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Among Religious of Latin America, LCWR Director Speaks of ‘New Beginning’

~ by Rhina Guidos, Global Sisters Report

In an early June meeting of women and men religious from Latin America and the Caribbean, the leader of a U.S. group of sisters spoke about church life in the U.S., its brokenness and the country’s polarization, and asked them to consider the possibility of a “new beginning” that would include groups of consecrated life from all corners of the Americas.

“No more Canada, U.S., Central America, South America,” Sr. Carol Zinn, executive director of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), said to those gathered June 2 for a board meeting of the Confederation of Latin American and Caribbean Religious (CLAR) in Lima, Peru. “[Let’s] think about consecrated life of the Americas and still celebrate Canada, the United States, Central America, South America.”

Those gathered for the CLAR meeting, which included general secretaries and presidents of conferences from Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as consulting theologians, spoke of new structures and systems, customs and practices to champion the mission of the church among the poor and vulnerable. Their vision is one of transformation in the church, where clericalism, personal interests and power-seeking among some church members are set aside.

Sr. Carol asked for prayers for LCWR as it takes a “contemplative time to step back and to ask God: What is ours to do as leaders of consecrated life of women? What is ours to do in a country and a church that is so polarized?” she said.

“Pray for us because we have made a commitment that our work is to be in those uncomfortable situations of polarization. How to listen deeply and then how to discern, how do we go together to God?”

Women Religious Speak Out Against Voter Suppression

~ by Carol Zimmermann, Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON (CNS) – The Leadership Conference of women Religious and the National Black Sisters Conference issued a joint statement on May 5 on the importance of ensuring that all people enjoy the right to vote “regardless of their race, zip code, economic status or party affiliation.”

“As women of faith and faithful Americans, we believe that all people have the right and obligation to participate fully in our democracy,” the sisters’ statement said, adding that they “strongly oppose all attempts to restrict that participation by limiting the sacred right to vote.”

The national sisters’ organizations also endorsed the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Action Day on May 8, a national event supporting voter rights.

LCWR, based in Silver Spring, Maryland, is an umbrella group of more than 1,300 members representing more than 40,000 Catholic sisters. The National Black Sisters Conference based in Washington, is a group of more than 150 Black Catholic women religious and associates.

Referring to current voting restriction measures being considered and adopted in some states, the sisters said the right to vote is “under attack once again.” They also said the United States has a “long racist history when it comes to voting,” citing the literacy tests and grandfather clauses that were part of Jim Crow laws used to suppress voting.

“Our brothers and sisters struggled, some gave their lives, to secure the Voting Rights Act of 1965,” the women religious said, adding that: “It falls to us to continue their work.

They said Pope Francis’ encyclical “Evangelii Guadium” reminds them “that our vocation as Catholic sisters is inherently political” realizing that not only are they called to participate in public life but that their faith urges them to change the world.

“We cannot remain on the sidelines in the fight for justice,” the sisters said.

Outlining what they plan to do, the statement said they would “call out elected officials, at every level, who continue to introduce measures that would return us to the era of ‘Jim Crow.’” Conversely, they said, they would “support legislation that will ensure all people can exercise their precious right to vote.” To read more please click here

 

LCWR Embraces Call to Respect Diversity and Work for Inclusion and Equity for All

Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) Embraces the Call to Respect Diversity and Work for Inclusion and Equity for All

We are living at a moment when society is discovering the vast breadth and depth of both the richness and the challenges inherent in the diversity that exists within the human family. That diversity entails a rich mix of differences and encompasses all the dimensions that make each person unique including: ethnicity, race, age, gender and gender identity, beliefs, sexual orientation, and more.

As the world community grapples to understand diversity, we, the members of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, wholeheartedly join in this exploration. We recognize that this is a difficult journey that requires enormous capacity to transcend ideas that may have shaped our thinking over the course of decades, if not millennia. We acknowledge our need to continuously educate ourselves to understand differences – informed by science as well as theology, to patiently listen in a non-judgmental way to people who suffer because of who they are, and to commit to an unceasing reconsideration of our own ethical judgments in light of new understandings. Furthermore, we recognize that we must grow in our capacity and willingness to experience the pain and struggle of people who have been excluded or subjected to violence by others because of who they are. We know that the more we can see life from the perspective of others, the greater will be our capacity to grasp what they experience and learn from it.

