The following comes from an October 14 Global Sisters Report article by Dan Stockman. Global Sisters Report is a project of National Catholic Reporter.
Religious life in North America and Europe stands on a precipice of transformation to a new form that no one yet knows, and leaders need to embrace that mystery instead of trying to sustain the past, St. Joseph Sr. Carol Zinn told a gathering of women and men religious Thursday.
Zinn, a former president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, spoke to more than 100 religious gathered for her session at the national conference of the Resource Center for Religious Institutes. About 500 members of the center are in Anaheim this week for sessions on various aspects of running a religious institute, including sessions on federal privacy rules for medical information and legal structures for sponsored ministries.
Zinn said she fears that leadership teams are so busy making decisions about land, buildings, retirement funds and sponsored ministries that they’re not leading their members into the future.
“I think we’re all trying to sustain the present,” she said. “That’s important, but it’s not the same as shepherding. We are living in a moment where God is saying, to quote Isaiah, ‘Behold, I am doing something new. Do you not perceive it?’ ”
Zinn said all religious communities in North America, Europe and Australia are facing completion, whether they admit it or even know it.
“It doesn’t matter how many members you have, it doesn’t matter how much money you have … we are all in the same boat,” she said.
“It’s not a matter of ‘if,’ when it comes to completion, it’s a matter of ‘when.’
Many leaders do recognize that times have changed and they are working hard to adjust, she said, selling buildings that are no longer needed, letting go of ministries that can’t be sustained and rearranging finances to account for fewer members. But that work only financially sustains the present form of religious life.
She said leaders need to recognize that the current form of religious life will not be the dominant one in the future, and not only will its form and function change. There will be a transformation of its very being, Zinn said, the way religious life in the early history of the church changed from those who embraced chastity and poverty to those who withdrew from the world then changed again to monastics who invited the world in, and so on.
“When the history and cultural context shifts, guess what’s right behind it? The expression of religious life shifts to match it,” Zinn said.
You have to love the NewChurchSpeak for self-annihilation: “[Sr. Carol] Zinn said all religious communities in North America, Europe and Australia are facing completion, whether they admit it or even know it.” Completion? They mean extinction of once-thriving, wonderful religious orders and their works.
Snf marvelous “excuse-language”: “For those who are so worried about numbers, there’s this joy that God is in charge,” Zinn said. “It will go how God needs it to go.” [from orig article]
Really? God wants the extinction of His good works? Or maybe, God is telling you something. Maybe He is saying, like the freeway signs: “Go Back: You are Going the Wrong Way.”
Most of us have known sisters who have had transformative influence on our lives. I thank God every day for them, and pray that they may know joy and – God willing – an increase in their numbers.
Hahaha — I like what “Campion” suggests: the Nuns of Self-Annihilation.” These likely lesbian nuns are poison. Just think on what Faulkner said, “The past is never dead, it’s not even past.” These Zombie-Nuns are just searching for relevance as their orders die, just as their faith died. No future exists for them, except for those that repent, seek to reform their lives, and embrace Christ’s Church, something that they have never done. Still angry after all these years that they cannot be priests, they will drag down anyone that bothers to pay attention. Instead, follow the Benedictines of Mary: Queen of Apostles.
Wow SC… You must have gotten an A+ in the “Famous Lesbians Identification Course” Really…you can tell just by looking at a photo. Amazing!
Point taken, C&H. But my first thought at looking at that photo is that I have seldom seen a woman look more butch than her. If it turns out she is a big supporter of LGBT sexuality (and Shelly’s post yesterday seems to put a equally large yes to this) then the first impression may well be a correct impression, and what she communicates by her appearance is a far cry from the days when sisters wore religious habits as a sign of their consecration to Christ.
C&H if the pant suit fits……..
Dear “Saint” Christopher:
These blessed women devoted their entire lives to Christ’s Church, yet you ridicule them as “Zomebie-Nuns”. What a disgusting post. They are hardly angry, if you have ever encountered them, they are for the most part joyous, serene, and exude the love of Christ. You might want to ask yourself why you treat them with such anger.
Oftentimes, these women, like all of us, believe we are dedicating our lives to Christ, but in truth are seeking to transform those who might otherwise follow Christ to take the path we have chosen for ourselves. That is the transformation of no longer viewing that which is sinful as sinful.
The “woman’s” touch is often poisonous because women, viewed as safe (wife, mother, sweet, caregiver, etc) can be used to psychologically calm us to do and accept that which we should not. (Recall, Eve led Adam.)
One can also exude what appears joyous, serene, etc in having given over to accept what they no longer desire to fight against.
“Likely lesbian nuns”.
In what Church are people who dedicate their entire lives to the Church and to Christ subjected to such speculation and ridiculous accusations, without a single shred of evidence?
None. No authentic Church subjects fellow members to such public ridicule. None. Certainly not the Roman Catholic Church.
Calm yourself YFC. Whatever Sr. Zinn has spoken or done is very likely easy accessed on the web. Maybe we should all find out more about her.
