Transitus: The Discontinuity and Death of Religious Communities in the Twenty-First Century

Abstract

In religious community life, the question of one’s own finitude in the perspective of the infinite is always at play, but communities are now really having to let go of organizational and spiritual patterns on the one hand and develop new ones on the other. Probably clearer than anywhere else in the world, the decades-long exodus of organized religious life can be seen and felt in the Netherlands and Belgium, where centuries-old congregations are now being dissolved and their monasteries repurposed. In this article, I will study the phenomenon of religious discontinuity and death from five analytical perspectives: historical, sociological, organizational, psychological, and theological. An overall perspective is that of “transitus spirituality”, of individual ways (as well as inabilities) to experience a form of completion and find closure when dealing with the discomforting fact of collective discontinuity and corporate death, of the (imminent) end of one’s own community. I will conclude with a reflection on the future of organized religious life.

Believe in Me and have faith in My mercy. When you think you are far from Me, I am often more near. When you think almost everything is lost, often the gain of greater merit dawns. All is not lost when something is in adversity. You must not judge according to your present feelings, nor so much as let a difficulty, wherever it comes from, take hold of you and conceive of it as if all hope of coming out on top had vanished. Do not think that you have been totally abandoned, even if I temporarily send you affliction or deprive you of the desired consolation. After all, this is how one passes into the kingdom of heaven.

Thomas a Kempis, The Imitation of Christ IV,30

Nihil stabile in humanis, nihil perpetuum in caducis.

Johannes Trithemius, Sermo 2

1. Introduction

The history of the Western Church and the research on it show that religious orders typically go through epochs of emergence, growth, maturity, crisis, and renewal. A historically understudied phase in the development of religious orders is that of aging, of approaching the end of the organizational life cycle (see “Historical Perspective”, below). This end phase, an irreversible process of waning vitality, is particularly evident today. The undeniable evidence of an autumn of religious life in the West must be seen against the background of the general ecclesiastical decline and the rapid vanishing of traditional religious practices, especially since the Second Vatican Council.1 The transformation of culture, society, and Church in the mid-to-late twentieth-century caused crises of identity, authority, and recruitment, which saw the numbers and duties of religious orders diminished in unforeseen and unforeseeable degrees.2 Probably clearer than anywhere else in the world, the decades-long exodus of organized religious life can be seen and felt in the Netherlands and Belgium, where centuries-old congregations are now being dissolved and their monasteries repurposed (see “The Future of Religious Life”, below).

In religious community life, the question of one’s own finitude in the perspective of the infinite is always at play, but communities are now really having to let go of organizational and spiritual patterns on the one hand and develop new ones on the other (see “Organizational Perspective”, below). Religious communal living, although always in transition, is aimed at perpetuating its own form of life, at following a rule in the perspective of eternity.3 When facing one’s own finitude—preparing for the end—becomes an inescapable and all-pervading reality, the eye on the future and the eye on the past are both turned toward what really matters here and now: the core spiritual principles and practices that one has always held on to and must continue to hold on to.4 What is it in our spirituality that gives us strength in this situation and that has to be continued, captured, conveyed, and communicated in this transition? While for some communities this question presents a negative and painful confrontation with what is really no longer there, for others, answers seem to lie in developing new forms and new focal points. At any rate, where disillusionment and disorientation have not already had devastating effects, they do remain dominating elements in the process of finding a future.

In this article, I will study the phenomenon of religious discontinuity and death from five analytical perspectives: historical, sociological, organizational, psychological, and theological. An overall perspective is that of “transitus spirituality,” of individual ways (as well as inabilities) to experience a form of completion and find closure when dealing with the discomforting fact of collective discontinuity and corporate death, of the (imminent) end of one’s own community.5 I will conclude with a reflection on the future of organized religious life.

2. Historical Perspective

The historical literature on the development of individual orders is too vast to mention. Theories or schemes of developmental stages are foreign to the modern historical literature, which usually focuses on particularities in contexts.6 Where structures and commonalities are mentioned, sociological theories often abound. There are roughly two predominant research perspectives. The most recent of these is comparative order history, especially as developed in the 1990s by the historian Gert Melville.7 Typically, while this research perspective deals with institutional durability, decline, renewal, and the like, it does not (or hardly) deal with organizational aging and death. The older research perspective is that of psychosociological order history, especially as developed in the 1960s by pastoral psychologist and psychosociologist Raymond Hostie. He summarizes the institutional development of religious orders as follows:

After a longer or shorter incubation period, this expansion reaches its peak in one or two centuries. It more or less maintains itself, until decay sets in, which seems inevitable despite the efforts of the hierarchical instances, who wish to preserve the good of their contribution, and also despite the diligence of some of the order’s members, who are animated by the desire not to slacken in the zeal of former times. These efforts are not necessarily without results. In fact, we see many reforms coexisting and passing on the life.

