031774 ncr Nuns assembly hears Jesuit oppose new trends in religious communities

ROME (RNS) - In a speech subtitled, "The Tale of Two Communities, One in Chaos, One in Christ," Father Vincent Miceli, S.J., visiting professor of philosophy at Rome's Angelicurn University, came out strongly against new trends in religious communities today.

Father Miceli was the first speaker to address a group of more than 300 nuns of the Consortium Perfectae Caritatis which met here. American orders of Sisters were represented at the first International Assembly of the Consortium.

Speaking on the theme, "Religious Women and Their Apostolic Ministry in the Church, the Jesuit described the "melancholy collapse" of many communities of religious women and men. No particular community was singled out, he said, and indeed two opposed communities often existed under the same roof.

"Many religious communities have changed the dream of their lives, the treasure of their hearts," Father Miceli told the nuns. "They have fallen in love with a humanistic heaven, a secularist visionary dream, a utopia of this world, and in doing so, they have lost sight of and faith in the community in Christ, which is the Kingdom of Christ not of this world.

"Formerly authentic religious life was centered in communitarian dedication to Christ with a language of knowledge, adoration and love concentrated in unity on Him, shared in Him and put at the service not only of His brethren but of the whole human race for which He died.

"Many religious communities have changed the dream of their lives, the treasure of their hearts," Father Miceli told the nuns. "They have fallen in love with a humanistic heaven, a secularist visionary dream, a utopia of this world, and in doing so, they have lost sight of and faith in the community in Christ, which is the Kingdom of Christ not of this world.

"Formerly authentic religious life was centered in communitarian dedication to Christ with a language of knowledge, adoration and love concentrated in unity on Him, .shared, in Him and put at the service not only of His brethren but of the whole human race for which He died.

"Today, religious life is too often centered on pleasing the world, what Maritain calls "genuflecting before the world'.

"The members of such worldly communities, far from being united in Christ, are contending with each other ... divided communities have members seeking personal achievement, public recognition, worldly popularity, political relevancy, social salvation.

"Such religious communities," the Jesuit said, "have grafted themselves onto the world-wide protest society and they speak more of liberation and less of salvation." They prepare members more for careers in the world and less for holiness in the Church. They stress in their works more the solution of worldly problems and less participation in sacred mysteries. "They prefer action to prayer . . . but they are tearing themselves apart, for they cannot be competitive handmaidens of secularistic humanism and simultaneously apostolic communities of love in Christ.

. "The Religious community in chaos has accepted the principle of secularization which adapts its congregation to the spirit and forms of the world and exhorts its members to live by the norms of the world," Father Miceli said. The result is that some frightened superiors surrender to radical subjects who get their demands by threatening an appeal to the public, the press, the radio and TV, all of which are only too eager to champion a bogus democracy while revealing scandalous infighting within a religious community.

"Other superiors, who are not so easily frightened by scruples or subjects and who are determined to have their ideas and power prevail, use this democratic process to create a majority of compliant voters. This they do by enforcing the legitimate principle -of obedience selectively, using it to advance those who accept their ideologies, silencing and demoting those who would contribute a religious alternative to the process of secularization.

"Thus, under the face of democracy, the tactic used to silence any reasonable critique of secularization, is totalitarian in its manner ... and such religious are stigmatized as being rigid, reactionary, tradition-bound and out-of-date."

"But as if these evils were not enough," Father Miceli continued, "we come upon another strange phenomenon in these communities. With their passion for liberty emancipated, the acquisitive drive for all spiritual privileges, honors and functions becomes insatiable. Yet there is a strange inconsistency here. For if Christ is seen as no more than the greatest social reformer and the needs of society are seen as being fulfilled by no more than a group of enlightened community leaders, then it should follow that sacraments, grace and the pastoral ministry are superfluous.

"Yet, just at this juncture comes the insistent demand that women be admitted equally to all ministries, even to the fullness of the priesthood."

Father Miceli quoted the words of theologian Jean Galot in answer to what he called "this arbitrary argument."

Galot had said: "it seems to us that this way of reasoning is not in conformity with the mentality of Jesus. He made no concessions to the prejudices of His contemporaries about the inferiority of women ... recognizing woman's equality with man on many occasions. Thus He overcame all the conditionings of the environment in which He lived. If Christ reserved the priestly ministry to men, it cannot be as a result of these prejudices, but by virtue of a provision of a Divine plan which desired for the Church the cooperation of men and women in different functions. . . . In the Church, woman does not have a task that is inferior to that of the priest. She has a different and complementary task. Equality does not imply identity of function."

In concluding his remarks before the nuns, Father Miceli stated that religious life was a special gift of the Holy Spirit in which man lived out the primacy of his love for God. "The real roots, the ultimate original source of religious life, are found in the poor, celibate, totally obedient communitarian life led by Jesus Christ, Son of God and Son of Man, with His band of disciples. Said Christ, 'If you would be perfect, go sell what you possess and give it to the poor and you shall have treasure in heaven and come, follow Me.