Leadership and Politics

Far should it be for me to comment on religious life as explained to NCR’s Global Sisters Report
by the sisters who lead the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) and the International Union of Superiors General (UISG), but that has never stopped me from noting what stands out to me. In this case, each group stresses the relational aspects of life in common. I am impressed with their thoughtful examination of the present and future of this way of life, one that’s frequently presented only in terms of declining numbers. They see themselves supporting each member’s spiritual life and ministry, something that women will continue to find valuable. The search for meaning was mentioned.

Can sisters be the women leaders we desire? One model presented by the UISG is their choice
to be present at the gathering of the economic elite at Davos. Building bridges was their goal,
and they felt their session had an impact. My response: terrific. But I didn’t see these sister-leaders profiled in the news I saw about Davos. What I did see was the obituary on the business pages for Sr. Patricia Daly, an advocate for socially responsible investing. She was on a similar mission. I’m sure other sisters will continue to draw attention to the issues the LCWR now finds foundational: anti-racism and environmentalism.

But if impact is the right question, and it may not be, I have to admit that men’s voices still dominate the public sphere, including my own writing, and I do think that’s one difference ordination would make. It indicates a seal of approval that is more elusive for individual lay women, which sisters are also, of course. Not impossible; we did hear from Anne Barrett Doyle of Bishop Accountability in the TV coverage of the hoopla surrounding Benedict’s death. But more difficult. Doyle is hard to find, even on her organization’s website. Our own Kate McElwee of WOC is not. She was widely quoted in print media about Benedict. Both are active on social media.

This whole line of thought was inspired by the NCR Thursday email which featured the two GSR articles about the nuns and then Michael Sean Winters’ question: “The legacy of Cardinal George Pell: Is it what the church needs now?” Even Winters says no. He quotes his mentor, American church historian John Tracy Ellis, with whom I also studied, as saying about another Cardinal similar to Pell, John O’Connor of New York: “He is a lion…And the church needs lions.” The lions certainly take up a lot of the record, but Winters says, “The times called for pastors, not prophets, for accompaniment not thunderbolts, for missionaries and evangelizers not apologists, for lambs not lions.” Yes, we have left the Catholic ghetto of our immigrant forebears and instead suffer from the “prosperity and assimilation that threatened Catholic identity,” as Winters says, “people who were alienated, drowning in materialism and plenty, needy.” Let us be inspired to reflect on how much this characterizes our own lives, especially those of us who aspire to church leadership, and overcome it if it feels true.

Are the sisters lambs? I think of two others who make the news, Norma Pimentel, MJ, of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, and her work on the border, and Helen Prejean, CSJ, whose books describe her ministry to those on death row and her advocacy against that penalty. Their Catholic identity is not in doubt despite the “modernism” Winters documents. There are other sisters, all of whose work has the political edge of social justice ministry even if it is not politics in the usual sense. Then I read the column of a priest who is a media star, Jesuit James Martin, whose terrifying article in America about clergy and politics looks at the January 6 insurrection. He provides numerous examples which lead him to conclude: “an alarming number of Catholic clergy contributed to an environment that led to the fatal riots at the U.S. Capitol. Ironically, priests and bishops who count themselves as pro-life helped spawn a hate-filled environment that led to mayhem, violence and, ultimately, death.” This kind of politics we do not need.

Another media star, this time layman and Villanova professor Massimo Faggioli addresses another kind of politics in La Croix International: “The increased inclination to canonize popes.” I must confess that I had the same reaction in 2014, when I saw in Rome a stole with John XXIII on one side and John Paul II on the other. I wanted half a stole. Faggioli provides the historical context and much data to bolster my gut feeling that this is not a good idea.

What is a good idea? Aretha Franklin and the Eurythmics have one answer: “Sisters are doin’
it for themselves.” This staple accompaniment to my Zoom exercise classes (how’s that for materialism?) is the earworm that comes to mind reading Kathy Coffey on the late Dolores Curran in NCR. They are/were Denver laywomen, mothers, lecturers, and writers. Both have the common-sense empowered Catholic viewpoint I associate with church reform and, frankly, women’s ordination, even when they are writing about family matters or the scriptures and not polemics like this blog. There is so much goodness out here to recognize. There’s humor (read the article about “dangerous ecstasy levels”) and the power of doing and being church. That’s what ordinary laywomen make extraordinary. I have long believed in the power of the Holy Spirit leading us forward, and I hope Daniel Horan’s exploration in NCR
focuses on the way progressive women Catholics are not “Holy Spirit atheists.”