As we work to understand the differences among us, we also pledge ourselves to work towards both inclusion and equity. We believe that all people need to feel valued and connected, and that they belong. All people thrive in environments where their inherent worth is respected, and where they are safe to express their authentic selves. Inclusion helps us all know that we belong to something bigger – the reign of God, in our view as religious. At the same time, we will work to guarantee a society marked by fairness, equal access and opportunity, and justice for all people.

As we continue this lifelong work of non-judgmentally walking along side persons whose ways of being may differ from our own, we anticipate that at times we will fail. We ask for forgiveness when we close our hearts, unconsciously exclude, or speak or act in ways that disrespect another. Like many in society, we know that we do not yet fully understand the diversity among us and that we have much work ahead of us. We believe, however, that the work to comprehend and appreciate what it means to be human in all our glorious diversity — each one made in the image of God — may be one of the most important contributions we can make at this critical moment of evolutionary change and growth for the entire global community. As women of faith, we are committed to it.

Congregations of Women Religious React to Assault on U.S. Capitol

Congregations of Women Religious React to Assault on U.S. Capitol: ‘Shameful Moment in History’
~ by Dan Stockman, Global Sisters Report

Sisters across the nation responded to the January 6th attempted insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, calling for prayers, peace and, in some cases, new leadership.

[As was reported in last week’s Update, the Missionary Sisters joined with the Leadership Conference of Women Religious in saying that “The LCWR joins with the world in praying for peace after witnessing the violence and lawlessness in our nation’s capital. We commend and thank the members of Congress who courageously continued their service to the nation even amid the chaos.”]

The Adrian Dominicans 
“Today, with heavy hearts we depart from our accustomed role of issue advocacy to take the unprecedented step of adding our voice, as religious leaders, to those of others in the civic life of our nation who call for the immediate removal of the sitting President of the United States,” they wrote in a January 8th statement. “The President who incited this insurrection much be held accountable for his seditious acts.” The declaration came after an earlier statement calling for prayer.

Ursuline Sisters of Louisville, Kentucky
“Our nation is divided. We commit ourselves to pray for peace and healing for our country and to work for the common good. President Abraham Lincoln, who led our country through the most divided period of [our]history, said, ‘We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Let us all appeal to our better angels as we strive to form a more perfect union, together.”

Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary
“We, the Leadership Council of the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary of Monroe, Michigan, were stunned and heartbroken at the insurrection that took place at the United States Capitol. What unfolded at the Capitol is the direct result of unchecked hyper-partisan hostility fomented by false claims of wide-spread voter fraud perpetuated by President Trump and enabled for too long by members of his own party. While we must begin the difficult work of healing the deep wounds of our nation, we cannot do so unless our nation’s leaders lead by example and publicly acknowledge the legitimacy of this election…and urge their supporters to do the same.”

U.S. Federation of the Sisters of St. Joseph
“We are deeply concerned about the state of our country and the future of our democracy. Our hearts ached as we watched white nationalists participate in these despicable actions that threaten not only to destroy our government but to rend the bonds that unite us. We commend and thank the members of Congress and staff who courageously continued their service to the nation amid the chaos as well as the law enforcement who helped protect and secure the building.

We cannot ignore the juxtaposition of the law enforcement response to the violence at the Capitol versus the violence inflicted on the Black Lives Matter protestors in June. We invite all people of good will to reflect on the next steps we must take to repair our democracy, eliminate white privilege and contribute to the work of building a more perfect union.”

Sisters of Providence of St. Mary-of-the-Woods
The congregation in Terre Haute, Indiana, issued a joint statement with the InterFaith Council of the Wabash Valley:

“We of diverse religious faiths and humanitarian belief systems join with…so many others in our country in condemning Wednesday’s display of hate and violence against people and property as well as our democratic institutions and processes. We hope and pray that our country will return to a politics guided by wisdom, facts and truths…”

Network:
“The Constitution protects our rights and dignity as humans created in the image of God. We have a Constitutional remedy that holds unfit Presidents accountable. The Catholic advocates of Network call on Vice President Pence and the Cabinet to do their faithful duty to the nation and invoke the 25th Amendment now.”

Sisters of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Dubuque, Iowa
“Let us pray to God that we will resolve our nation’s differences using peaceful means and not fighting one another.”

To read the complete article along with the statements from each of the religious congregations in their entirety click here

LCWR Says It is Time to Reconcile and Heal

~ by Dan Stockman, Global Sisters Report

The leadership group representing about 80% of the 42,000 sisters in the United States pledges to work with the Biden administration to bring healing to a divided nation.

Leadership Conference of Women Religious issued a statement on November 9 congratulating President-elect Joe Biden and Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris and promised to work with them.