(Hostie 1972, p. 79)

Here, attention to organizational death is indeed—a priori and conceptually—central:

Finally, we come up against the inescapable question—this too is supported by evidence—of the death of these groups and the death struggle that precedes it.8

Hostie actually searched the history of Western organized spirituality for religious foundations as well as abolitions. As his table (see

Table 1. Overview of foundations and abolished orders throughout the ages. Detail of Table in Hostie (1972, p. 348).

Century	Foundation	Extinction	Still Existing	Total End of Century
IV	12		0	12
V	12	−1	0	23
VI	9	−13	1	19
VII	1	−13	0	7
VIII	2	−2	0	7
IX	1	−1	0	7
X	1	−1	0	7
XI	14		5	21
XII	22	−1	5	42
XIII	13		11	55
XIV	13	−1	2	67
XV	5	−11	1	61
XVI	18	−10	13	69
XVII	22	−11	11	80
XVIII	7	−16	4	71
XIX	91	−16	91	146
XX	33	−2	33	177
	276	−99	177	177

) shows, 276 religious orders were founded and 99 were abolished between the fourth and twentieth centuries:

Among the general—common—causes of abolition, he mentions not only structural, group-internal, but also incidental, context-dependent, developments.9

Finally, if we look at historical studies focusing on the decline of religious life in recent times, we see that even in these, dying and disappearance as such are not central issues. Even Hostie, who perceives (in 1972) an “all-defying stability” (Hostie 1972, p. 260) and a “halo of imperishability” (Hostie 1972, p. 261) in the twentieth century, goes no further than to speak of the phenomena of rigidity (“Furthermore, no one has yet the possibility of becoming aware of how much this stability degenerates into rigidity”10) and aging (“One can observe all the signs of aging there. Its influence is dying out, its activities are languishing, its membership is shrinking”11). A good historical analysis of the “decline of religious life” in the twentieth century is offered by the theologian Anton Lingier and the sociologist Wim Vandewiele, who take a historical, social, ecclesiastical, and theological perspective. They do mention the death and abolition of the orders, but otherwise remain mainly focused on the phenomenon of decline (Lingier and Vandewiele 2021; See furthermore Sloot 2015). Conversely, to conclude this section, historical studies on the experience of death and the afterlife do not pay attention to organizational dying.12

3. Sociological Perspective

Very important for understanding how “the period of active organizational involvement may already be coming to an end” (2006) is the work of American sociologist Patricia Wittberg, who has studied the “effect of denominational groups losing their institutional identities” extensively.13 Ironically, and notwithstanding the groundbreaking quality of her organizational research in a sociological perspective, Wittberg does not study the effect on denominational groups of losing their institutional communities, viz., their houses and their sisters and brothers. The ending process of “falling” religious orders and congregations that she studies is therefore not a dying process of “closing” religious groups.14 In other words, should sisters and brothers belonging to those dying groups read sociologist Wittberg’s work in order to find some orientation or even consolation, they would to a greater or lesser extent recognize themselves in what she describes as institutional “goal restatements” (still serving others, outside the institutions; personal and spiritual growth) (Wittberg 2006, pp. 173–80) but would find even her most astute observations (e.g., “It is time for them to read these chapters, to assess the story they have told, and to choose, insofar as they can, the story of their future” (Wittberg 2006, p. 279)) less useful. Observations such as these are no more than half-helpful, because groups of religious that have lost their schools, hospitals, and the like15 are now losing their houses, their families, and their lives.

Other sociological literature on death is equally unsatisfying in this regard. This becomes apparent when we read sociologist Zygmunt Bauman’s Mortality, Immortality, and Other Life Strategies from the same viewpoint of the immediate threat of corporate death (Bauman 1992; See furthermore Howarth 2007; Seale 1998; Thompson and Cox 2017). His philosophical exploration of death and dying in social institutions and culture poses relevant questions but offers no real answers to the situation at hand. The remaining religious in dying communities will be challenged and provoked rather than consoled and supported by phrases such as:

• death is the explicit target of many of the things we do and think of (Bauman 1992, p. 7)
• the constant risk of death […] is, arguably, the very foundation of culture (Bauman 1992, p. 31)
• the idea of self-preservation […] hides or beautifies the gruesome truth of survival (Bauman 1992, p. 34)
• denial of nothingness lacks all solidity if anchored in the future (Bauman 1992, p. 54)
• the terror of death may be exorcised in more than one way (Bauman 1992, p. 173)
• mortality needs not be deconstructed: it ought to be lived (Bauman 1992, p. 191)
• in this readiness for self-sacrifice […] the liberation from the tyranny of self-preservation is won. (Bauman 1992, p. 202)

