Nunsuch? Reviving religious communities.

Recently I was invited to speak to a conference of vowed religious on the identity of the religious vocation from a layperson's perspective, and to comment on the future of religious life.

To fulfill my assignment and to "get up to speed," I began reading articles on why new vocations to religious orders are declining and why so many religious left after Vatican II. Along the way I received an eye-opening view of the history of women's orders by reading Jo Ann Kay McNamara's book, Sisters in Arms: Catholic Nuns through Two Millennia (Harvard University Press, 1996).

Throughout the last two thousand years, the forms of religious life in the church have constantly evolved and changed. As historical conditions altered and Christianity spread to different cultures, religious life adapted. New orders were founded and new ministries undertaken. It doesn't take too much acumen to conclude that present developments may be one more transition.

Today the major challenge for those in vowed religious vocations involves the assimilation of the teaching and reforms of Vatican II. If, for instance, religious life is no longer exalted above other states of life in the church, and in particular, if it is no longer judged as superior to marriage, then why make the sacrifices involved? If, in addition, lay people can fulfill all the ministries within the church and in the world that religious used to perform, why join a vowed religious community?

Some writers, analyzing religious life today, see what is happening as a process of necessary purification; the vowed religious vocation is being purged of all the reverence and temptations to false pride and comfort that a religious vocation once enjoyed. Now there's no more mystique, or lifelong security with an assured slot in some fully staffed religious institution. Professionalization of many jobs in hospitals, colleges, and social work has meant that all religious cannot automatically count on fulfilling ministries, or on having access to the economic resources needed to support their communities. Parishes love to have a "generic sister" toiling in their vineyard, but appear less wiling to pay her a living wage.

For theologian Sandra Schneiders, the religious vocation is being stripped to its core meaning. Religious must recognize the "naked God-quest in the center of their hearts," which makes an "exclusive and total demand upon them in consecrated celibacy, voluntary poverty, community, and corporate mission." Agreed. As a married layperson I can endorse this definition of the religious life. Moreover, I can attest that religious vocations strengthen the whole body of the church. I view vowed religious vocations as a condensed, crystallized, intensely focused, institutionalized embodiment of every Christian's call to love God and one's neighbor wholeheartedly.

The totality of the commitment and the personal sacrifices entailed give testimony to the fact that God's kingdom exists beyond time and space, beyond what we can see and touch or recognize as common-sense behavior. Vowed religious directly imitate Christ's life of ministry, undertaken for the sake of the whole community and the whole church as a corporate body.

And we certainly need good corporate institutions for human flourishing. We need organized communities to use their collective synergy to fight against the structural oppressions and powers of "social sin." Such systems usually operate beyond the control of individuals caught within the structures - even good, well-meaning individuals. Religious orders can use their corporate strength, arising from the communal commitments of their members, for the loving transformation of the world.

Vowed celibacy is crucial to the religious vocation. Erotic energy dedicated to loving God within the community and focusing on the corporate mission can be incredibly fruitful. Celibacy does not repudiate sexuality but can operate to affirm the values of friendship and the worth of embodied lives beyond sexual reproduction. In the kingdom, sexual roles becomes less important since in Christ there is neither male nor female. The affirmation of personal identity, friendship, and work beyond gendered conventions is particularly important for women's self-esteem and personhood. If sexual reproduction and mating no longer validate bodily life, then human beings who do not mate and reproduce - babies, the young, the old, the ill, the handicapped - are affirmed as valuable members of the human family. I see vowed celibacy as an incest taboo undertaken in order to count everyone as one's family and kin. This no to sexual pair-bonding can free persons to love more inclusively. The permanent vows that religious make also strengthen the permanent vows of married persons.

Marriage and family life are schools of love, but to be true to family claims you usually are limited as to what resources can be given to the larger community. There is only so much time, money, and energy available in one life. There are also limits to the suffering and sacrifices that a person can ask of a spouse or the dependent members of the family. Religious can be freer to suffer more and spend themselves more for the coming of the kingdom in the larger community. The corporate support of their religious brothers and sisters can sustain them in enterprises beyond the capabilities of individuals or most families. It is no accident that the majority of modern Christian martyrs have been vowed religious serving as missionaries in dangerous territory.

Voluntary poverty also serves as a witness against the ingrained greed and love of money in our materialistic culture. Corporate religious groups can be freer to operate by the rule of just care: From each according to his or her gifts and to each according to need. Religious orders can straggle for justice more freely when all of their members are committed to the same ideals of love and charity - and can pay the price. Often Christians must voluntarily take on morally necessary suffering to heal, do the works of mercy, or to end oppression.

Religious who obey authority for the sake of community witness to the existence of the authority of God's truth, as well as to the importance of persevering in an intentional community. Our culture worships individual liberty, autonomy, and controlled hyperprivacy. A permanent commitment to communal life beyond kinship is a startling countercultural witness. Such social norms also give civic society backbone, providing corporate groups that can mediate or stand between individuals and the state. So in the course of renewal today, we find religious orders reemphasizing their corporate identities, refocusing on their distinct ministries, reinstating collective commitment rituals, and recognizing their need for common worship and a common life. The love and support of one's brothers and sisters make the religious vocation possible - and give it power.

Yes, as we go into the next millennium, I am sure that the church will be blessed with the survival and revival of religious vocations, thanks be to God.