Sister Mansour is not alone:
Kolbenschlag, Madonna
WOMEN RELIGIOUS, POLITICS, & THE CHURCH'S MISSION Sister Mansour is not alone MADONNA KOLBENSCHLAG ON MAY 9, Sister Agnes Mary Mansour, R.S.M., was faced with an ultimatum directly from the pope:...
...To others, the case was a healthy reassertion of clarity in the face of increasing confusion about the roles of laity, sisters, and priests in the church...
...Just as journalists usually take a leave of absence from their activities if they become directly involved in politics - or refrain from public political engagements while working as reporters, some religious women and several canonists believe such leaves would be appropriate for women religious who serve in highly visible government offices...
...So spoke Pope John Paul II last January at the time of the promulgation of the new Code of Canon Law, which contains a fundamental charter of rights pertaining to the faithful (Canons 208-23...
...In view of reports that procedures for "due process" were included in the proposed revision of the new code but had been removed when the final version left the pope's desk, all Catholics should be concerned about the potential arbitrary or questionable decisions by church authorities...
...But in the declining years of the Roman Empire and the early Middle Ages, clergy were pressed into such service because of their education and administrative skills...
...To still others, the case was strictly an individual affair, only one more in a familiar model of post-Vatican skirmishes...
...The need for greater solidarity with their contemporaries, especially the poor and underprivileged, compelled religious men and women to become more actively involved, sometimes even in the working world and in politics...
...Bishops must not take sides, as magistri fidei, when various moral choices are possible...
...Sister Mansour noted this in her confirmation hearings...
...It is also considered a permissible opinion by noted moral theologians...
...The recent peace pastoral of the bishops makes this eminently clear...
...Some canonists believe the appeal may be unprecedented, since most cases have involved an individual appealing to SCRIS against the religious community...
...If her case gives us a glimpse of church life under the Revised Code of Canon Law and under the ecclesial vision of John Paul II, then much of the spirit of Vatican II may be at risk...
...THERE ARE other facets of the Mansour case that are disturbing...
...But there is unquestionably a counter-current at work as well, especially in the Vatican, which views the blurring of roles among the faithful with apprehension and therefore seeks to define these roles ever more sharply...
...When the Revised Code was promulgated last January - it will become effective this November - an entirely new paragraph had been substituted for that proposed revision...
...In matters of discipline, they are treated as clerics...
...In our own time, thousands of women and men in religious life have joined in efforts "to establish the kingdom of God within the very structures of the world," as the key document on "Religious Life and Human Promotion," published in 1980 by the Vatican Congregation for Religious and Secular Institutes, put it...
...Whatever the questions that may be posed by the participation of ordained ministers in political posts, it must be recognized that the status of non-clerical religious (who, for the most part, are women) is different...
...Yet the caution signaled in that wording ("sometimes even") is underlined a few paragraphs later when religious, having been urged to "live a life totally available to God, to the church, and to others," are then told, "Religious by their choice of life limit their participation in secular structures" and, for them, political ministry should be allowed only as an "exception...
...Justice, like charity, begins at home...
...No provision for permission or exception is indicated...
...She follows the teachings of the church, but she cannot control the laws of the state...
...These religious are where they are today as a result of a gradual process of prayerful discernment and dialogue within their communities, and out of a commitment to the disadvantaged...
...Likewise, the woman religious must turn to her community and decide whether a political role is an authentic expression in this day, of that community's mission, within the larger context of the church's mission...
...And this combination of the sensational and the secret, as well as the complexity of some of the issues involved, has left many people with little understanding of what is truly at stake in the controversy concerning Sister Mansour...
...they have been urged to a new co-responsibility with the laity...
...Many Catholics who recognize how their own situations are touched by the case are determined not to let the matter pass...
...In fact, such disagreements about abortion policy have often gone without provoking the kind of sanction visited on Sister Mansour...
...Their stories must be incorporated, as an authentic part of the " sensusfidelium," into the church's own discernment process...
...And Sister Mansour was given one hour to decide on how best to honor a commitment to which she had given thirty years of her life...
...As it happens, her predecessor in the Michigan post was a Catholic layman...
