2. Analysis of Problems in Religious life Today.ppt

• This Study is in response to the letter of Archbishop Mayer,
Secretary of the Congregation for Religious, in which he
proposed these question:
1. According to you ,which are the Problem in the
Religious life that need most to be studied, and
Why? What solution would you propose?
2. What order of Priority Should be followed in
approaching these Problems?

3.Some Solutions in the order of Priority.
2.Why they are Problems
1.Dominant Problems
In this analysis:

• Centre of the Crisis in Religious life in certain countries is the
entrance of alien ideas into the stream of Catholic thought.
• These ideas are alien to historic Catholicism in matters of
faith and doctrine, morals and Spirituality, worship and the
ministry.
• They Cover the Spectrum of the Church’s teaching and
Practice.

• They have affected not only the rank and file of religious but
the leaders and major superiors of national and international
Communities.
• They are implemented in the Juridical documents of
Communities where they take on the force of law.
• They are carried into effect in the apostolate in which
individuals and groups engage.

• They are now supported by a mounting variety of writing in
books, magazines and position papers from local, regional
and national organizations.
• All claiming to speak for religious and to religious in the
modern world.
• Among these ideas some are fundamentally opposed to the
whole of Catholic Christianity and in fact, to all revealed
religion.

• Others are more directly contrary to a life of Christian
Perfection.
• Among the former are such theories as process Theology
which Postulates a finite god, or moral relativism which
denies all absolutes as normative of human conduct, or
dogmatic Pluralism which gives equal validity to orthodox
and heterodox Positions in Christianity.

Intrusion of many ideas:
• They are, in many ways, the substratum of Secularization
which has also affected a life of the evangelical Counsels.

• They say that actual poverty in following Christ is no longer
feasible; if it was ever defensible, in the religious life.
• Poverty does not mean deprivation.
• It is said to be essentially a subjective disposition which
ranges all the way from “being concerned for the poor” to
“being open to the Spirit” in the changing circumstances of
the times.

• This new concept of poverty has led religious institutes to
write into their updated Juridical Structures such Provisions
for Salaries Corresponding to say persons engaged in the
same work.
• Living accommodations that have emptied hundreds of
convents and religious houses in favor of elegant Private
apartments, dress and apparel that has discarded the
religious and clerical garb in favor of secular clothes with
accumulating wardrobes.

• Complete celibacy in following the Chaste Christ is widely
held to be passé.
• It is said to be either Psychologically harmful or
Sociologically unproductive and emotionally unhealthy.
• Terms like “Sexless” Celibacy and unfulfilled” men and
women under vows are Common place.
• The resulting impact on religious institutes has struck like a
hurricane.

• Some communities have opened the way for what they call
“associate members” of both sexes,
• Cloister for many is an archaism,
• Dating is widespread.
• Those who are involved in sensual and sexual relations with
Persons of the opposite sex are known best by those who
are living in Certain Countries.
• Reports in the Public Press about the marriages of “Priests
and nuns” are simply the end result of sometimes years-long
liaisons that are no longer Considered sinful for religious.

• Some theological writers disclaim any evidence for
evangelical Obedience in Christian Revelation.
• Others reduce Obedience to a Pragmatic tool “for the sake of
good order” as in Purely Commercial or business enterprise.

• Abuses of authority in the recent past are repeated and
Paraded in order to discredit the very idea that mature men
or women should be “Subjects” to others who are their
“Superiors” is labeled “Infantilism” and religious
Communities, in which superiors are still recognized as
somehow representing the will of God, are derided as
“Asylums” or nurseries.

• Prayer as a ‘cultic’ worship of god, through invocation for
divine assistance and especially through the liturgy as
sacrament and Sacrifice which are means of grace is being
re-interpreted.
• Instead of invocation religious are told they should
Practice reflection, and so-called “transcendential
meditation” in which god is not invoked but ego is studied
is not uncommon.
• Volitional human effort is said to have been neglected in
favor of ritual.
• With the result that religious paid more attention to the
worship of god than to the needs of their neighbor.

• So service is substituted for formal Prayer.
• The vague aphorisms in revised Constitutions about Prayer
and mass, Penance and self-denial are a faint indication on
how many religious do not assist at the Eucharist daily. + +
do not engage in Private or Communal Prayer.
• The situation of Prayerlessness, defended in learned writing
and speaking.

• There is a remarkable Correlation between involvement by
religious in Socio-Political activism and their neglect of
Prayer.
• Work is Prayer, they are told, and they best find God in
working for others, not in ritual invocations or devotional
acts of piety.

