Reading list: Women take on Apostolic Visitation

There has been no shortage of commentary on the report announced Tuesday, which detailed the findings of the Apostolic Visitation of U.S. communities of women religious. Much of the news coverage has focused on the report as a "thank you letter" to the Sisters, but some women have expressed a more nuanced analysis. "Despite herculean efforts to make nice, the 12-page report and its presentation reinforce the Roman Catholic Church’s patriarchal power paradigm. And although many have hailed the report as a sign of the Vatican’s warming toward women, I am not convinced,” writes Mary E. Hunt in Religion Dispatches. "[...] Vigorous pushback by the nuns and other Catholic lay people, especially the Nun Justice Project of which I am a part, was an attempt to end clerical dominance and to reshape the top-down structure of the church, as much as it was a defense of the women religious’ right to live by their own lights. While women religious do seem to have won a victory in the latter case, nothing has shifted in the direction of a horizontally integrated model of church."

Sr. Christine Schenk, who is also involved in the Nun Justice Project, wrote in NCR about the visitation's impact on communities. Reflecting on the stories shared in the book Power of Sisterhood: Women Religious tell the Story of the Apostolic Visitation, she says "it is a story of transformation, of making lemonade from the bitterest of lemons, ultimately witnessing that truly, "all things work together unto good for those who love God" (Romans 8:28). "In an enlightening analysis for the Global Sisters Report, Sr. Sandra Schneiders also delves in to the importance of the way Sisters responded to the process. "The positive tone of the report in general certainly owes much to the way congregations dealt with the whole experience. They did not become defensive or passive victims, accept CICLSAL’s categories which named their behavior and intentions in distorted and even dishonest ways or allow themselves to be defined by the implied or actual accusations. Instead, they delved more deeply into their own charisms, documents, and experience – and that is what they transmitted to the investigators, both by compliance and by resistance. "

All three pieces (and the book!) are well worth a full read, take the time to listen to some "feminine genius!"

Engage the future: Reflections on the apostolic visitation report by Sandra M. Schneiders

The Power of Sisterhood by Margaret Cain McCarthy, PhD and Mary Ann Zollmann, BVM, PhD

The apostolic visitation report was laudatory, but sisters remain caught in ambiguity by Sr. Christine Schenk

American nuns and the Vatican: More pain than promise by Mary E. Hunt