law of the institute. C. 626. When superiors confer an office or when the members participate in elections, they should observe the norms of the universal law and the proper law of the institute, abstaining from any abuse or acceptance of persons, choosing those who, before God, seem most worthy and suitable, having only God and the good of the institute before them. They must not attempt to procure votes, directly or indirectly, for themselves or for others. C. 627, § 1. According to the norm of the constitutions, superiors should have their own council, whose assistance they ought to use in carrying out the work of their office. C. 627, § 2. Besides the cases prescribed in the universal law, the proper law of the institute should determine those cases in which it is required that they seek their consent or advice for the validity of an action according to canon 127, and any other determination of proper law. C. 628, § I. Superiors who are designated for this purpose by the proper law of the institute should conduct visitations of the houses and members entrusted to them at the times designated according to the norms of the proper law. C. 629. Superiors are to reside in their own houses and not absent themselves from their house unless it is according to the norm of the proper law. C. 63 l, § I. The general chapter, which has supreme authority in the institute according to the norm of the constitutions, should be so formed that, repre-senting the whole institute, it should form a true ~ign of its unity in love, and so forth. Constitutions and the Revised Code C. 631, § 2. The composition and ambit of a chapter's authority must be defined in the constitutions. The proper law of the institute should determine the order to be observed in the conduct of the chapter, especially in regard to elections and procedures. C. 631, § 3. According to the norms of the proper law, not only provinces and local communities, but also any member at all has a fight to send freely his wishes and suggestions to the general chapter. C. 632. The proper law determines accurately those things which pertain to any chapter of the institute and to similar bodies, concerning their nature, authority, composition, mode of proceeding and time of meeting. C. 633, § 1. Organs of participation or consultation (committees and commis-sions) should faithfully carry out their duties according to their mandate and the norms of universal and proper law. In some manner, they should express the care and the participation of all members for the good of the whole institute. C. 633, § 2. In establishing these means of participation and consultation and in wisely adhering to them, discretion should be exercised so that the manner of carrying them out may conform to the nature and end of the institute. C. 634, § I. Institutes, provinces and houses, as juridical persons, have the capacity for acquiring, possessing, administering, and alienating temporal goods, unless this capacity is excluded by or limited by the constitutions. C. 635, § 2. Every institute should have appropriate norms for the use and administration of goods so that its poverty is properly fostered, guarded and expressed. C. 636, § 1. Every institute should have a treasurer, distinct from the superior, according to the norms of proper law who will care for the administration of goods under the direction of the superior. Also, every local community is to have a treasurer (bursar) distinct from the local superior. C. 636, § 2. Proper law should also determine the time and the manner for rendering an account to the competent authority. C. 638, § 1. Proper law, within the limits of universal law, determines when an act exceeds the limits and manner of ordinary administration and when an act of extraordinary administration may be placed. C. 638, § 2. Besides superiors, officials designated for this purpose according to the proper law may validly incur expenses and perform other juridical acts of ordinary administration according to their office. 4. Canons Concerning Admission of Candidates and Members of the Institute C. 641. The right to admit candidates to the novitiate belongs to the major superiors according to norms of proper law. C. 643, § 2. The proper law can place additional impediments or conditions to the valid admission of candidates beyond what is required by the Code. C. 645, § 3. The proper law can require other testimony concerning the suita-bility of the candidate and his freedom from impediments besides what is required by the Code. 512 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1983 C. 648,§ 2. The constitutions can require time for one or several apostolic experiences outside the novitiate community. However, these are not calcu-lated as part of the twelve months required for the validity of the novitiate. C. 650, § 1. The scope of the novitiate program, under the direction of a novice master, is defined by the proper law of each institute. C. 653, § 2. The novitiate being completed, a novice makes temporary vows or leaves; if there is doubt as to his suitability, he can be given a longer time of probation but not beyond six months. This is done by the major superior according to norms of proper law. C. 655. The time for temporary profession is determined by proper law, but it is not to be less than three nor more than six years. C. 657, § 2. If judged opportune, the period of temporary vows can be extended by the competent superior, according to proper law. But the whole period of temporary vows should not exceed nine years. C. 658. Proper law can also add to the appropriate requirements for the validity of perpetual profession beyond' those stated in this Code. C. 659, § 2. The proper law must define the duration and program of training after first incorporation, being always mindful of the goal and character of the institute, as well as the needs of the religious. 