Sisters in Crisis: Revisited: From Unraveling to Reform and Renewal by Ann Carey

Author:Ann Carey [Carey, Ann]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Spiritual & Religion
ISBN: 9781586177898
Published: 2016-01-06T16:00:00+00:00

12

Two Communities versus the Hierarchy

We set out to push back the boundaries of religious life.1

—Anita Caspary, former superior,

Immaculate Heart of Mary Sisters, Los Angeles, California

The chaos experienced by many religious orders during the renewal years can be understood more easily by looking at two specific examples: the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (IHM) of Los Angeles and the School Sisters of Saint Francis of Milwaukee. These religious institutes made headlines in the 1960s and early 1970s because of their self-styled approaches to renewal and subsequent clashes with Church authorities over their renewal decisions. Other religious institutes of women watched these communities closely, and the ultimate disposition of these conflicts with the Vatican affected them as well. In turn, the Catholic institutions traditionally staffed by sisters were also impacted dramatically.

The IHMs and Cardinal McIntyre

The conflict between the IHM Sisters and Cardinal James McIntyre, archbishop of Los Angeles, during the late 1960s was widely reported by the press and caused much consternation among women religious. The major difficulty with the whole situation was that few people knew all the facts, and much misinformation was circulated. The prevailing piece of misinformation—carried by periodicals such as Time and Newsweek—was that the IHM Sisters were dutifully complying with the directives of Vatican II to renew their order but were being obstructed by Cardinal McIntyre. Newsweek described the cardinal as “an old guard standard-bearer of the Roman Catholic hierarchy” who would not allow the sisters to modernize in accordance with Council’s call for renewal. Backing him up was Congregation for Religious prefect Cardinal Ildebrando Antoniutti, described by Newsweek as “the aging misogynist who jealously guards Catholicism’s monastic traditions”.2

In 1970 IHM superior Anita Caspary, formerly Sister Humiliata, led approximately three hundred of the IHM Sisters out of the order into a lay organization called the Immaculate Heart Community, leaving behind about sixty IHM Sisters who wanted to retain their canonical status as a religious institute in the Catholic Church. The exodus was a traumatic situation for all involved, but it was hardly the fault of an intransigent hierarchy determined to preserve the pre—Vatican II model of religious life, as the secular press and much of the Catholic press reported.

So, what really happened?

Like many other religious institutes, the IHM Sisters went far beyond the reforms requested by Vatican II and subsequent Church documents. Heavily influenced by the women’s liberation movement and the popular psychology of the 1960s, the institute had declared virtually all of its past traditions and practices to be optional, including common prayer, community life, the religious habit, the corporate apostolate of education, and the shared Eucharist. When Cardinal McIntyre told the order that these innovations did not adhere to the renewal called for by the Church, the sisters appealed to the Vatican, which came down on the side of Cardinal McIntyre. The sisters skillfully solicited support from sympathetic American religious and laity and some members of the women superiors’ conference, claiming that Cardinal McIntyre and the Vatican were trying to prevent them from following the mandates of the Second Vatican Council.

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