Apostolic Visitation Notes

God, we have pushed so many of our children into the tumultuous sea of life
in small and leaky boats without survival gear and compass.

Forgive us and help them to forgive us.

Help us now to give all our children the anchors of faith and love, the rudder of hope,
the sails of health and education,
and the paddles of family and community
to keep them safe and strong when life’s sea gets rough.

Over her lifetime, Marian Wright Edelman has prayed, studied, lectured for children, and has inspired millions, in ways great and small, to follow her along paths most adults would never travel: too dangerous, lonely, discouraging.

As founder and president of the Children’s Defense Fund, Edelman challenges all of us to take up the cause of our nation’s children, convinced each can do something to help them.

How fitting it was that Bob Herbert threw down the gauntlet before our leaders and us with these words in his New York Times column on November 11th of last year:

The most important thing the Democrats and President-elect can do with regard to the economy is bring back a sense of fairness and equality.

He goes on to remind us of how Henry Paulson, back in September, was telling everyone that his (not, apparently, the taxpayers’) $700 billion bailout package had to be passed with lightning speed, no time to look at it closely for questions or dissent...just trust him, trust him.

Meanwhile, without any oversight from Congress, Treasury made a change in an obscure tax provision that benefitted banks to the tune of well over $100 billion.

And now we hear the American International Group is running out of money for what we know not, since it is so shy about what has happened to the first bailout. One thing for sure; it didn’t go to fund the medical insurance bill to care for our poor children, vetoed by President Bush.

Why was there violence in Gilead? Because they made what is primary secondary, and what is secondary primary. How so? Because they loved their possessions more than their own children.

There were numerous responses from last week’s article,“Building a Mark Hotel Church,” one in particular on the language used in presenting the Vatican’s efforts to introduce the American Sisters to the new rules and regulations under which they will be living their lives as soon as they can absorb them.

Meanwhile, a learned, compassionate theologian, after having studied the questionnaire thoroughly, offered this reply:

Notes Regarding the Apostolic Visitation

I agree with Helen Thompson’s comment: “These questions were written in language. we no longer use. In fact, while the Visitation purports to address ‘the quality of our LIFE,’ the questions seem to address our ‘conformity to LAW’ about our life as American women religious!”
The 40 open-ended questions come directly from the various documents of the Holy See mentioned in Appendix D. Many of them are straightforward questions that would be expected in any investigation regarding any religious institute. But many questions seem to reflect a pre-Vatican II mindset. The language seems foreign to the way American religious would use to describe their dedication and ministry today. But the impression given is that any changes regarding governance, common life or ministry, are suspect.
Cardinal Frank Rode’s comments, as reported in the press, indicated that there were some objectionable positions taken by some American religious previous to the year 2000, and they were cautioned to correct such unacceptable opinions. As I recall, he singled out support for women’s ordination, married clergy, gay life style and non-acceptable religious life styles. Though he counseled women religious not to foster public support for such positions, he believes they have continued to do so. Clearly, he expected one important outcome of this visitation to be an end to such public support. This is clearly a not-so-hidden outcome that he expects.

Let us all pray for one another, that our sea will shrink and boats will become safer to take our Sisters home.

Apostolic Visitation Notes

By Ruth Bertels

By Ruth Bertels

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