WE HAVE DIALOGUED ENOUGH!
WE HAVE EXPERIMENTED ENOUGH!
Bishop James C. Timlin An Address delivered to the
Synod of Bishops in Rome on the subject of Consecrated Life. Bishop James C.
Timlin - 1994.
Most Holy Father, Your Eminences, my brothers and sisters
in the Lord. I speak in my own name.
I agree wholeheartedly with all that has been said about
the great gift that Consecrated Life has been and, I fully expect, will
continue to be in the Church. I will direct my remarks to what I see as
problems in Religious life in order to give a complete picture.
I believe the last twenty-five years have been
devastating to Religious life as we have known it, especially in my own
country. Thirty years ago, 22 percent of all religious in the United States of
America were under 30 years of age. Today less than 1 percent are under 30. The
number of religious has been cut in half. And that is easy to measure, but it
is impossible to measure the pain and heartache experienced by so many of our
dedicated religious men and women during this period.
The losses and uncertainty of recent years have finally
gotten us to the point of asking some important questions about the identity
and mission of Religious life. Nothing but good can come from our frank,
collaborative discussions.
But the time of uncertainty and lack of direction must
now come to an end. It goes without saying we must not do anything which would
(even appear) to stifle the Holy Spirit—as if that were possible! We must leave
ample room, indeed, for a rich diversity in Religious life, knowing that the
Spirit does not contradict Himself.
But we must still be clear about what is expected by the
Church of those who publicly profess to be vowed sons and daughters of the
Church. We must be determined to chart a clear course for Consecrated life. We
must also give encouragement and support to all those thousands and thousands
of faithful religious men and women who seek to be faithful to their commitment
to Religious life in the Church, as well as to those who feel abandoned by the
happenings of recent years.
We have dialogued enough. We have experimented
enough—some would say too much. The era of experimentation, or whatever we want
to call it, has not been all that successful, and we should honestly and humbly
admit it.
It is only common sense that we should not depart from
tried and true measures in Religious life until we are absolutely certain we
are going in the right direction. The wisdom and guidance of holy mother Church
is the principal way of insuring this moral certitude. One might say that for
religious it is the only way. While many necessary changes have occurred in
Religious life since the Second Vatican Council, it should be obvious that the
aberrations and the painful upheaval and much of what we have seen in Religious
life in our time cannot be of God.
Pope Paul VI, in speaking on this very subject, was very
blunt: "There may be better ways," he said, "but searching for
them must no longer be carried out to the detriment of these forms [of
Religious life that are truly holy and effective]. Those desirous of what they
believe will be better, must either embrace the present forms while they
search, or search in a life apart from the Religious life." (And that was
back in 1971 !) (cf. Evangelica Testificatio, June 29, 1971).
A few practical observations. First of all, authentic
Religious life must be an authentic Christian life. At the very least, for one
to be considered a religious, he or she must be what we euphemistically call a
"practicing Catholic." How can one claim to be a loyal son or
daughter of the Church if he or she deliberately fails to join the Christian
community in the greatest act of community worship known to the world, the holy
sacrifice of the Mass?
Or how can one be a Catholic in good standing if he or
she takes doctrinal or moral positions which are in direct opposition to the
clear teachings of the Church? This sounds very basic and may even seem
ludicrous, but I am afraid it has come to this in some circles and in some
religious communities. They need our help.
Second, I call for a traditional understanding of the
vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. More recent interpretations of these
vows have gone far beyond the biblical teachings of Jesus, and we must get back
to living the vows simply, as they were understood from our Bible studies and
just plain good sense.
The time-honored vows of poverty, chastity and obedience
must be seen as facets of Gospel values. But "Gospel values" must be
<further defined>. Some might say they are clothing their actions in
"Gospel values or Gospel freedom" when they withdraw from eucharistic
life, are absorbed in extreme feminism, when they publicly question magisterial
teaching. We must make it clear that the Gospel for the Church's publicly vowed
members is the Gospel only as the Church relates it to their vowed state and approved
form of life. The Gospel for religious in the Catholic Church is the Gospel as
taught by the Church.
Finally, there are three possible outcomes of all that is
going on in Religious life today: 1) extinction; 2) minimal survival; 3)
re-founding and transformation.
I do not think there is any question but that many
institutes will become extinct in the near future unless there is a radical
change of course. And who wants to survive minimally? This is not much better
than extinction.
Indeed, the only hope we have for Consecrated life is a
transformation, a re-founding firmly based on Gospel values and the particular
charism of the founder or foundress as approved and fostered by the Holy See.
"If the age of transformation succeeds," said
Father Paul Philibert, O.P., "you will see religious more principally as
people on fire with good news about their experience of God's love and Christ's
call to them, and you will find that they will be restless to have you know and
share in that charism that is the passion of their lives. The time has come to
talk of such things."
It is this kind of transformation in Consecrated life of
which we must speak in this synod. Thank you very much for your kind attention.
This article appeared in "Religious Life," the
November 1994 issue. Published by the Institute on Religious Life, P. O. Box
41007, Chicago, IL 60641.