For those who have made spirituality as the creative and caring engagement with humanity their profession (which has come to an end a long time ago) and path of life (which is now coming to an end), reading Bauman is an exercise in cynicism from the very first pages, where we read that

[…] the perceiving subject may only delude itself with a play of metaphors, which conceals rather than reveals what is to be perceived, and in the end belies the state of non-perception which death would be. Failing that, the knowing subject must admit its impotence and throw in the towel.16

4. Organizational Perspective

With regard to the study of the organizational death of denominational groups, three things should be established beforehand. First, organizational death is not (yet) part of the broader field of thanatology, “the description or study of death and dying and the psychological mechanisms of dealing with them.”17 Second, the final phase of existing religious congregations and communities has barely been scrutinized from the scholarly viewpoint of organizational death.18 Third, existing organizational death research from the field of organization studies and public administration is not, at least not explicitly, directed at religious institutions (See especially, Bell et al. 2014; Bell and Taylor 2011; Sutton 1983; Sutton 1987). When we take a closer look at these publications on organizational death, the amount of which is still relatively modest, we see how organizational death theory can be very useful for our purpose. First, it is useful in offering the right terminology: scholars of organization Emma Bell, Janne Tienari, and Magnus Hansson, for example, speak about cessation of organizational function; mourning and memorialization; and the construction of symbolic immortality—terms all applicable (in various degrees) to our case.19 Second, it is useful in translating issues related to individual death to collective demise: scholars of organization Emma Bell and Scott Taylor, for example, suggest sound ways of generalizing findings from studies of bereavement at the individual level to organizational contexts.20 Third, organizational death theory is potentially useful in offering stage and transition theories, one of which is Stuart Albert’s model of four psychological “closure-constructing” devices.21

The Conference of Dutch Religious (Konferentie Nederlandse Religieuzen22) has drawn up a digital document for handling an upcoming phaseout.23 This “Script for completion” (Draaiboek voltooiing) contains checklists of tips and tricks with regard to seven areas: governance, charism, housing and buildings, member care, finances, Superior’s advisors, and staff. The introduction page reads:

How so completion?

By the term completion we mean that the existence of a religious institution or society of apostolic life in the Netherlands, humanly speaking, is coming to an end.

If you doubt whether your institution is in the phase of completion, consider being twelve years away from now, and then ask yourself the following questions:

Are there members senior enough to run the institute?

Are there still enough members to hold chapters?

(For contemplative monasteries): Are there still at least five members, at least one of whom is under the age of seventy?

If you have to answer no to any of these questions, your monastery is in the stage of completion.24

Considering the rapid disappearance of organizational patterns, the document’s approach is practical, technical, and juridical.25 The treatment of the spiritual, experiential, and personal aspects of an unfolding transitus is reduced to a minimum,26 but whether help with these aspects can be found outside or inside one’s own organization remains unclear, at least to the visitor of the website.

5. Psychological Perspective

A characteristic, fatal, psychological group mechanism—disconnection from an awareness of the real needs and conditions of the world—is mentioned by Hostie, who argues that active religious groups refuse to languish when the task operation no longer meets the current need: “With such conviction one continues to support the work, and one or more centuries pass before the members of the group become aware that the goal they are pursuing no longer exists. It is then too late to switch to other tasks.” (Hostie 1972, p. 127). This might be applicable here as to other historical “stagnations” and “extinctions” (Hostie) of religious orders, but we have to consider that congregations and communities have been quickly overtaken by developments in the decades before and after the Second Vatican Council.27 Instead of looking backward and trying to answer the question how the sisters and brothers could have responded more effectively to shifting circumstances, it is perhaps more useful for our purpose to look forward and try to answer the question how the members of dying communities can cope with the process of termination or transformation now underway. Not all of them have been as well prepared for private death as the members of some Benedictine abbeys

where the novice master takes the candidate to the cemetery on the day of his entrance, to show him the place where he will rest after his death. Thus it is made clear to the candidate that from now on he binds his earthly life to the community of the abbey, as a preparation, indeed as an anticipation, of the future life.

(Hostie 1972, p. 88)

Nor have they been prepared and trained to die a good death collectively.

