A Synthesis for Benedictine Women’s Religious Life in the United States
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Historical and Social Realities
2.1. Establishment of U.S. Monasteries
2.2. Vatican II and Its Aftermath
we… dare to speak words that critique and challenge unjust structures, structures in which we ourselves participate, whether consciously or not. If anything said here is found to be graced and prophetic, it is because we, like our foremothers, aim to be faithful to the biblical covenants that structure right relationships with God and with one another.22
2.3. Developments Since Vatican II
2.4. Two Leadership Conferences for Women Religious
to serve the major superiors of women religious and their communities by providing mutual support in sustaining among its members the transcendent nature of religious life and the centrality of common life, common prayer, community-based apostolates, religious obedience, and the witness to consecration and poverty by a garb that is both common and simple.28
PurposeThe scope of the conference’s concerns is broad and includes:
collaborating in Catholic church and societal efforts that influence systemic change studying significant trends and issues within the church and society utilizing our corporate voice in solidarity with people who experience any form of violence or oppression creating and offering resource materials on religious leadership skills.LCWR serves as a resource to its members, as well as to members of the public seeking information on leadership for religious life.MissionThe purpose of the Conference shall be to promote a developing understanding and living of religious life by:
assisting its members personally and communally to carry out more collaboratively their service of leadership in order to accomplish further the mission of Christ in today’s world. fostering dialogue and collaboration among religious congregations within the Church and in the larger society. developing models for initiating and strengthening relationships with groups concerned with the needs of society, thereby maximizing the potential of the Conference for effecting change.29
3. Beyond Polarization: Assessing Church Documents for Religious Life from a New Vantage Point
In other words, religious both evangelize and promote the human dignity of others most authentically when they live and foster community in a style faithful to the charism of their founder. For Benedictines, living community is clearly a significant part of the charism, and so the call to be “experts in communion” should feel like a natural fit. Allen notes that the theology of religious life developed such that by 1980, religious were now “asked to serve the Church through an authentic spirituality of communion because of their privileged essential characteristic of living in common”.55Experts in communion, religious are, therefore, called to be an ecclesial community in the Church and in the world, witnesses and architects of the plan for unity which is the crowning point of human history in God’s design….Furthermore, through the daily experience of communion of life, prayer, and apostolate—the essential and distinctive elements of their form of consecrated life [cf. Perfectae Caritatis, 15]—they are a sign of fraternal fellowship. In fact, in a world frequently very deeply divided and before their brethren in the faith, they give witness to the possibility of a community of goods, of fraternal love, of a program of life and activity which is theirs because they have accepted the call to follow more closely and more freely Christ the Lord who was sent by the Father so that, firstborn among many brothers and sisters, he might establish a new fraternal fellowship in the gift of his Spirit. From their communitarian way of living flows that form of his presence and involvement which should characterize them in the Church’s mission and which we now emphasize in view of the options concerning human promotion.54
As with teachings around sacramental marriage, when things become difficult, when sacrifice and hardship come, it is the grace of God that continues to forge unity, that can bring new life out of death. The mystery of communion is seen in both states of life.63Before being a human construction, religious community is a gift of the Spirit. It is the love of God, poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, from which religious community takes its origin and is built as a true family gathered in the Lord’s name. It is therefore impossible to understand religious community unless we start from its being a gift from on high, from its being a mystery, from its being rooted in the very heart of the blessed and sanctifying Trinity, who wills it as part of the mystery of the Church, for the life of the world.62
