RITE AND REASON: By taking new and bold steps on the road to healing and reconciliation, Ireland's religious are expressing their vocation to serve by finding innovative ways of spreading the Gospel, says Sister Elizabeth Maxwell
Members of religious congregations in Ireland are ambitious, hopeful and even defiant in facing the challenges ahead. Despite falling numbers, they are expressing their vocation to serve and to bear witness to the message of Christ in new ways, extending the meaning of pastoral involvement.
The Conference of Religious of Ireland's three-day annual general meeting last week took as its theme: "To reclaim, celebrate and promote religious life in Ireland".
Last October, CORI, under the title A Fire in the Forest (Veritas, 2001), published a statistical profile of religious in this country. The research confirmed what everyone knew. The religious are older, are reducing in numbers, and few young women and men are knocking on the doors of convents and monasteries seeking to take their place.
Even so, 92 per cent of congregational leaders who were surveyed expressed hope for the future of religious life in Ireland.
Some of the reasons for this hope emerged in Rosslare last week. The research had shown the shift by large numbers of religious working in classrooms and hospital wards to pastoral involvement beyond the walls of institutions.
In the main, this pastoral work is undertaken voluntarily, allowing for creativity and imagination and giving expression to the specific gifts of particular religious congregations. Thus, on the notice boards and in the display areas, we saw evidence of the variety of ways in which religious today seek to serve people and spread the good news of the Gospel.
These include TV, video and website production, "welcome centres" for asylum-seekers and refugees, addiction treatment centres across the country (including what is thought to be the only teenage addiction treatment centre in Europe) and social housing associations established by religious.
The first socially-directed investment fund in Ireland (Clann Credo), pioneered by a female religious, is giving seed funding to community groups and individuals at rates no financial institution would consider.
Environmental projects in Portumna, Cork and Wicklow, developed by women religious, are committed to the care of the Earth. They invite people to participate in a spirituality centred on the "cosmic Christ" and reflect on the growing consciousness of the need to care for the planet.
Inside the conference room, the work of the CORI commissions and task force was presented.
THE 21st birthday of the justice commission offered an occasion for a celebration of its effectiveness in drawing attention to the needs of the poor. The newly-emerging social and political realities called for a fresh brief for the CORI Northern Ireland commission.
The collated responses to a Lenten reflection process indicated that, among membership of congregations, faith in the future is based on trust in God, the legacy of the past and the fidelity of the many who choose the way of religious life.
A guest speaker, Sister Mary Johnson, associate professor of sociology and religious studies at Emmanuel College, Boston, challenged us to actively invite young women and men to consider religious life.
Her research among Catholics aged between 24 and 39 in the US indicated that a majority claimed never to have been invited to consider religious life. Consequently, they felt unfit for, or unworthy of, such a calling.
Some participants observed that not all Irish religious were holding back on the inviting. Some congregations are actively promoting vocations to religious life once again. This time, however, the target group is the 24/39-year-olds holding responsible jobs, capable of making mature decisions and searching for a deeper meaning in life.
The means by which religious proclaim the good news of the Gospel may be changing; the life experience of those who seek to follow Christ's call to follow Him may differ from that of entrants of former years. But as Father Michael Smyth SDB said in his presidential address: "Religious life without God at its centre has no meaning."
WHAT about child sexual abuse by clerics and religious? The meeting voted to increase funding of the independent counselling helpline (Faoiseamh) set up in 1997. To date, it has received 10,450 calls and has offered counselling to 2,097 individuals. Statistics show that only slightly over 50 per cent of all calls are in relation to sexual abuse by clergy or religious.
Delegates discussed participation in the Catholic Church "audit" of how allegations of child sexual abuse by clergy and religious was handled by bishops and congregational leaders, and they agreed to be part of it with their colleagues, where relevant.
Not all member-congregations of CORI have had allegations of child sexual abuse made against them.
For the first time, RTÉ cameras swept around the conference in session. Signs of a new confidence in the religious, perhaps? Or could it be that media interest was generated by the possibility of disagreement between the Episcopal Conference and the Conference of Religious?
Whatever the reason for the interest, the religious were prepared to take one further step on the road to healing and reconciliation by engaging in a process which will hopefully dispel the belief that the church is interested only in "cover-up" measures.
Sister Elizabeth Maxwell is secretary-general of the Conference of Religious of Ireland. She may be contacted by e-mail at: secretariat@cori.ie