• Community life as historically understood by the Church is
Challenged, as outmodeld on several counts:
• We have now discovered a new worth of the individual as a
Person, which makes Communal living antiquated.
• For the same reason, Community life by people of the same
sex is said to be based on an archaic notion of what a group
is.

• Certainly large Communities are intolerable. They are a relic
of former days.
• When poverty and Patience were mistakenly canonized as
virtues.
• There is a new stress on Personal liberty.
• Communities are for individuals , as means to serve the
person; they are not intrinsically worthwhile, to which the
individual is somehow subordinate.

• If he or she finds that living with others help him as a person,
towards personal fulfillment, then he may join a group, but
even then it should be regularly a small group of likeminded
peers.
• The motto now is self-expression.

• Consistent with the new attitude towards Community life is
the downgrading of a Corporate apostolate in which
members of the same Community Cooperatively engage.
• There is the abandonment of Community-Sponsored
apostolate.
• Thousands of religious have abandoned their corporate
apostolate in less than ten years.
• Hundreds of schools have been closed, welfare institutions
sold to the state or left empty, publications given up.

• The underlying cause is the loss of Commitment to their
respective community apostolate.
• According to the ‘Open-Placement’ policy the exercise of
authority practically dispensable in religious institutes
engaged in active labors, since it places the religious under
the direction and authority of those in charge of the
enterprise.

• By supposition these are not the person’s own religious
superiors.
• The latter become superiors only in name, without Juridical
authority, and are soon reduced to the status of Spiritual
Counselors or advisors, who may be approached but who
can also be quietly ignored.

• Is it any wonder that so many are confused about what is
authentic religious life?
• The confusion arises from a number of sources:
Confusion About Authentic Religious Life

1. Contradiction between presumably established Principles
and Practice.
• Those who opt for the ideas look on other religious as “Pre-
Conciliar,” as “out dated, and consider them a drag on the
development of religious life in our times.
• Those who have made numerous and significant
accommodations, but insist that religious life has not
essentially changed, consider the others as secularized.

2. Contradictions between the ideas expressed by “name
theologians” and “experts” supporting each concept of
religious life.
3. Contradictions between what the church ostensibly wants
religious to be for example as spelled out in Lumen Gentium
and Perfecta caritatis, and what the Bishops and the
congregation for Religious allows.

• In the name of experimentation, the most extreme and
bizarre practices have not only been here and there
introduced, but the whole fabric of religious life in not a few
institutes has been torn to shreds.
• What makes it hard for the Congregation of Religious to
judge accurately about the situation is the studied effort of
those who are directing a complete reversion of religious life
to avoid two things:
III. Uncontrolled Experimentation

• Open and direct Confrontation with the Holy see, since they
insist that they are engaged in an on-going dialogue with
ecclesiastical authorities.
• Clear and unambiguous language about what is actually
being done, for example in “Interim Constitutions” and in
Correspondence with Rome.

• Since religious are supposed to be docile to those in
authority in their institutes, inevitably this has led to an
abuse of the trust placed in them on the part of those who
had imbibed more or less of the secularized ideology.
• Canon law never envisioned chapters and major superiors
ignoring or over-riding some of the most sacred prescriptions
of religious life.
IV. Abuse of Authority by Chapters
and Major Superiors

• A single fact like pope Paul VI’s insistence on superiors in
religious Communities typifies how deep and widespread has
been the erosion in fundamentals.
• In not a few institutes, those vested with authority (as
chapters and major superiors) have in effect substituted
power for the moral right to govern.
• They have managed to get delegates to chapters through
careful politicized strategy.
• They have managed to set superiors general and provincials
elected through well-organized caucus.

• They have succeeded in getting Provisions removed from
exiting Constitutions, and other Provisions introduced into
Juridically uncertain “Guidelines” for the institute, through
every conceivable stratagem.
• And all the while, if any of the members complain or express
concern, they are told this is “only experimental”, or
“options are available, “or” no constitutions are definitive
anyway”.

• There is a corresponding problem in countries like the
Unitesd States where the national conferences of major
superiors come under the planned control of persons
dedicated to the reversal of historic religious life.
• Years of careful programming finally produces an
organization that is characterized by certain features:

1. Great caution not to precipitate an open defiance of Rome.
2. Strategic indoctrination of the superiors, through lengthy
national conventions, numerous releases through the mails
and regular regional meetings.