5. Canons Concerning Rights and Obligation~ of Members C. 663, § 3. According to prescriptions of proper law, religious should also celebrate worthily the liturgical hours and other pious exercises. C. 667, § 1. The proper law determines the character and extent of the cloister according to the nature and mission of the institute, always reserving some part of the house solely for religious members. C. 668, § 1. Before first profession, unless the constitutions provide otherwise, the members, animated by the spirit of the gospel, should cede the administra-tion of their temporal goods to whomever they choose, freely disposing of the use and usufruct thereof. C. 668, § 2. With permission of the competent superior, according to norms of proper law, religious may, for a just cause, change the disposition. C. 668, § 3. Pensions, assistance, insurance of whatever kind received by the members are acquired by the institute, unless the proper law states otherwise. C. 668, § 4. With the permission of the superior general, according to the norms of proper law, a member may renounce his goods. C. 668, § 5. If a member does so, anything that comes to him after this belongs to the institute according to the norms of proper law. C. 669, § 1. Religious should wear the habit of the institute, according to the norms of proper law, as a sign of their consecration and witness to poverty. C. 670. The institute ought to supply the members with all that is necessary according to the norms of the constitutions for achieving the end of their vocation. 6. Canons Concerning the Separation of Members from the Institute C. 684, § 4. In the case of the transfer of a professed member to another Constitutions and the Revised Code / 51:3 institute, the proper law of the new institute will determine the time and manner of probation. C. 696, § 2. For the dismissal of a member in temporary vows, even less serious reasons suffice according to the statutes of the proper law. Conclusion While religious institutes are ecclesial bodies subject to the authority of the Church according to the norms of the Code of Canon Law, nevertheless, each institute enjoys a certain autonomy in respect to its own internal life (canon 586). Once the constitutions and the proper law of each institute are approved by ecclesiastical authority,.the institute is expected to go about its internal life without the need for interference from outside agencies. Without doubt, the proper Roman dicasteries have a right, within their competency, to exercise a certain authority and vigilance over institutes of the consecrated life, especially in their relationships to other groups and persons in the Church. However, the particular style of life and the patrimony of each institute will be fostered and safeguarded more surely because of the fact that the revised Code requires (or leaves option for) each institute to determine for itself the specifics of many aspects of its internal life. Over forty canons, in application of the principle of subsidiarity, shift responsibility for the determination of certain matters to the constitutions or proper law of the institute. Therefore, the uniqueness of each religious institute will be made more evident. The rigid conformity, which was the unfortunate consequence of the Normae of 1901 and--to a certain extent--the 1917 Code, will be a thing of the past. The revised Code of Canon Law represents a significant advance in the implementation of the theological understanding which the post-Vatican II Church has of the consecrated life. While no human law is without its limita-t~ ions and deficiencies, the 1983 revised Code should help to foster the devel-opment of a vibrant religious life. Evening Prayer As gently as gravity pulls objects Toward the deepest center of the earth, From my first dawn You exerted this pull. Like a magnet, You attracted me away from other energizing forces And drew me closer and closer in Your magnetic field. Come sunset-- And I hover here, this strong power magnetizing me Even closer within the circle of Your love, The center of Your being Where I belong. Carmelita McKeever, CSJ The College of Saint Rose 432 Western Avenue Albany, NY 12203 Everyone Who Has Left Father and Mother. When a New Missionary Arrives Barry Malone, S.M. Father Malone has set forth his reactions soon after arriving in Lahore from his homeland of New Zealand. Much of this is in the experience of every radical