By living community deeply, both within the monastery and in relationship with the larger Church, Benedictines fulfill their call as religious in service to the world. This is a mission lived, as Prudence Allen puts it, “at ‘the heart of the Church’ and not at its outmost extremities. Religious life ‘manifests the inner nature of the Christian calling.’”65 If contemporary Benedictine women would be “prophetic”, they can fulfill that mission within the Church itself, even as they may go to the margins to serve.A great task also belongs to the consecrated life in the light of the teaching about the Church as communion, so strongly proposed by the Second Vatican Council. Consecrated persons are asked to be true experts of communion and to practice the spirituality of communion as ‘witnesses and architects of the plan for unity which is the crowning point of human history in God’s design.’ The sense of ecclesial communion, developing into a spirituality of communion, promotes a way of thinking, speaking and acting which enables the Church to grow in depth and extension. The life of communion in fact ‘becomes a sign for all the world and a compelling force that leads people to faith in Christ…. In this way communion leads to mission, and itself becomes mission’; indeed, ‘communion begets communion: in essence it is a communion that is missionary.64
“My dearest ones, encounter him and contemplate him in a very special way in the Eucharist, celebrated and adored every day as source and summit of existence and apostolic action”. In the Apostolic Exhortation Vita Consecrata, [John Paul II] called for participation in the Sacrament of the Eucharist and assiduous and prolonged Eucharistic adoration daily.71
4. A Synthesis for Benedictine Women
If the recent decades’ experience of many women religious has emerged out of a fundamental desire to come alongside the laity in service, that is a good motive. At the same time, the consecrated state of life also calls Benedictine women to keep in mind an eschatological orientation, the sign value of their lives for others. The call to embody communion in community is not only a personal call, but also one that has communities in relationship with the other states of life in the Church, collaborating within the Church on mission to the world. The reference point for how to do this is always Christ himself, both fully human and fully divine.82 This is a mystery of identity and mission in the Body of Christ, and community is important: “Holiness and mission pass through the community because the risen Lord makes himself present in it and through it, making it holy and sanctifying the relationships”.83 Religious are part of something much bigger than themselves.If we remain embedded in those realities of our human natural life and we downplay the eschatological dimension of our lives, as consecrated men and women, then there’s no point to it. In other words, if we’re not pointing to anything beyond, there’s no point to it. On the other hand, [it is also possible to] go to the other extreme if we find ourselves settled in to the ‘otherness’ of religious life and we become detached from the ordinary people around us…81
5. Conclusions
Funding
Data Availability Statement
Conflicts of Interest
Abbreviations
CMSW | Conference of Major Superiors of Women |
CMSWR | Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious |
GS | Gaudium et Spes |
LCWR | Leadership Conference of Women Religious |
PC | Perfectae Caritatis |
USCCB | United States Conference of Catholic Bishops |
1 | |
2 | See (Hollermann 1994, 2022). |
3 | On the development of the Sister Formation Movement, which sought to address these issues, see (McGuinness 2013, pp. 156–61). |
4 | For more on customaries, and the way they shifted in the Vatican II period for one monastery, see (Visel 2021). |
5 | |
6 | (Stump 2010). |
7 | (Second Vatican Council 1964, Chap. 5) (hereafter LG). |
8 | |
9 | |
10 | |
11 | (Conference of American Benedictine Prioresses 2001, p. 110). Note that this position preceded John Paul II’s (1994) Ordinatio Sacerdotalis defining the doctrine that ordination be reserved to men. |
12 | (Conference of American Benedictine Prioresses 2001, p. 115). For more on rules around enclosure, see (Vatican 2001, can. 488) and (Vatican 1983, can. 667). |
13 | |
14 | |
15 | |
16 | |
17 | |
18 | |
19 | Regarding women’s gaining access to study theology, Gaudium et Spes 62 encourages the lay faithful to study theology at a professional level (1965). (John Paul VI 1970) gave a speech to the International Union of Superiors General that encouraged religious to be prepared for their apostolates with initial and ongoing training. Several pontifical universities began to admit laypeople about the same time. (John Paul II 1979) further affirmed that laypersons could pursue degrees in sacred theology, reinforcing women’s access to pontifical faculties. (Vatican 1983, can. 229) explicitly states that laypeople have the right “to acquire that fuller knowledge of the sacred sciences which are taught in ecclesiastical universities and faculties or in institutes of religious sciences, by attending classes there and pursuing academic degrees”. If suitable, they also may teach theology. |
