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August 11, 2012
[Navigating the Shifts – Leadership Conference of Women Religious]
Posted by Mollie Wilson O’Reilly
The presidential address Pat Farrell, OSF, delivered yesterday to the 2012 assembly of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious is online for you to read: “Navigating the Shifts.” (That link will take you to a page where you can download the .pdf.) It’s prayerful, thoughtful, calm — about what you’d expect, in other words, given the sisters’ responses to controversy in recent months. Not reactionary, but still strong. Here are some significant passages, which to me are good reminders of what it is Catholics have come to admire so much about the sisters, and of what’s valuable in their particular form of witness to life in Christ:
There is an inherent existential tension between the complementary roles of hierarchy and religious which is not likely to change. In an ideal ecclesial world, the different roles are held in creative tension, with mutual respect and appreciation, in an enviroment of open dialogue, for the building up of the whole Church. The doctrinal assessment suggests that we are not currently living in an ideal ecclesial world.
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