response to Christ. Father Malone teaches at St. Anthony's High School; P.O. Box 61; Lahore, Pakistan. When you get there, you will, of course, experience quite a culture shock. Be prepared for that. It was kind of them to warn me. I had heard already of this "culture shock" and had observed it in others once or twice. Just the process of adaptation--or so I thought. What I am writing now will not, I suppose, be anything like what I will write in six months' time. But, then, part of the experience seems to be being anything but confident about next month, much less about six months' time. Is what I am feeling "culture shock"?. Does the giving of a label to an experience like this help me to own the experience? Or is such a label an aspirin, to help minimize the pain--and maybe even prevent the change that has to take place within me? Culture shock or not, there have been times of joy and excitement as I notice new sights and sounds. There have been moments of wonder and disbelief at finding myself in the midst of Asia and of Islam, in an area steeped in history and saturated with people. But there have been times, too, of being the complete stranger, times of confusion, of disorientation, of fear, of the absence of anything familiar. I can be walking jauntily along the street and be approached by someone: I cannot speak his language, and he cannot speak mine. I can be cycling along 514 Everyone Who Has Left Father and Mother / 515 (guided by my tattered map) only to discover that I'd forgotten I was in the Northern Hemisphere now, and here the midday sun lies to the south--and I am lost yet again. I, so used to school, have to ask my pupils ("Speak very slowly please, boys!") "What is this application? What is checking? What is Basant? Why do you remain standing like that?" I have biked (accidentally) into the middle of a bazaar area, and felt trapped and helpless, until a kind stall-owner had to shift his whole shop to help me squeeze past. Surely you can cope with all that? Yes, but I feel I'm not learning very fast; each confusing event seems to upset me more. The excitement and the novelty of it all has begun to evaporate but the confusion remains. Sometimes just knowing what is going on helps one to accept it all with tranquillity and confidence. But what is going on? What if all that makes sense is the image of the rough and confused underside of a tapestry? But you trust in my guiding hand and the wisdom of my purposes, surely? Surely. But how shallow can such trust be! How glib those remembered phrases from sermons I delivered or counsel I offered. The fragility of an eggshell is not obvious amid the straw of the nest. There seems to be a great desert that lies between the theory of hope, of mission, of pilgrimage, and the reality of this situation, of these people, of this particular phase. Human reasons (and sometimes motives deeper still) are tried: "You're here to replace Father X. He's the ideal person for the important tasks at Y." Of course he is. He would just be marking time here, and his gifts, his many gifts, must be used. But why me? You volunteered and when word came you had months of peace at the very prospect. I had no real idea. Really? Well . You're here to support the others. Fine. They deserve all the support they can get. They've had a rough time of it. But how can 1 support men of such inner strength when I feel the way I do? Anyway, what has been changed by my arrival--except another bread on the paten at Mass each morning, another bowl of soup on the table each evening and, for a few weeks, the laughter at my small repertoire of jokes? Come on! Now you know why the affirmations of farewell flooded in. It was to strengthen you with memories for days like these. But what about the other farewells: "What are you running away from?" "How do you know you're doing the right thing by going?" "Weal be one short here next year: there'll be no replacement for you." It's a year of preparation for the next step. What for,-exactly? Preparation for a real culture shock, when poverty is not just seen but is my lot too, when the language barrier cannot be avoided by staying with an English-speaking community and teaching in an English- 516 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1983 speaking medium school? Preparation for a land where even cricket is un-known, and to be a priest is to be suspected? What sort of preparation anyway? If I said purification, how would that sound? It sounds awful! But then again it sounds right. What else but purification to describe this sudden and traumatic state with nothing visibly significant to do? Was I still so chained to the merry-go-round of activity for its own sake? Was I really so reliant upon success in tasks and relationships that the lack of any prospect of success is so sour? Was I .