...Instead, SCRIS simply acted on the basis of what it claimed was a thorough study of the facts, i.e., a report from the archbishop...
...In carrying out these responsibilities they have found themselves inevitably involved in situations demanding action for change...
...Yet both are complex issues, and Catholics cannot be expected to agree on all specific policy choices that may be posed in these areas...
...Nor was Joe Califano when he was appointed Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare...
...The special character and focus of their activities arise not from any clerical role but from the different historical visions of their separate religious congregations and their discernment of what is needed to serve those visions in today's world...
...The key is discernment of the specific situation or role...
...Rome never requested any report from the Sisters of Mercy, although, eventually, one was sent unrequested to the Sacred Congregation for Religious and Secular Institutes (SCRIS...
...Prior to her appointment last December, Sister Mansour's superior contacted Archbishop Szoka regarding his view of the matter...
...So Sister Mansour's rights were already infringed by the archbishop's sudden reversal of his position...
...Some public officials have expressed dismay privately that the direct action of the Vatican on a democratically appointed official could resurrect all the phobias of Roman "control" more or less laid to rest with the election of John F. Kennedy...
...Their view, however, is based on an inaccurate understanding of both Sister Mansour's position and the church's moral teaching.Sister Mansour has been unwavering in her stance on abortion...
...IT IS QUITE true that this is not the popular view of religious life...
...The real dilemma, as she sees it, is in deciding at any given moment whether it is more effective to be on the inside or on the outside of the system in order to promote a just social order...
...These women are a revelation in process...
...Third, the outcome of this controversy may drastically alter the future shape of women's religious orders...
...True, they have encountered criticism from Catholics who reach different policy conclusions from their moral principles, just as Catholic officials connected with the Reagan administration's arms policies have been subject to criticism for being, in the eyes of some, out of step with the church's teaching...
...It is distressingly simple...
...Moreover, if the bishops' recent pronouncements on human rights, peace, and non-violence in the societal and global context are to have any validity, it will depend on how well the bishops apply these same standards to those intimate relations which often present a greater challenge - within the very household of the faith...
...If Sister Mansour was treated shamefully, so was her religious community...
...Period...
...in any case, it is not a question for the Constitution's First Amendment that is raised here so much as a question about how the church can effectively fulfill its mission in a pluralistic society, where the public's opportunity to choose freely among exceptionally qualified and willing citizens to fill public offices ought to be strengthened and not restricted or compromised...
...Yet some theologians recognize that within the spectrum of issues related to abortion even the question of when life-as-person begins is still within the range of respectable debate...
...These women - and similar cases of men might be cited as well - come to politics out of the historic association of the church with education, health care, and social services...
...There is a determined effort to tolerate conflicting views on certain very specific policy choices...
...Sister Mansour is a Catholic," he said...
...I refer to the flagrant violation of due process...
...In fact, Rome was not interested in discussion but intended to decide the matter, as it did, unilaterally...
...Having come to a new awareness of their solidarity with the poor and the powerless, they have tried to be faithful to the mandate of the church as manifested in the theology of evangelization...
...This view of things presents problems and it cannot, therefore, be ignored...
...In this case, as I noted, the community's authority was by-passed and no effort was made to obtain its view of the issue...
...Each of these reactions may stem from some valid concern...
...In the whole area of human reproduction, the church becomes compulsively specific and concrete...
...The papal mind seems to view religious in the manner of an "elite corps," set apart from the laity and absolutely loyal to the hierarchy, and whose witnessing to the Gospel is chiefly confined to the vowed life...
...The memorandum concluded, "The notion of religious assuming certain lay roles in 'supplementary' capacity is less valuable than at first may appear...
...Women religious are not some species of semi-priests...
...Religious women and men who have served in public office recognize that responsibility for administering an unjust law or immoral public policy could be an insurmountable obstacle that might require their resignation from office...
...If the American bishops and the major superiors of American religious communities cannot prevail on the pope to grant an exemption in the American case, along lines recognized by the 1917 code, then a great number of extremely worthy men and women are going to undergo a terrible conflict of responsibilities...