The psychological literature on death, dying, and bereavement is vast, its general focus being on psychological, social, spiritual, and medical aspects of individual dying (See especially, Jong and Halberstadt 2016; Kastenbaum 2000; Kübler-Ross 2014; Kübler-Ross 1975). Many authors use the groundbreaking work of Swiss-American psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, whose legendary model of five stages of death (based on interviews with over two hundred dying patients) has remained highly relevant since its publication in 1969.28 The first stage is that of denial and isolation. Denial “functions as a buffer after unexpected shocking news, allows the patient to collect himself and, with time, mobilize other, less radical defenses.” (Kübler-Ross 2014, p. 38). The second stage is that of anger. It may be directed at specific persons or be generalized and undirected and, as a natural response, it requires tolerance and understanding from those around the dying person.29 The third stage is that of bargaining: “maybe we can succeed in entering into some sort of an agreement which may postpone the inevitable happening.” (Kübler-Ross 2014, p. 79). The fourth stage is that of depression, which can be twofold: reactive depression, due to the many losses—money, job, care of children—a patient has to endure, and preparatory depression, “which does not occur as a result of a past loss but is taking into account impending losses.” (Kübler-Ross 2014, p. 85). The fifth stage is that of acceptance:

If a patient has had enough time (i.e., not a sudden, unexpected death) and has been given some help in working through the previously described stages, he will reach a stage during which he is neither depressed not angry about his “fate.” He will have been able to express his previous feelings, his envy for the living and the healthy, his anger at those who do not have to face their end so soon. He will have mourned the impeding loss of so any meaningful people and places and he will contemplate his coming end with a certain degree of quiet expectation.

(Kübler-Ross 2014, pp. 109–10)

If we substitute the singular with the plural here, and include in our thought experiment Kübler-Ross’s constant consideration of communal resources (notably family members), we are already beginning to see how religious sisters and brothers can be brought to that stage of having had enough time [to prepare for death], of having received some help in working through the previous stages, of having been able to express their previous feelings, of having mourned the loss of people and places, of contemplating their coming end with a certain degree of quiet expectation.30

6. Theological Perspective

In his study on the life and death of religious orders, Hostie somewhat cynically remarks: “At first glance, one may be surprised to encounter such a stubborn desire to stay alive among groups who proclaim that they do not fear death but see it as a transition to a better life.”31 He speaks in this regard about a “dogged defiance of death” once groups of religious have been established and constructed.32 Once these groups have entered the final stage of life, however, the stubborn desire to stay alive and the dogged defiance of death will at some point have to be relinquished and replaced by the reinforced awareness that “everything earthly is drawn on the sand of transitoriness” (von Balthasar 2012, pp. 15–16; Reference in Levering 2018, p. 3). The transitoriness of earthly existence, often dealt with in relation to salvation, redemption, and divine judgment, is one of most essential biblical truths. In the New Testament, in which the death of Christ is proved to contain for every believer the promise of a better life after this life,33 the central theme of lasting glory in heaven’s kingdom versus passing glory in this life involves and invites reflections on its implications for individual life and death, but several of these reflections may also be interpreted as inspirational for the collectively dying and members of death-facing communities.34

Beyond the Bible, in Christian theologies of death, which generally focus exclusively on individual dying, other strengthening and soothing strategies for transitioning together from life to death—from death to life—may be found. A good example is Dying and the Virtues by theologian Matthew Levering (Levering 2018; See furthermore Davies 2008; Jones 2007; Rahner 1972), in whose reflection on good ways of dying I identify three such strategies. The first strategy is that of fostering virtues. Levering discusses love, hope, faith, penitence, gratitude, solidarity, humility, surrender, and courage as the virtues indispensable for the difficult process of departure and dying. Were these, I would ask, not already virtues indispensable for the demanding process of devotion and dedication of those who were then flourishing and contributing to life but now wilting and withdrawing from it as a group?35 The second strategy is that of offering ourselves. Levering states that “[A]ll we can do is to practice offering ourselves to God with the recognition (possible in the fullest way only when we are truly dying) that in reality ‘one possesses only what one lets go of.’”36 Was this, obviously, not already the basic premise and practice of those living in religious orders?37 Furthermore, “The hope that Christians possess in dying—the Lord to whom we give ourselves in dying—is the same Lord to whom we give ourselves in living.” (Levering 2018, p. 88). Were the religious, again, not already the exemplary givers of themselves in living? The third strategy, finally, is that of seeking communion. Once more, this poses the obvious question: is this act, which aims at eucharistic communion in Christ, interpersonal communion, and communion with the body of Christ (with those living and dying in the Church as a growing gathering), (Levering 2018, pp. 3, 8, 10) not most natural for those who already live together in unity, “intent upon God in oneness of mind and heart”?38