(who read so much and reveled in change) really in such a rut that these different people, this strange place, these foreign tongues are so unsettling? Purification. Yes, that's it. One thing has to go, I know, and that is the spirit of giving a performance. Didn't I feel only yesterday, halfway through prayer, that it was a performance for God? And didn't that realization stop me dead and make me ask him to lead me? But purification for what? What kind of purification is it that involves an irritation at the discovery that the English wording of the Our Father here is different from the one I learned thirty-six years ago? What kind of purification is it that makes me so annoyed at the mistakes I made at a game of draughts last night? At draughts, for heaven's sake! What kind of purification is it that makes me feel so awkward when the teachers call me "Sir" and want to shake my hand each morning; when every one of fifteen hundred boys seems to want a personal answer to his "Good morning, Sir"?. What kind of purification is it that makes me feel I'm not coping as I was so used to coping? Why do I feel so suspicious and afraid? Ah, do you hear what you are saying? You were so used to coping! The one who is coping doesn't usually ask for help. Or so l~ve noticed. OK. I need to trust more. I walked the streets of this city; I landed at that chaotic airport; I passed those first homes of the very poor and turned to you and said: "In you, O Lord, I place my trust." Sure you did. Incidentally, I prompted that, you know. But trust now means to let go of that crumbling cliff-face that you're perched on and to hold on to me as l find a path to real safety. But what is this crumbling cliff?. Do I have all that much to let go of?. What do you think? Would my naming things just now really help? Or would it just add to the theory? Let me just gently release those fingers of yours one by one and transfer your weight onto me. It's sort of traumatic and gentle at the same time. Look down if you like, because your part'of the cliff will be down there shortly. So what do I do? Even at prayer I find my requests are selfish and I doubt my sincerity at any noble petition. That's another thing. Why do youpray as if l were unable to speak? Who was it who changed your prayer from "Gift me" to "Please continue to bless me and guide me in your service'? Who prompted your praise for all the good you see in this land of poverty? Is it just a matter of time, then? Everyone Who Has Left Father and Mother / 517 Well, time is not the enemy. I, too, shared the experience of waiting. I endured those sterile sermons in the synagogue and waited for the time when I myself would speak, l know what it's like to wait. l also know what it's like to have to change plans. Do you remember when I was in the Temple, aged twelve? Remember the results of my long retreat in the desert? Then I, discovered my mission was to be done in weakness not comfort, in powerless-ness not power, in ordinariness not in the spectacular. Didn't you preach on , that once? So what do I do? Should I write, read, visit, wander the streets and bazaars? What? What you do is less important than doing whatever it is with humility and love and with me. I find that fine for a while, but the days can become long and empty. That means you are waiting. Remember once you doubted if I wanted you to come here and you offered to call it off?. I said whether I wanted you to come or not, I would always be with you. I remember. I never looked back after that. Or have I? We'll talk again sometime. I have no intention of guarding you from the truth of these people, of yourself, of our real mission together. Keep in touch. Sure. thanks. From Tablet to Heart: Internalizing New Constitutions I and I! by Patricia Spillane, M.S.C. Price: $1.25 per copy, plus postage. Address: Review for Religious Rm 428 3601 Lindell Blvd. St. Louis, Missouri 63108 The Fourth Vow of the Jesuits John R. Sheets, S.J. Father Sheets, a frequent contributor, is a member of the Department of Theology of Creighton University (Omaha, NE 68178). His topic is one of recurring media, interest, especially in view of the Jesuits' upcoming 33rd General Congregation. The recently published article on the Jesuits' fourth vow by Father John O'Malley, "The Fourth Vow in Its Ignatian Context: A Historical Study,"I has more than academic interest at this particular juncture in the history of the Society of Jesus and its relationship to the Holy See. Beginning with the Jesuits' Thirty-second General Congregation (December l, 1974 to March 7, 1975), there has been a series of unfortunate contretemps between the Society and the pope. Pope Paul VI's final appraisal of the work of that congregation, as conveyed in Cardinal Villot's letter (May 2, 1975), was not enthusiastic: "From an examination of the decrees, it appears that well-known circum-stances prevented the General Congregation from achieving all that His Holiness had expected from this important event . " Nor was the Society's own appraisal of itself that positive. The first item on the agenda of every general congregation according to the statutes is the election of a commission to review the state of the Society. This commission, after reviewing the material at its disposal, issued its report to the assembled delegates. | was one of the delegates. We felt that the report was too negative. We remanded it to the commission. If my memory serves me, we voted to disband the commission itself. However, the