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By Jean M. Schildz
Catholic News Service
ST. LOUIS (CNS) — Sister Mary Whited, the new
president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, likes to keep
doors open and the conversation going.
That’s good, because her national organization, whose leaders represent
more than 90 percent of all women religious in the U.S. Church, has a
lot to talk about, and not much of it will be easy.
Sister Mary, who became president of LCWR in August, is also superior
general of the Sisters of the Most Precious Blood of O’Fallon, based
in St. Louis.
LCWR has approximately 1,500 members who are the elected leaders of some
370 religious orders across America. They represent about 67,000 Catholic
Sisters.
Women religious leaders, she said, are grappling with some of the most
“complex realities of today” that their congregations have
ever faced. These include reorganization, consolidation of provinces,
decisions regarding congregational property, under-funded health care
needs, vocations, fundraising needs — and, in some cases, the very
future of orders.
Their congregations, she continued, also speak out on key issues of the
day such as care of the poor, social justice, immigration, human trafficking,
the earth’s sustainability, and opposition to terror and the war
in Iraq.
LCWR is there to provide women religious leaders “support in the
struggle,” Sister Mary said in an interview with the St. Louis Review,
the archdiocesan newspaper.
“It’s not an easy time for women religious,” she said,
“and yet it’s an exciting time.”
Sister Mary professed a strong faith in the future of consecrated life
for both men and women. Though the average age of women religious in the
United States is 69, there still exists tremendous energy within congregations,
she said.
Contrary to what some have suggested, women religious are not on the verge
of extinction. “I believe we are an integral part of the Church
and that we have something to offer to the Church as women religious,”
Sister Mary said.
Women religious, she added, have a global network and know how to work
with global issues. “We want to be able to stay at the table, both
in the Church and with issues particularly that touch the poor.”
In the history of religious life, there always have been religious communities
that have achieved their purpose and gone out of existence, she said.
“There also have been religious communities that have continued
for centuries. And I think that pattern is going to continue,” Sister
Mary said. “There will be religious communities that go out of existence,
but there also will be religious communities that start up and begin anew,
and there also will be religious communities that will continue on.”
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