...their authority on the desirability of busing might be considerably less...
...Subsequent to her acceptance, the archbishop gave affirmative comments to the local media concerning her appointment...
...Surely specific policy questions, such as Medicaid funding for abortions, is at the end of the spectrum where disagreements among reasonable and faithful Catholics have to be respected...
...I will return to that second development later...
...In questions of power, sacramental and ecclesiastical, they are treated as laity...
...But usually no greater than the kind one might find in a university system, a hospital, or even in a chancery...
...That conclusion can be drawn if one looks at the Revised Code of Canon Law...
...Thus the authority of the bishops speaking to the faithful on racism would be one thing...
...Regardless of how justice might be distributed among the contending parties, it was an episode that could safely be ignored, in favor of more important religious and political questions...
...In the Mansour case, the religious community is appealing a decision of SCRIS against an individual member...
...At the time he indicated he saw "no problem...
...Likewise, they are confronted with a double standard...
...When Sister Clare Dunn, C. S. J., minority leader in the Arizona state legislature, was killed in 1981, she was eulogized by her peers as "the conscience of the House and a champion of the poor...
...This ambivalence may be understandable in a period of transition and experiment...
...Father Theodore Hesburgh has distinguished himself in such tasks...
...He noted that the social services department"encompasses many of the areas religious women have traditionally worked in...
...I realize that these assertions may appear exaggerated and irrelevant to those who view Sister Mansour's case as a simple question of whether she was publicly at variance with the church's moral teaching on abortion...
...The Vatican memorandum summarizing the meeting last January between representatives of the American and European bishops as well as papal officials clearly counsels a graduated scale of authority and competence in pastoral teaching...
...UPTO THIS point, what I have said is marked by a degree of complexity...
...The prime demand of justice is to respect people, but above and beyond justice, [the ecclesiastical judge] must tend toward equity and, beyond that, to charity...
...Devoted women religious are likely to devise new patterns of affiliation and organization that will allow political vocations and circumvent bureaucratic rigidity...
...In fact, however, the authority of the community was simply by-passed...
...One month after the archbishop's February 23 news conference, reversing his position, Sister Theresa Kane, the major superior of the Mercy Union, received a letter from the apostolic delegate, Archbishop Pio Laghi, in which SCRIS instructed her to "require" Sister Mansour to resign her public office...
...American women religious in politics recognize that these warnings may be appropriate in certain cultural situations...
...SUCH WAS, in fact, the burden of the message delivered to Sister Mansour by the papal representative...
...Other sisters describe their entry into politics as an effort to empower others, to be "carriers of the Gospel agenda...
...In the same document and in other pastoral teachings, religious have been urged to give voice, conscience, and commitment to the poor, to refugees, to the elderly and marginalized, to those denied human rights or social assistance, to working men and women...
...Sister Platte is persuaded that religious women have a "mandate" for involvement in the politics of our time and culture...
...Medicaid funding is a matter of law...
...Certainly American religious communities of women will face a steady drain of some of their best, most dedicated members...
...Some commentators are of the opinion that the new paragraph is the direct result of papal editing...
...This criterion presumed, of course, what does not seem to be the fact - that opposition to Medicaid abortion funding is "magisterial teaching...
...After reviewing the entire matter, the Sisters of Mercy asked for a formal reconsideration of the decision from SCRIS, documenting their request with six substantive points...
...It is difficult to see why this reasonable standard of tolerance and restraint should apply to nuclear warfare but not to abortion, sterilization, contraception, and other issues related to sexual morality...
...It may be too much to hope, consequently, that Sister Agnes Mary Mansour's case might be a unique instance, to be attributed to a lack of episcopal prudence...
...Sister Mansour requested and was granted such a leave by her religious order in April...
...But it is the disparagement of both the rights and experience of American women religious that is most painful and may have the most far-reaching consequences...
...The proposed revisions of these sections, originally submitted in 1980, seemed to broaden the application of the old restriction to all those holding appointed as well as elected offices, with permission still to be obtained, in most cases, from the ordinary...
...It should be utterly clear that this conflict was not one Sister Mansour sought...