3. Growing Power over the Bishops, by threatening to
withdraw their members from a diocese-and carrying out the
threat- unless the Bishops accede to the administration’s
demands, negatively in such issues as secular dress, and
positively in such critical matters as exorbitant salaries from
the diocese.

4. Shrewed playing of both sides of ecclesiastical authority
warning Bishops that pontifical institutes are exempt from
Episcopal Control, and using Bishops (often through their
vicars for Religious) to side with them against the supposed
tyranny of Rome.

• For people who know what is happening, one of the greatest
scandals in religious life is the brazen indifference to
repeated directives and prescriptions of the Holy see by
general chapters and major superiors
• Along side the most complete disregard of the canonical
(and even natural) rights of those members who are
unsympathetic with the secularizations process.

• As a consequence of the abuse of their authority, whether
designed or through neglect, administrators in secularizing
institutes deprive their members of the freedom to live out
their vowed commitment. This deprivation takes on various
forms.
– Freedom is curtained by not having access to necessary
knowledge of what the church wants religious to be.
V. Loss of Freedom to live out one’s
vowed commitment

2. In not a few dioceses, vicars for religious have become, in
effect, the actual superiors of communities.
• They are strongly well disposed to institutes that are
more secularized.
• They are positively ill-disposed to communities that
do not have open placement, wear the religious habit
and in general, follow a more regular way of life.

• 3. Open placement and the lack of local superiors have
nurtured many coercions on the members, even when
coercions is not directly practiced by the administrations.

• “Finding a paying job” or being alone among others who
believe in personal fulfillment or being subject to countless
pressures to conformity or having to look for financial
security from one’s blood relatives, or watching less qualified
persons preferred because they are willing to compromise
are only a sample of the sort of injustice which so many
religious experience.
• Many others have by now either left their institutes or
decided to go along with the trend.

• Inevitably, given the image of religious life in certain
countries, vocations have dropped immensely.
• The media, especially television, is depicting religious as
discontented with the demands of their vows, as radicals
and even revolutionaries, and as finally breaking through the
shackles of an outmoded church-controlled concept of
community and religious life.
VI. Loss of Respect for the
Religious Vocations

• The departure from religion, often after years in a
community, of so many has created the image of
uncertainty and insecurity which no amount of vocation -
Promotion can neutralize.
– No one argues with statistics.
– In the U.S. candidates for the religious priesthood from
1966-67 to 9173-74 have dropped over 50%.
– Candidates for women’s religious communities from
1965 to 1972 have dropped 87%

• A net loss of over 40,000 sisters in ten year can not be
explained away as passing phenomenon not a average
American girl who would like to enter religious life.
• In a recent interview with a college coed in California,
inquiring about entering the convent, her first question was
“Can you recommend one active community in the U.S. That
you are sure will still be in existence ten years from now?”.
• On being assured there were such, she has since applied for
admission to community in the east,3000 miles away.

• Both men’s and women’s institutes report a starting contrast
between the numbers entering in affluent countries and
those entering in Afro-Asian and in countries behind the Iran
curtain.

• Vocations to the religious life (as grace from god) are not
wanting where young people have still flourishing
communities to which they can turn.
• Even in affluent Societies, there is a marked correlation
between the spiritual vigor of a community and its appeal to
the young.
• The largest net decrease and the least number of entries are
among communities which, on analysis, have compromised
on the church’s expectations for sacrifice of those in religious
life.

• Implicit in each of the solutions is the fact of massive
polarization on every level of religious life in countries where
the crisis has risen.
• Merely to homogenize what Is now polarized is not the
answer.
• Everything depends on what basis, ie. what principles,
polarization is to be removed or even reduced.

• 1. Continued co-existence and planned Dialogue.
• The polarized segments of religious life to co-exist, while
encouraging all parties to engage in interpersonal
communication in dialogue.
• In spite of the apparent sterility of this approach so far, it has
merit that deserves attention.
• On its positive side, such co-existence and dialogue :

• Show respect for different ideas and opinion in the catholic church.
• Spares ecclesiastical authorities further confrontation from those
who charge the hierarchy and the holy sea with being
authoritarian.
• Spares ecclesiastical authorities the embarrassment of “Correcting
“ what had previously been tolerated.
• Gives both “Sides” the opportunity to exchange ideas and share
their respective convictions.
• Offers some chance of mutual benefit through the interchange,
certainly in their practice of charity.

• On its negative side, however, continued co-existence and
dialogue:
• Perpetuates the impression that in the Catholic church there
are possible and permissible mutually exclusive concept of
religious life.
• Gives credence to the idea that the historic teaching of the
church on religious life is being phased out of existence.