“After a difficult election season, it is time for us to take up the twin tasks or reconciliation and healing. In these challenging times it is critically important that we break through that which divides us one from another, repair fractured relationships and reclaim our essential unity,” the statement says.

“The people of this pluralistic nation form a diverse community characterized by different beliefs, experiences, and interests. We know our differences can be our greatest strengths; our disagreements, opportunities to seek the truth. Our challenge is to embrace those differences and together seek the common good lest we rend the bonds that unite us.”

“Now is the time to make space in our hearts and our communities for the needs and concerns of all God’s people, the undocumented mother, the Midwest farmer, the unemployed steel-worker, the suburban business woman, and the children and elders consigned to live in poverty. It is a time to tear down walls, real or imagined, which divide us by gender, race, class, geography, lifestyle, ideology, political party, and religious belief and to make room in our body politic for all who have been disenfranchised and discarded.

U.S. Sisters Meet To Reimagine the Future with COVID-19 Reality

Today’s world, struggling with the urgent needs emerging from the Coronavirus, can learn from the witness of sisters, said the presidential team for the Leadership Conference of Women Religious.

“Women religious have a history and a genius for looking outward beyond ourselves, for responding to need, for taking a situation that we did not choose but for which we find ourselves dealing,” said Holy Cross Sr. Sharlet Wagner, past-president of the LCWR, whose members are leaders of communities constituting nearly 80% of women religious in the U.S.

“That is where the world is now.”

Wagner shared her reflections in a May webinar, speaking alongside the rest of LCWR’s leadership.

A world in crisis can learn much from the experiences of women religious – a global community that historically found their stride in times of chaos, as Sr. Carol Zinn, SSJ, LCWR Executive Director, explained. The pandemic leaves no lifestyle untouched, including that of sisters.
“Whatever we could say about COVID-19 in our country and around the world right now, we could say about religious life in our country and perhaps, around the world,” Zinn said.

The LCWR leaders shared the practical and spiritual implications of this pandemic on US religious life: the economic challenges facing their sponsored ministries, fears for their elderly sisters, the poverty and societal injustices that demand collective response and the need for a transformative sisterhood – one that goes beyond collaboration and instead prioritizes true partnership.

Recalling how the Spanish flu (1918-1919) was an impetus for more sisters getting involved in healthcare, Sr. Jayne Helmlinger, current president of the LCWR, said the response to today’s pandemic should not be merely “with ourselves, our congregations,” but with collective action.

Pope Francis said that the coronavirus had put everyone “in the same boat”. Sr. Helmlinger said
she’s reminded that from Earth to the cosmos, “we are one. So how do we respond as one, not simply with our congregations, but [to] the needs of the world?”

As women religious, they need to pay attention to the newly marginalized and to emerging needs as they consider their role in responding to the crisis.

“ of us have long struggled with what it means to live simply, and we may be forced by realities into deeper examining of simple living and the choices we will need to make,” Sr. Wagner said.

To best serve those disproportionally affected by the virus, religious leadership will have to consider how their direct service, advocacy and spiritual leadership can be pooled across borders in a coordinated response.

“What new ministry and new ways of ministering will emerge as we move through this crisis and beyond?” Wagner said.

Now that COVID-19 is likely to influence emerging expressions of religious life, Sr. Zinn cited four characteristics particular to U.S. culture that LCWR membership must now confront as they reimagine the future:

 First is the illusion of autonomy shattered by the pandemic.
 Religious life in the U.S. will be shifting from feeling competitive (within charisms, for example) to becoming partners. “What does it mean to be partners, be sisters together?”
 Going from a sense of ownership to a sense of mutuality. Cross-charisms and cross-congregations ought to become trans-charisms, trans-missions, trans-cultures – a sense of mutuality that younger sisters already understand.
 A shift to a great appreciation for vulnerability as she reflects on the essential workers who the pandemic has thrown to the forefront.

“The DNA of religious life is that we are born in and out of chaos.”

To read the entire article click here

Women Religious Denounce U.S. Withdrawal from UN Talks on Migrants and Refugees

According to a statement by the United States Mission to the United Nations, the U.S. government withdrew from the talks Dec. 2 because it believes the New York Declaration — a 2016 U.N. declaration leading up to the expected compacts next year — “contains numerous provisions that are inconsistent with U.S. immigration and refugee policies and the Trump Administration’s immigration principles.”

Trump, the mission said, “determined that the United States would end its participation in the Compact process that aims to reach international consensus at the UN in 2018.”