...There was reportedly an effort by the revision committee to eliminate this distinction, since all non-clerical religious have lay status...
...Both Catholics and non-Catholics have often tended to identify life in a religious congregation with the clerical state, a confusion made all the easier by the fact that many male religious are indeed also clerics...
...All over the country clerics and religious are serving in local offices - school boards, planning agencies, hospital and welfare commissions, city councils...
...Is the crux of this case, then, not a particular position on funding abortions for poor women, but the fact that this position is taken publicly by a woman religious rather than a layperson...
...They are seen, instead, as delegates or representatives of the church at large - again, as quasi-clerics...
...This is a classic instance of the "double bind," the fundamental dynamic of a schizophrenic system...
...In a number of our cities, bishops have served in appointed posts...
...It involves, in relation to abortion, the distinction between general moral teachings and a specific policy choice about Medicaid funding...
...The real question posed in the case of Sister Mansour is not whether holding a government position, and exercising the necessary independent judgment on specific policy choices that goes with it, is properly "lay" or"clerical...
...She has clearly declared her personal opposition to abortion...
...No one really knows how many American clergy and religious may run afoul of this part of the new code...
...Dilemmas of conscience...
...The Second Vatican Council's Dogmatic Constitution on the Church clearly identifies non-clerical religious with the lay state: "The religious state of life is not an intermediate state between the clerical and lay states...
...Fourth, the events in Detroit and Rome place in considerable jeopardy the autonomy traditionally accorded well-ordered religious congregations and the legitimate authority of their superiors...
...But there is one aspect of Sister Mansour's case that is not complex at all...
...Sister Mansour's choice, made with "deep regret," came after months of tensions and fruitless exchanges involving her and the Sisters of Mercy, Archbishop Szoka of Detroit, right-to-life activists, and Rome...
...That he apparently revoked his approval under pressure - an orchestrated campaign by anti-abortion groups, which included accusatory ads directed against him in the Wall Street Journal and Detroit newspapers - only emphasizes the importance of scrupulous due process...
...She was not informed of her right to have someone providing canonical advice present, or of her right to appeal...
...other Catholic officials in states which continue Medicaid payments for abortion...
...The new paragraph explicitly forbids clerics (and by extension, specified later in the code, religious) to hold"civil power...
...of the Revised Code is not embodied in the procedures subsequently instituted...
...Some of this conflict was played out in the media, but much of it remained confidential...
...Sister Mansour, however, never had an opportunity to present her case formally or enter into any direct dialogue with the archbishop or other church authorities...
...Sister Mansour elected to request dispensation from her vows...
...Right to the moment of the papal delegate's visit, the Sisters of Mercy were under the impression that the conflict was still open to reconsideration...
...The American drafters of the pastoral are advised that episcopal authority diminishes as the subject of their pronouncements moves from doctrine to practical moral choices...
...For many people, women religious are not seen as laypeople who have consecrated themselves to a special kind of life and joined together in differently gifted congregations to lead it...
...Implicit here is a conception of the church as a clearly boundaried " tertium quid," an intermediate thing apart...
...or yet again a healthy reassertion of church authority in the face of willingness to depart from official positions in regard to abortion, birth control, and other moral issues...
...In the ensuing weeks, anti-abortion groups attacked Archbishop Szoka and Sister Mansour with ad campaigns, threatened boycotts, and a mail "blitz...
...One hour...
...A double standard seems to prevail...
...But it should be challenged and corrected as the experience of women religious in new roles is recognized and assimilated...
...She is the author of Kiss Sleeping Beauty Good-bye (Double-day), a study of the contemporary situation of women from the perspective of faith...
...But particularly in North America and Latin America that clearly bounded, hierarchical structure has been giving way to one more aptly described in terms of semi-permeable membranes, permitting religious far more collaboration and solidarity with all the people of God in their social, economic, and political tasks...
...In a time of threatened universal anarchy, church personnel helped keep the ship of state afloat...
...She has also said that as long as abortion does remain legal she refuses to approve cutting off payments for abortions provided to poor women who qualify under Medicaid...
...Much will depend on the response of the American bishops - and on a wider understanding of the case itself - if the outcome is to be hopeful rather than destructive...