• Works havoc on those institutes which still profess to believe
in and follow the principles and directives of Lumen
Gentium and Perfectae Caritatis. Why should religious who
prefer the “New approach” to Poverty, Chastity and
obedience remain in communities that insist on what the
second Vatican council teaches, if they can have nominally
religious life which is independent of this conciliar teaching.

• Implies that the underlying issues which polarize religious
are merely external, accidental and not deeply internal and
essential to the very substance of a life totally dedicated to
the following of Christ in the practice of the evangelical
counsels.

• The exercise, by appropriate ecclesiastical authorities, of such
Judgment as is within its competence to decide and (as necessary )
decree certain things like the following:
• That the experimentation permitted by Ecclesiae Sanctae has for
many communities, gone beyond prescribed and reasonable limits;
that after a certain date it may not continue.
• That in a given diocese, religious will be permitted to exercise the
apostolate only if they observe certain minimum essentials of
religious; that otherwise they are not the witnesses to Sanctity
which the church expects of her religious.
• That exemption does not mean the right to ignore certain
requirements of a life the counsels.

• The major superiors of pontifical institutes are such really
and not only in name, with a clear and concise indication of
the principle areas in which they are assured of effective
support in their pontifical status by the Holy see.
• That the provisions of Pope Paul VI’s Evangelica Testificatio
be implemented with certain directives, along with definite
consequences if the directives are not followed.

II. Executive Action and
Juridical Legislation:

• The fear of schism in certain regions if juridical action were
taken is well founded.
• At the same time, it can justly be said that there is de facto
schism in some institutes whose administrations consciously
ignore explicit directives of ecclesiastical authorities.
• Another concern about taking juridical action is that many
religious would be caught in the middle, torn between their
loyalty to the institute to which they belong and to
ecclesiastical authorities in the diocese or the Holy see.

III. Concerted
Education and spiritual
formation

• This solution to the problems facing religious life is based on
the promises of the second vocation council and pope Paul’s
Apostolic Exhortation to religious .
• It has two main postulates:
• That a great deal of the crisis in religious communities in
certain countries is due to lack of sound education, adequate
information or factual knowledge of religious life not only on
the part of religious, but of bishops, Priests, and the laity in
dealing with religious or in their attitude and expectations of
religious.

• That no crisis of the present magnitude can be resolved
without supernatural means.
• These means can be synthesized under the general term
“Spiritual formation” It is ment to refer, again not only to
religious but bishops, Priests and the laity, whose spiritual
condition of soul has great bearing an their relationship to
persons consecrated to a life of the counsels.
• Thus we may distinguish two parts to this solutions, each
directed to a some what different end and yet closely
connected with each other.

A. Concerted Education:
• The plan hare is to organize a dedicated group of bishops,
major superiors, Priests, religious and outstanding laity.
• It would be called the institute of Religious life.
• The scope of the institutes activity is to be essentially
educative i.e. to educate bishops, Priests, religious
administrators, individual religious, lay leaders, and the
youth in the meaning, dignity and importance of religious life
in the Catholic Church.

B. Spiritual formulation:
• Intimately tied in with concerted education is the proposed
spiritual formation.
• The institute on religious life is therefore , also to foster growth
in the spirit, mainly through prayer and sacrifice, of religious
themselves and of those who affect religious life.
• The transcendent importance of encouraging the faithful to
pray, make reparation, offer sacrifices, participate in the
Eucharistic Liturgy, and beg God for the graces he wants to give
to religious and for their apostolate.

• Looking to that future in religious institutes, guidelines
should be made available for the wiser choice of candidates
to the postulancy and novitiate, for the deeper faith-
commitment through the training of young religious; and for
the on-going , life long formation of religious men and
women in the practice of Prayer, the love of the cross, and
the alert service of others while maintaining a close and
constant union with God.

Priorities:
• First priority belongs to concerted education and spiritual
formation, for two reasons: Unless the mind is properly
informed, the will cannot be rightly motivated.
– Education here is seen as directed to the mind in order to
motivate the will to appropriate action.
• Unless divine grace is received, through the proper
dispositions of will (especially Prayer), it is useless to talk
about solutions of the problems of religious life.

• Second priority should be given to some executive action by
the Holy see and the bishops.
• Final priority is given to continued co-existence and planned
dialogue.
– This does not minimize its inherent value ,but it last as a
realistic solution to the crisis in religious institutes.

2. Analysis of Problems in Religious life Today.ppt

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2. Analysis of Problems in Religious life Today.ppt