But the Leadership Conference of Women Religious took issue with the president, calling the withdrawal a “misguided decision” that is “yet another example of the president’s attempts to wall off this nation and subvert its values. Furthermore, the withdrawal from the New York Declaration is yet another demonstration of the failure of U.S. leadership in the global community.”

“The world faces an unprecedented global migration crisis,” the LCWR statement said. “More than 66 million people are on the move, more than at any time since World War II.  Some 17.2 million are refugees; most are children. They have been forced from their homes displaced by war, natural disaster, and endemic poverty. These brothers and sisters of ours are quite literally running for their lives.”

The December 4 statement by the association of 1,300 congregational leaders representing approximately 38,800 women religious in the United States went on to say: “The United States has a long history of welcoming immigrants and sheltering refugees. Women religious have been blessed to be able to accompany and serve immigrant and refugee communities across this country and around the world for a very long time.

“We strongly object to any attempt to limit our ability to heed the scriptural command to welcome the stranger and care for our neighbors. Catholic sisters remain committed to welcoming refugees and migrants and will continue to demand that the dignity and rights of all refugees and migrants, regardless of status, are honored.”  ~ by Chris Herlinger for the Global Sisters Report

 

http:/ http://globalsistersreport.org/news/environment-migration/women-religious-bishops-denounce-us-withdrawal-un-talks-migration

LCWR Releases Statement on Executive Orders on Immigration

The Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) is deeply disturbed by many of President Trump’s recent executive orders. His misplaced priorities and denigration of the values that form the bedrock of this nation, threaten us all.  LCWR logo

We are deeply concerned about the administration’s executive orders on immigration and refugee resettlement which serve only to threaten border communities, force our immigrant community members further into the shadows, and endanger those fleeing violence. These misguided executive orders do nothing to make anyone more secure and may well have the opposite effect.

Spending billions of dollars on an unnecessary and ineffective wall and further militarizing the border will divert funding from health, education, and social programs and will not make America safe again. In fact, such action threatens the health and well-being of border communities, the environment, and those seeking refuge in our country. President Trump’s orders, if enacted, will tear families apart, challenge our already stressed immigration courts, and deny those fleeing persecution and violence their right to asylum; all at enormous cost to our treasure and our souls.

The president’s attempt to enhance public safety in the interior by cutting federal funding to sanctuary cities and counties will have the opposite effect. It challenges local authority and threatens to destroy the hard won trust of the immigrant community. The order eviscerates prosecutorial discretion and places every undocumented person in the country in danger of immediate deportation.

Finally, we are appalled by President Trump’s order which bans residents of seven Muslim majority countries from entering the U.S. for 90 days, suspends refugee resettlement entirely for four months, and bars resettlement of Syrian refugees indefinitely. This is unconscionable in the face of the unprecedented global refugee crisis. More than 61 million people have been displaced from their homes, more than at any time since World War II. Some 21 million are refugees; most are children who have been forced from their homes by unthinkable violence. The Trump administration has forced all of us to turn our backs on families who are literally running for their lives.

This nation has a long history of welcoming immigrants and sheltering refugees. Women religious have been blessed to be able to accompany and serve immigrant and refugee communities across this country for a very long time. Catholic sisters remain committed to welcoming refugees who come to this country after passing through the U.S. government’s already rigorous screening processes. Halting or undermining the U.S. refugee resettlement program leaves vulnerable refugees, including women and children fleeing violence, in extreme danger and diminishes us all.

We strongly object to President Trump’s attempts to limit our ability to heed God’s call to welcome the stranger (Mt. 25:35) and to care for those most in need (Mt 25:40) and we are particularly concerned about rules and regulations that deny access to refugees because of their religion, race, or nationality. It is a violation of our faith and every norm of humanity.

We vow to continue to welcome refugees and minister to immigrants. LCWR and its members will continue to press for restoration of refugee resettlement, relief for families, an end to needless deportations, and the closure of all family detention centers. We will continue to advocate for compassionate, bipartisan legislation that fixes our broken immigration system. We will continue to stand in solidarity with families, regardless of immigration status, who labor daily to provide safety and security for their children.

LCWR is an association of leaders of congregations of Catholic women religious in the United States. The conference has nearly 1300 members, who represent more than 38,800 women religious in the United States. Founded in 1956, LCWR assists its members to collaboratively carry out their service of leadership to further the mission of the Gospel in today’s world.

To learn more please visit the LCWR website: https://lcwr.org

Also, learn more at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops website: http://www.usccb.org

 

 

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