...The key document illustrating this is the 1980 one already mentioned, "Religious Life and Human Promotion...
...As Sister Arlene Violet, R.S .M., an attorney and former candidate for political office, expressed it when speaking of the deals made in legislative bodies and committees, "We cannot surrender to the power brokers...
...This is one point where Rome and the American bishops seem to be in the strongest agreement...
...Thus, Sister Mansour came to her meeting with the papal representative without being informed of the nature of the options to be given her, or indeed that any options would be the subject of the interview...
...A review in a recent Commonweal mentioned "a country pastor in Kentucky who happens also to be chairman of the local transit authority, chairman of the zoning board, chairman of the Regional Capital Improvement Program, and vice-president of the Clay County Development Association...
...was not the result of a dialogic, objective process, but of a unilateral one where neither I nor my religious superiors were ever given the opportunity to appropriately present our case" (Press statement, May 11, 1983), minds...
...even more especially women religious - the case was only one more instance of high-handedness by an exclusively male, authoritarian church bureaucracy...
...It was the "ecclesial identity" of her status as a religious sister that required strict adherence to magisterial teaching...
...Archbishop John R. Roach of St...
...Two things in particular are needed to protect churchmen from being left hostage to such publicity campaigns: internal procedures which insure individuals fair treatment, and an external posture of respect for complex issues and tolerance for reasonable dissent...
...One supposes that individual conscience and dialogue between spouses and with children work these things out...
...Too many problems are beyond the capacity of private voluntary organizations or efforts...
...some action for change can be undertaken only from "within the system...
...an obedience born out of mutual dialogue and openness to seek the truth...
...Since 1980 she has been a legislative assistant to Congresswoman Mary Rose Oakar (Dem.-Ohio...
...The letter setting up the meeting mentioned only that she might bring two companions...
...There is even the potential in all this for serious alterations in the forms of religious life...
...They speak of their recognition of the ways in which politics impinges on everything, and their eventual decision to seek political responsibility in order to"define" politics rather than simply be victimized by it - or, more importantly, stand helplessly by while others are victimized...
...In Minnesota, Sister Mary Madonna Ashton, C.S.J., a former hospital administrator, was recently confirmed as state commissioner of health, a position requiring distribution of funds for family planning, another morally sensitive area for the church...
...Abortion is an issue that understandably - indeed, properly - evokes strong feelings...
...Her community approached Archbishop Szoka regarding her appointment, and his favorable attitude was well recorded in the media...
...So does the possibility of nuclear war...
...The early Christians avoided public offices because they were associated with pagan worship, and the lower social standing of many Christians in Roman society made them unlikely candidates for such offices in any case...
...It involves an interpretation of changes and counter-changes that have occurred since Vatican II, and an argument for the validity of the witness of a growing number of religious women who have found themselves engaged in politics...
...Now in her third term, Sister Ardeth Platte, O.P., has been a city council woman in Saginaw, Michigan, for ten years...
...Unfortunately, the high-flown language of"rights" in the first book Unprecedented appeal...
...But, in fact, while the experience of women religious and many other faithful seems to be moving in the direction of new and overlapping roles, Pope John Paul II has been particularly emphatic in stressing the sharp division of roles in the church...
...Some women religious have also told me that they believe certain roles would be inappropriate for religious under most circumstances, for example, serving as a criminal prosecutor...
...But none of these officials has been formally rebuked or forced to sever their ties with their Catholic communities...
...Her position on Medicaid funding for abortions is in fact held by a number of outspoken abortion opponents as well as by many Catholic politicians and civil servants...
...The "stories" of most women religious who now hold legislative offices or are serving in other government capacities will bear out this pattern...
...it was denied by the Vatican...
...In April when Sister Mansour attempted to ameliorate the situation by requesting a leave of absence and her order cooperated by granting it, the apostolic delegate asked that this step not be revealed publicly at that time...
...Would all these examples have fallen under the ban on "civil power...
...The momentum leading religious women and men from work with and for the poor to affecting social structures through government positions was significant enough to be clearly outlined in a memorandum forwarded in 1978 to the Vatican Congregation for Religious by the Leadership Conference of Women Religious and the Conference of Major Superiors of Men...