7. The Future of Religious Life

Like individual dying for most individual persons, collective dying for most communities will be a brutality, a trial, and an agony (See Levering 2018, pp. 164, 165, 167). Instead of “explaining away the bitter inevitability of their own death,” (Levering 2018, p. 165) however, religious men and women should develop their own ways—or adopt those of others—of dying well unitedly.39 Elements of such ars conmoriendi would include soothing strategies such as the above-mentioned but also, among others, shared eschatologies (orientations on “ends” instead of “evolutions”40) and suitable symbols (reflections on images of death and fruition41). As for the near future, many religious congregations are faced with their fall (Wittberg 1994) and thus with the critical choice between cessation (termination) and continuation in some new form (transformation). Both options can be viewed by those involved as (extremely) negative or positive.42 The case of the Franciscan Sisters of Veghel in the Netherlands shows that, despite the vanishment of much vitality, the execution of the first option may not be as simple as it seems (See Pansters 2023, forthcoming). Whereas the remaining sisters are moving into a new housing facility just behind the old monastery,43 their monumental complex (“Kloosterkwartier”) will soon be housing a dozen welfare organizations.44 The negotiations between the sisters, who primarily want to pass on their spiritual values, and the organizations, which are more entrepreneurial and target-oriented, have been difficult at times. At any rate, the Dutch branch of the congregation, founded in 1844, will come to an end at some point in the near future. The case of the Franciscan Brothers of Huybergen in the Netherlands, who have decided to keep their monastery and revitalize their community by inviting a spiritual group of laypeople into their midst, reveals –not unsolvable – problems of another nature: the traditional values of an age-old teaching congregation are not easily combined and reconciled with the green goals of a “place with attention for earth and breath.”45 Viable avenues are now being formulated. Similar cases in the Netherlands and Germany show that the members of religious congregations are more easily reconciled with their fate when they see that their spiritual heritage, which includes their buildings and gardens and graveyards, is not being reduced to some matter-of-fact, theologically decontextualized, “material heritage.”46

8. Conclusions

For over half a century, traditional forms of organized religious life have been disappearing from the scene in Western society. The dying process and/or death of orders and congregations is probably intensely painful for the communities involved. Whereas a small minority of their members may rather combatively try to counter institutional decline and decay with all creative means possible, most show themselves resigned and reconciliated with fate—“Thy will be done.” Insecurity and equanimity exist side by side. Subjective accounts of the challenge of letting go and saying goodbye may be very rare, but we can safely assume that the assault on psychological powers is extremely discouraging and draining on personal and communal levels. Of equal importance is the loss of religious resources—spiritual ideas, rationalities, moralities—on a cultural level. For religious leaders, the crux of the question therefore remains: retreat or renew, terminate or transform, seek death or life?47

For both these internal, spiritual, and external, social, reasons, I contend that we need a new theology of religious life and death. This theology will have to address “all” death-related issues presently experienced by counts of religious men and women, including spiritual (devotion, desire, destiny, and deliverance), psychological (difficulty, distress, denial, and defiance), and material (decay, decline, discontinuity, and demolition) ones. As an extensive reflection on the multiple meanings of transitus, involving variations of termination and transformation, this theology would tackle matters of ultimate concern (including those of traditional concern such as the four last things of death, judgement, heaven, and hell) and thus also reveal its relevance for current concerns in contemporary culture, where—as of in one parallel movement with the marginalization of religious living—life is lived only once and death is marginalized and ignored. (Davies 2008, pp. 10, 20, 171, 178). For the religious themselves, whose sense of singleness of purpose of life (Davies 2008, p. 71; See also Pansters 2020) rarely spills over into a shared strategy or even vision of death, the exhausting experience of dying together oscillates between hope and fear, between embrace and repudiation. Ultimately, their death struggle is concomitant with the tension between creation (life) and salvation (death) that is the core dynamic of the Christian commitment. (See Davies 2008, pp. 5, 7, 9, 41, 57, 120).

Trust

Making the world more beautiful together

getting into a more positive flow

looking for something nice and positive

a small beautiful deed, something sweet

my faith, my intense experience

in a more beautiful environment

I started to see myself

what can I do maybe

slowly I started to build

started trusting myself

Enjoying the love around me

I believe in my dream that appeared

There I stand

I know I can do it

I have made the decision

To do what I can dream

my fears I get rid of

trust is what leads me

With strength and faith truly choose

Or else a dream and time to lose

should I hesitate and talk for days

my certainties I will now leave behind

people will call me crazy

And from others I will experience love

Realizing dreams takes guts

that is what I realize inside

Letting go is what really needs to be done

I feel it will surely come right

For I believe that if I really do fall

there will always be someone who will

catch me.48