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April 23,
2007
VOL.
45, NO. 8Oakland,
CA
U.S. has 165 new religious communities since 1965
WASHINGTON
(CNS) -- The Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate has identified
165 U.S. Catholic communities of consecrated life that have sprung up
since 1965.
A little more than half of the 152 communities that provided CARA with
membership information by gender admit only women, while 24 percent admit
only men and 25 percent have men and women members.
Of those 152, in 87 communities all make public vows or promises; in 43,
all make private vows or promises; 10 have both vowed and unvowed members;
and members do not make vows or promises in 12 communities.
CARA provided the information in a new directory of emerging communities
which it released last month. In all, the communities in the directory
had more than 13,000 full members and several hundred members in formation.
Thirty-two percent of the communities reported having a new vision or
spiritual focus. Twenty-three percent said they followed the Franciscan
tradition, 14 percent the Carmelite and 8 percent the Benedictine.
Various other traditions including Ignatian, Dominican, Salesian, Augustinian
or a combination of traditions accounted for the spirituality of the remaining
23 percent.
Asked to describe their lifestyle, 52 percent said they were apostolic,
42 percent contemplative, 17 percent evangelical, 16 percent monastic
and 7 percent eremitic, that is, living the life of a hermit. CARA said
12 percent did not give enough information to be classified. The totals
exceed 100 percent because many gave combinations, with apostolic-contemplative
the most common combination.
CARA said the communities profiled revealed several trends, including
the importance of prayer and contemplation; the attractiveness of poverty
as a lifestyle and ministry; a relative decline in nursing, social work
and to some extent teaching as traditional apostolates for such communities;
and the continued attractiveness of Franciscan, Benedictine and Carmelite
spirituality.
The 126-page directory, titled “Emerging Communities of Consecrated
Life in the United States, 2006,” is organized alphabetically by
state. Each community’s listing includes the address, phone and
fax numbers, e-mail contact, name of a contact person, date of founding,
type of vows or promises, lifestyle, number of full members and number
in formation, canonical status and other information to the extent available.
The new CARA directory is a second edition. The first, published in 1999,
was based on information compiled by CARA in 1998.
Since 1999, 24 of the 157 communities included in the first directory
have disbanded, according to the new study. It said 36 others included
in the first directory were determined to be ineligible for inclusion
in the current edition, either because they had too few members, were
found to have been established before 1965 or simply could not be reached
to confirm if they still exist.
While 60 communities from the previous directory were dropped, 68 others
not in that directory were identified for the second edition, including
18 that were established since 1999.
The study explained that “many emerging communities either have
or are seeking canonical status as associations of the Christian faithful.
For some groups, being a public association of the faithful is a stage
before becoming an institute of consecrated life -- whether religious
or secular. For others it is the (final) canonical status they desire.”
The report said only five of the 165 identified communities were established
between 1965 and 1969; 35 were formed in 1970-79; 55 in 1980-89; 50 in
1990-99; and 18 in 2000-04. Two communities did not give their year of
founding.
One statistic suggested that survival is toughest in the first few years
of a new community. Of the 24 that were dissolved since 1999, only three
dated back to 1979 or earlier. Seven of them were started in the 1980s
and 14 had only been started in the 1990s.
Seventy percent of the communities said they had canonical status, meaning
formal legal recognition by the Church, and 30 percent either did not
have it or did not report whether they had it. In most cases recognition
was by the local bishop.
Vatican recognition typically does not occur before a community has matured
and developed for some time.
Of the 142 communities that originated in the United States, the median
number of full members in the communities was seven and the median of
those in formation was two. Thirty-seven communities reported more than
15 full members; another 37 reported seven to 15 full members. There were
42 with three to six, 21 with one to two, and five that did not report
membership figures.
CARA said it was difficult to compare foreign-based communities with those
that originated in the United States because a number of the ones that
originated abroad submitted figures for their entire world membership
instead of just U.S. membership.