...but the distinction was subsequently reasserted and reem-phasized by the Vatican...
...he was not harassed by his bishop regarding his policy views...
...As irony would have it, the first superintendent of the poor in Michigan, appointed shortly after Michigan became a state, was a Roman Catholic priest...
...It is whether this kind of responsibility is in keeping with the mission of the church and faithfulness to the traditions and goals of particular religious congregations...
...She maintains that the experience of religious women gives them a unique value orientation incorporating a concern for human dignity, participatory structures for governing, and respect for the sacredness of the earth...
...and advance the salvific mission of the church...
...One major trend since the Council has been the declericali-zation of religious life, and the assumption by women religious of tasks promoting human development in the world outside formally "church" institutions...
...But no sooner have they reshaped their lives and taken on new tasks than they are undercut and rebuked...
...If so, it should be binding on all Catholics, lay and religious alike...
...As one report had it, the archbishop expressed his approval "as long as she makes clear her opposition to abortion...
...Indeed, the archbishop himself apparently stated much the same rationale for a woman religious's service in a government post that I have outlined here...
...Their ministry is often seen as a double one: to their constituencies and to their legislative or governmental peers...
...WOMEN RELIGIOUS, POLITICS, & THE CHURCH'S MISSION Sister Mansour is not alone MADONNA KOLBENSCHLAG ON MAY 9, Sister Agnes Mary Mansour, R.S.M., was faced with an ultimatum directly from the pope: resign from her post as Michigan director of social services or be dismissed from her religious order...
...And they have found that in a modern context, with its pluralism, with its interaction between public and private sectors, their social ministries are rapidly translated into political challenges...
...but each, though not necessarily to the same degree, is an inadequate interpretation of Sister Mansour's case, based on misunderstandings of both the facts and the ramifications of the actions of church officials...
...It involves a distinction between clerics and women religious that is confused in many Sister Agnes M. Mansour: "From the beginning...
...Not surprisingly, but very significantly, most of this new breed of women religious in politics are active at the state and local level, where their efforts can often have greater impact than at the national level and also where their political work seems to spring most naturally from direct, personal contact with the human needs of their constituencies...
...To some people, especially women in the church - and madonna kolbenschlag, H.M., Ph.D., is a Sister of the Humility of Mary, Villa Maria, Pa., currently on the staff of the Woodstock Theological Center in Washington, D.C...
...Sister Mansour's case constitutes a flagrant violation of both due process and the spirit of colle-giality and subsidiarity that are the essence of ecclesial communion...
...ARE THERE moral ambiguities to be faced in this new political activity...
...Nor does the Mansour case indicate that either the Code or the Vatican referral that is normal church routine will insure justice and equity, much less charity...
...But Sister Elizabeth Morancy, R.S.M., a Rhode Island state representative who has often been lauded by civic groups as well as her bishop for her dedication to the disadvantaged, observes that American political parties are frequently so "non-doctrinaire" that their agendas are interchangeable - and usually are the product of as broad a consensus as possible...
...They also recognize that conflicts could arise between perfectly valid roles...
...Obviously the local ordinary has some authority in this process . But in the case of religious this discernment should not be thought of as somehow radically different from that undertaken by laypeople - for example, when they must balance opportunities to exercise their gifts in service to their neighbors against certain moral risks, or when they reconcile professional responsibilities with family responsibilities, or when a particular role may be interpreted as a scandalous affront to moral standards...
...Her distinguished career had a significant impact on Arizona politics and public policy...
...I would argue that what has happened to Sister Mansour is, first, a matter of concern for all who believe that the church cannot preach respect for human dignity without exemplifying it in its own internal procedures...
...I have attempted to be faithful to my vow of obedience by discerning honestly with my religious community and others I believe in a tradition of obedience more fully developed . . . since Vatican II...
...So did Minnesota's powerful pro-life lobby, while women's rights groups voiced opposition...
...One ad suggested that if readers thought Szoka's decision was wrong, they should write directly to the archbishop and also to the pope...