20 | (Fox 2015). |
21 | |
22 | Conference of Benedictine Prioresses, Wisdom from the Tradition: A Statement of North American Benedictine Women in Response to Our Times (Conference of Benedictine Prioresses 2006, p. 7). |
23 | (Pew Research Center 2009, 2015). The most recent research shows the decline leveling off: (Pew Research Center 2025). |
24 | |
25 | |
26 | (McGuinness 2013, pp. 160–61). See also the LCWR’s own description of their history: https://www.lcwr.org/about (accessed on 15 March 2025), (Leadership Conference of Women Religious n.d.). Per Jo Ann Kay McNamara, permission from Rome was withheld for years (Sisters in Arms: Catholic Nuns Through Two Millennia (Harvard University Press, 1996), (McNamara 1996, p. 635). Hence, in some places the name change is dated to 1971, and elsewhere to 1976. |
27 | |
28 | |
29 | |
30 | It should be noted that for the original Communio theologians, ressourcement and aggiornamento were intricately intertwined. I thank Dr. Keith Lemna for this nuance. |
31 | John Cavadini of the University of Notre Dame has written and spoken on the concept of co-responsibility for the Church, described by (Benedict XVI 2009). See (Cavadini 2020). An even earlier reference to religious fostering a sense of co-responsibility for the Church is in (Sacred Congregation for Religious and for Secular Institutes 1978b, para. 33d): “Involvement in the life of the Church and in its mission, in an attitude of co-responsibility and complementarity, implies an up-to-date knowledge of its projects and the goals it hopes to attain”. |
32 | (Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious n.d.a) maintains a helpful resource page listing documents of different levels of authority relating to religious life. |
33 | For more on how to understand the authority of different levels of Church teaching, see (Gaillardetz 2018). |
34 | (Vatican 1983). |
35 | Can. 574 §1. |
36 | |
37 | (Second Vatican Council 1965c, para. 32). (hereafter GS). |
38 | GS, para. 40. |
39 | GS, para. 41. |
40 | GS, para. 42, quoting LG, para. 1. |
41 | (Second Vatican Council 1965a, para. 2.d). (hereafter PC). |
42 | PC, para. 5. |
43 | PC, para. 9. |
44 | PC, para. 14. |
45 | PC, para. 16. |
46 | PC, para. 17. |
47 | PC, para. 18. |
48 | (Paul VI 1971). |
49 | (Final Report of the 1985 Extraordinary Synod 1985 Extraordinary Synod). The Final Report of the 1985 Extraordinary Synod, II.C.1–2. |
50 | |
51 | |
52 | |
53 | |
54 | |
55 | |
56 | “Conclusion” in (O’Brien and Schaumber 2009, p. 196). |
57 | |
58 | |
59 | |
60 | |
61 | |
62 | |
63 | (Cozzens 2016, p. 28). As Bishop Andrew Cozzens points out, in Hans Urs von Balthasar’s The Laity and the Life of the Counsels, he proposed the analogy between religious life and marriage; both are defined by the desire to give oneself completely in an indissoluble union. |
64 | |
65 | (Allen 2009, p. 129), quoting (John Paul II 1996, para. 3). |
66 | (Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life 2002, para. 3). In 29, communities are recommended to go back to both Vita Consecrata and Fraternal Life in Community regularly for self-evaluation. |
67 | |
68 | |
69 | (Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life 2002, paras. 14–15). They also point to the resource for formation provided in (Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life 1990, para. 1). |
70 | |
71 | |
72 | |
73 | |
74 | |
75 | |
76 | |
77 | |
78 | |
79 | |
80 | See (Francis 2016), which addresses essential elements of the cloistered contemplative life. (Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life 1999); (Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life 2018); (Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life 2014); (Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life 2014b); (Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life 2014a). |
81 | |
82 | |
83 | |
84 | |
85 | See, for example, (Raab 2018, pp. 83–117). |
86 | (Francis 2015). |
87 | (Francis 2020). |
88 | |
89 |
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Visel, J. A Synthesis for Benedictine Women’s Religious Life in the United States. Religions 2025, 16, 676. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16060676
Visel J. A Synthesis for Benedictine Women’s Religious Life in the United States. Religions. 2025; 16(6):676. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16060676
Chicago/Turabian StyleVisel, Jeana. 2025. "A Synthesis for Benedictine Women’s Religious Life in the United States" Religions 16, no. 6: 676. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16060676
APA StyleVisel, J. (2025). A Synthesis for Benedictine Women’s Religious Life in the United States. Religions, 16(6), 676. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16060676