The Spirit of Vatican II by McDannell Colleen;

Author:McDannell, Colleen;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Basic Books
Published: 2011-01-30T16:00:00+00:00

IMMACULATE HEART COLLEGE’S innovative take on Marian devotions was not simply an extension of ideas discussed at the Council and implemented by a creative artist. The Immaculate Heart Sisters were caught up in the spirit of Vatican II that paralleled changes in their religious order and in the culture at large. The renewed Mary’s Day was also the result of decades of women’s education and the reformist orientation of an order of nuns. Founded in 1916, Immaculate Heart College opened ten years after the Immaculate Heart Sisters established a girl’s high school in the hills above Los Angeles. By the fifties the college had a reputation of being liberal: It showed foreign movies, girls could stay out later at night than at other colleges, and academic accomplishment (rather than mere marriage) was stressed. Its Hollywood address made it a favorite of Catholic movie stars, and the college advertised itself as the place “Where tradition meets tomorrow.”

The college was the jewel in the crown of the California Institute of the Sisters of the Most Holy and Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary. These “Immaculate Heart Sisters” arrived in California from Spain in 1871, coming at the request of the bishop of Monterey-Los Angeles. In 1924 they broke away from the Spanish order because the European motherhouse was overly restricting their lives in the United States. Rome recognized the new California Institute as an independent order, with a slightly modified habit and set of rules.

As with the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, who staffed St. Stephen’s school, the Immaculate Hearts educated Catholic children. Unlike the Holy Names, however, the Immaculate Hearts worked almost exclusively in the Los Angeles archdiocese. By 1967 they staffed 125 elementary schools and seventy-two high schools in addition to the college. They ran more schools in the archdiocese than any other order. Their college was not only known for educating the children of Catholic movie stars, but it also served as a training ground for other California nuns who came for their degrees. In 1962 alone, 360 sisters took graduate courses at the college.

During the postwar years, the demands of the Catholic community were so high and the number of women entering the convent so large that religious orders were scrambling to adapt their monastic systems to modern needs. American Catholic girls found the convent to be an admired place for pursuing religious and professional interests without the limiting factors of husband and children. Superiors of convents worried, though, that women were being sent into the classrooms or hospitals without proper spiritual and intellectual preparation.

Religious orders of women during the fifties began to send representatives to national conferences to discuss common problems and to establish achievable goals. The Immaculate Heart Sisters were active members of this “Sister Formation” movement, which had its first conference in 1954. Sister Formation intended to integrate professional education with theological reflection—to bring together the traditional with the modern. Some American sisters wanted to continue the flow of women

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