...Politics" may be added to "celibacy" as a frequent motive for seeking dispensation...
...Vatican caution about the participation of religious in "party politics" often seems to reflect a context foreign to the American scene...
...In the past, congregations have enjoyed a relative degree of autonomy in living out the charism of their institute according to universal norms...
...Second, Sister Mansour's forced severance from her community has serious implications for all religious women and men now serving in government posts at any level from community planning boards to state legislatures...
...it said nothing of superiors, as befitted the directive to be given her...
...Political ambiguities often focus on making a choice between what one's conscience dictates, what the party agenda might demand, or what is needed to get reelected...
...On February 23, Szoka suddenly announced his objection to Sister Mansour's appointment and called for her resignation...
...For a long time, women religious had been isolated in a quasi-clerical state...
...The involvement of religious and clergy in the political sphere has fluctuated in history...
...Her community's provincial administration dealt with the archdiocese while carefully avoiding the media...
...Several have described their previous apostolates as history teachers or grade-school principals or community organizers or advocates for the poor...
...Rome ignored this request and, instead, acted to discipline Sister Mansour without informing her major superiors...
...The papal position unquestionably coincides with a popular view of members of religious orders...
...These funds are provided through the Michigan Department of Social Services, which Sister Mansour was appointed to head, but her views on these issues were well known long before her appointment...
...Yes, obviously...
...Further, "Sister Mansour as director could give a powerful witness to the Christian dimension of the department of social services...
...This change has been widely recognized as a key factor in the renewal of the church...
...Clear evidence of this countertrend can be seen in the sharp differentiation in the Revised Code of Canon Law between religious and secular institutes...
...One important Vatican document, for example, warns against contamination by "ideologies which promote class struggle...
...I have acted in good faith seeking the necessary approvals...
...Sister Mansour's case holds grave implications for the survival and identity of religious communities of women, but also for the status of the laity...
...The Vatican may also be relatively unattuned to the less monastic, more activist origins of many American women's orders as compared to European ones...
...Justice, like charity, begins at home.e very household of the faith...
...John Paul's view has much in it of the "church-militant," counter-Reformation spirit, an ethos that sits more easily with the "fathers-and-children" model of church than with the "community-of-disciples" model...
...It reflects the post-Vatican Council change in the church when it views engagement with politics and the world of work as integral to evangelization...
...The simple fact is that all the political activities we ascribe to religious appear to be not supplementary, but normal...
...Various efforts to mediate the dispute or to obtain further reviews of the matter proved fruitless...
...The directive I received...
...Sister Man-sour was bound under the 1917 code, which allows clerics and religious to hold public (elected) offices with the permission of their ordinaries...
...One doubts whether a new panoply of alternative structures in religious life is exactly what the Vatican has meant to encourage, but that may be the end result of its blanket strictures...
...A QUESTION like that cannot be resolved in the abstract...
...Quite the contrary: she may simply be the first of many...
...They have joined together in their vows to pursue a variety of forms of religious life...
...If she can become a victim of arbitrary and unfounded church discipline, so can many others...
...But the pope's delegate later went on to admit that Sister Mansour could well have disagreed with this "magisterial" position had she not been a religious...
...On May 18, the Sisters of Mercy initiated a canonical appeal of the decision of SCRIS, based on a long-standing provision in canon law known as "right of recourse...
...But the fact remains that this is a misunderstanding...
...Sister Morancy admits that on occasion the "shenanigans" of party machinery present embarrassments...
...These women feel themselves caught in a double bind and treated according to a double standard...
...This has to be taken into account when general moral principles are applied to concrete situations, facts, government policies, or strategies...
...That recognition and assimilation is certainly incomplete, at least by Rome...
...Those worries may or may not be well-founded...
...But rather, the faithful of Christ are called by God from both these states of life so that they might enjoy this particular gift in the life of the church...
...Paul and Minneapolis, nonetheless gave his blessing to her appointment...
...The community agreed, expecting that this would facilitate discussion...
...Nor have been Governor Mario Cuomo of New York or a host of Mirror image...
Vol. 110 • June 1983 • No. 12
