UNITED STATES
National Catholic Register
by ANN CAREY 11/17/2014
Whatever happened to the Vatican’s Apostolic Visitation of U.S. Women Religious conducted 2009-2010 by the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life?
That question takes on increasing urgency as the predicted deadline for releasing a Vatican report on that visitation looms in just days: Archbishop Jose Rodriguez Carballo, secretary of the Vatican’s congregation for consecrated life, told reporters last January that he thought the final report on the visitation likely would be made public before the Year of Consecrated Life begins Nov. 30.
The visitation had been initiated in late 2008 by then-prefect of the congregation, Cardinal Franc Rodé, with the approval of Pope Benedict XVI. The cardinal said he had been concerned for some time about the declining vocations among women religious in the U.S., as well as the quality of life of sisters. In a Nov. 3, 2009, interview with Vatican Radio during the visitation, he also expressed concern about a “certain secularist mentality that has spread among these religious families, perhaps even a certain ‘feminist spirit.’” All individual sisters, as well as their religious superiors, were invited to give their input to a visitator and/or the visitation office, and a final report on the visitation has been anticipated for months.
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