tone of the report found its way into a decree called "Jesuits Today." It begins with the words: "What is it to be a Jesuit? It is to know that one is a sinner, yet called to be a companion of Jesus." After the commission's report, and the response of the delegates, Fr. Arrupe took up the topic in an address to the congregation: Two images he 518 The Fourth Vow of the Jesuits / 5"i9 used stand out in my memory. He compared the Society to a ship that has come through a storm, battered, but intact. He also described it as a person who is ill, but not mortally. Another series of events is more recent. In October 1981, to the surprise of e~,eryone, Pope John Paul II, in an unprecedented action, replaced the man chosen by Fr. Arrupe as his personal vicar. In his place, the pope named an Italian Jesuit, Fr. Paolo Dezza, who has had a long history of service to the Society, as his personal delegate to the Society. Predictably the reaction among Jesuits ran the gamut. On the part of many the reactions were negative: feelings of anger, resentment, indignation, confusion, suspicion, hurt. Some, on the other hand, saw it as a special sign of love and concern the Holy Father had for the Society, intended to help us prepare more fruitfully for the upcoming congregation at which a new general will.be elected. The initial bristling reaction was in large part quieted by subsequent events. The week-long meeting of the provincials from all over the world with Fr. Dezza, then their personal conference with the pope brought a great deal of mutual understanding. Finally, Fr. Dezza's letter convoking the next General Congregation to take place in September of 1983 set our faces toward the future. Fr. O'Malley's article on the fourth vow assumes, then, a special impor-tance in the light of the events just mentioned. Its implications for our collec-tive awareness of our relationships toward the Holy See merit serious attention. In what fol~lows, after an analysis of Fr. O~Malley~s article, I shall pose questions expressing my misgiving with his argumentation and his conclusion. Then I shall present Fr. Arrupe's treatment of the fourth vow in some of his recent writings. Needless to say, even in my disagreement with Fr. O'Malley, I respect him as a scholar and personal friend. The Fourth Vow However, even before I begin, I should say something about the Jesuits' fourth vow for the benefit of non-Jesuits who might read this. In establishing his religious order, St. Ignatius took over, of course, many traditional aspects of religious life. In other points he was creative and innovative. He took over, for example, the idea of the final vows that a member would make after a period of probation. But he also introduced an innovation in what arecalled "grades" in the Society~ Those who are admitted to last vows would be admitted on two grades (or levels). The first grade comprises the spiritual (priests) and temporal (lay brothers) coadjutors. The second grade is that of the professed. Besides the regular vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, the professed took a fourth vow of obedience to the pope. The description of this fourth vow is found in The Formula of the Institute, the document in which Pope Julius IIl in 1550 gave his full approbation to this new congregation. 520 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1983 The pertinent sentences from the formula are the following: "We are obliged by a special vow to carry out whatever the present and future Roman pontiffs may order in what pertains to the progress of souls and the propaga-tion of the faith; and to go without subterfuge or excuse, as far as in us lies, to whatsoever provinces they may choose to send us . , The motive for the vow is "for the sake of our greater devotion in obedience to the Apostolic See, of greater abnegation of our own wills, and of surer direction from the Holy Spirit." Further declarations are found in the Constitutions for the Society written by St. Ignatius. "The Fourth Vow in Its Ignatian Context: A Historical Study" I come then to Fr. O'Malley's article. He describes in the Introduction the particular question that focuses his study: "The most specific and urgent ques-tion raised in the past few years is how the vow relates to the papal magiste-rium. Does the vow obligate Jesuits to an adherence to that magisterium that is different from that of other Catholics, especially Catholic theologians, and is 'special' to the members of the Society? That question, we must note right off, is asked regarding an obligation imposed by the vow" (p. 1). The article is prompted then by the problem facing Jesuits, particularly teachers, writers, editors. Does the fourth vow oblige them to support papal teaching if they judge there is room for legitimate disagreement? In Part I. St. Ignatius and Doctrine, upon examining the relevant sources, Fr. O'Malley draws the conclusion that St. Ignatius had no interest in doctrine qua doctrine, but only in its pastoral implications. "Is it too much to state that Ignatius had no real interest in doctrine or theology in the conventional sense of those terms today? A strong case can be made for that position" (p. 9). "Ignatius conceived doctrine almost entirely with a view to pastoral effective-ness" (p. 11). "The behavioral and attitudinal components emerge much stronger in this 'horizon' than do more strictly dogmatic issues" (p. 11). Part II. St. Ignatius and Orthodoxy deals with doctrine as the object of faith. Here he takes up St. Ignatius' "Rules for Thinking with the Church." He addresses himself mainly to Rule 13: "What seems to me white, I will believe (creer) black if the hierarchical Church so defines, believing (creyendo) between Christ our Lord, the spouse, and the Church, his bride, there is the same Spirit which governs us and directs us to the salvation of our souls." Rather than se.,eing this rule as applying to doctrinal orthodoxy qua orthodoxy, O'Malley interprets it more as a practical directive: "His 'rule' emerges, therefore, more as an indication of a disposition of soul (sentir) than as a practical instrument for theological discourse. It thus reflects the attitudi-nal and affective intent that pervades Ignatius' writings" (p. 15). "But, again like the rest of us, Ignatius was cautious, conventional, and even undiscrimi-nating in areas where he had no deep inte~rest. One of these areas was academic theology, and even the relationship of that theology to orthodoxy" (p. 16). According to O'Malley, then, Ignatius had little interest in academic theology, The Fourth l,'ow of the Jesuits / 521 or the relationship of theology to dogma, or interest in dogma itself, except as providing some kind of pastoral orientation. O'Malley begins Part III. St. Ignatius and the Church with a statement which seems to moderate what he said before: "If there is one exception to this vagueness on dogma in Ignatius' thinking, it lies in ecclesiology" (p. 21). But he goes on to correct this impression. What was Ignatius' idea of the Church? Not primarily a "school of doc-trine," nor a hierarchical and sacramental reality, but as a locus for ministry. "Ministry, quite ~imply, is what the Church is about. As one conceives minis-try, therefore, so does one conceive Church" (p. 24). "Rather than 'school of doctrine,' therefore, a less ambiguous term of Ignatius' idea of the Church might be 'school of the affections' or 'school of affectivity'" (p. 25). What is the identifying role of the papacy then? Since the Church is to be conceived as the locus of ministry, the pope is conceived as the universal provider for ministry in the Church. "The consensus was., that the pope was the universal pastor with certain prerogatives that made him the ultimate judge in areas where equitable settlement could otherwise not be achieved. He resolved disputes and thereby was the ultimate guarantor of order in the Church. 'Pastor' and 'judge' would be the two best words to describe his function" (p. 28). Was there such a thing as papal magisterium at the time of Ignatius? Not in the sense in which it exists today, according to O'Malley. "The pope is rarely described as 'teacher,' at least as we would be inclined to understand that word today" (p. 29). "They were very far, then, from exercising a teaching office in any regular and positive sense" (p. 29). What was it, then, that led Ignatius to conceive the fourth vow? According to O'Malley, it was mainly his sense of order. This came from his temperament and background, as well as from the contemporary world view that saw hierarchy as the natural order of the universe. "It was inevitable that he would ascribe this same structure to the Church" (p. 31). Was the vow a one-sided promise that the Society be totally at the service of the pope? Not exactly. It was a quidpro quo: "They needed the Holy See as badly as they believed the Holy See needed them . In defending the Holy See. the Jesuits were also defending their own charter to exist" (p. 32). "The relationship between the Jesuits and the pope was mutually advan-tageous" (p. 33). However functional this whole arrangement was, O'Malley concedes that Ignatius did, nevertheless, have a special regard for the Holy See. But one should not read back into his devotion to the Holy See the personalistic fervor that grew up around the person of the Holy Father in the nineteenth century (p. 33). In Part II/. St. Ignatius and the Fourth l,'ow O'Malley argues against the position of two Jesuits, a German and a~ Spaniard, who hold a position contrary to his. He feels they go too far in expanding the scope of the vow. He 522 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1983 grants that "the symbolic character of a vow, as an expression of a religious ideal, should be expansive, but the proper object of a vow must., be clearly localized" (p. 38). He then states again the specific question he is addressing: "Can the pope bind a Jesuit by virtue of his vow to some 'special' defense, say, of Veterum sapientia, or Populorum progressio, or Humanae vitae, or Laborem exer-cens?" (p. 40). His answer is "No." There is no indication that Ignatius or his companions ever considered this as a likelil~ood or possibility (p. 40). He rules out, then, the possibility of the pope comman~ding some specific teaching by reason of the