Amen!! Good riddance!! They are wolves in sheep’s clothing and are responsible for millions of Catholics not knowing or embracing the faith. The orthodox orders are bursting at the seams!
If you opened your liberal eyes YFC the orders of traditional nuns and sisters are growing, its these rebellious feminist nuns who are dying the vine (praise God)
The only way Sister’s of the Holy Pant Suit will survive if they allow men to join their orders.
Why, Bohemond, do you seek to degrade me and my experience of the faith? When I tell you that nuns helped bring me to the Catholic faith, why can’t you just accept it? Why do you seek to make my spiritual path a thing of scorn? I don’t understand how your post helps ME to get closer to Christ, or anyone like me. Honestly, your angry hateful post helps no one, except possibly your own fragile ego.
…your experience of the faith may only by your experience of what you believe is Faith. That is being confirmed in acceptance of that which should not be accepted. It is just such “serenity” that often leads those who are spiritually asleep to just keep sleeping.
For the first time in my years on CCD, I am angry.
I wasn’t born catholic & I wasn’t headed for a life of discipleship.
The influence of several sisters, sometimes forcefully and sometimes subtelly, influenced me. In the end, I converted to Catholicism as a result of their efforts and thanks to the Holy Spirit.
I didn’t begin my journey as a finished soul, and I am not yet a finished soul. But nuns have been with me every step of my discipleship, flawed as it is.
I bet you are also not a finished soul. Don’t belittle me, as you do here in this forum. Unless your own soul is a done deal. And don’t you dare belittle the women who have accompanied me along my journey to Christ.
I wasn’t born Catholic either, YFC, but I would resent any sister trying to help me who would set herself up as an alternative Magesterium. Not that Sr. Zinn has done this– I hold no brief for her as my first glance at her has been this CCD article. But this article wets my appetite to learn more.
Be angry all you want, “YFC” but what is said is accurate. Perhaps Sr. Zinn is not a lesbian, but many of the “Nun Linebacker Corps” are, and openly so. Moreover, her leadership role is largely dedicated to discrediting the Church, emasculating males, replacing Christ with alternative centers of worship and the like.
It is wonderful that sisters helped you to become Catholic, and God Bless and Keep you Catholic. But, the Lord uses whomever He will to do his will, such as using Cyrus as an anointed “Shepherd” to free the Jews. We are all on a journey and remain students of Christ. We need to drink deeply of the grand store of Catholic intellectual history, which the current Church largely ignores and despises (especially the…
(Part Deux) “. . . Jesuits).
You are needed in the battle for souls, “YFC” as we all are. The present institutional Church is seriously flawed, although we all know how things ultimately end. We need to stand up to those, like Sr. Zinn, who seek to look away from what has been achieved over centuries in the Church. Screaming “patriarchy” and silly things like that are meaningless. Asking Christ how we might serve Him and His Church are the key. She is a destroyer and needs to be treated as such.
have they really been ‘trying to sustain the past”? the past they left behind might be the answer they will find in the future. i would just bet that in the story of what they left behind we would find a trail littered with victim sisters in each order who tried to speak sense to the great drift and were mocked or told that they no longer seemed to be open to change and needed to move on, on out of the order. sister btell us that ‘the expression of religiious life shifts to match ‘ changing times. those are the success stories in history. our current teams are batting zero.
I am a bit confused by the article. Stockman writes that Zinn is worried about focus on the past, but she is quoted as saying sisters are too worried about the present. This makes me wonder: is the past the recent past, that is, since sisters left the convent, the habit, and teaching, to embrace feminism, social justice etc., and is the present the melancholy state such a move has left many congregations? Such an interpretation might lend coherence to her position, but then, I have not read Stockman’s original article.
Sr Zinn, religious life does not shift to match the culture! That’s been your downfall. You’ve been followers, not leaders. A house built on sand…. Religious are supposed to be counter-cultural like all Christians.
Sr Zinn is a die-hard Lefty—“I would expect Pope Francis to continue to speak of a Church of inclusivity, respect and diversity in contrast to a Church of exclusivity, judgment and uniformity, as he has already done.”
She is always outspoken but silent on the killing of unborn humans through abortion—but she is a major supporter of New Ways Ministry which embraces the LGBT agenda.
Thank God there are fewer nuns like this!!!!!!!!!!!
Reminder: National Catholic Reporter is not Catholic.
These so-called “sisters” have forgotten their faith and their vocations in the wake of Vatican II. The rot in the religious life, priests, brothers and religious began when they were encouraged to ” discover themselves” to find “your true place” and other such drivel. Forgotten was faith, forgotten was sacrifice, forgotten was denial of self and forgotten was service. Habits and collars were discarded and hairdos and makeup was adopted. Hospitals and schools became secular and expensive. The perversion of V2 had done it’s work. The old orders are dying, and rightly so, to be eclipsed by the new Traditional, faithful orders, willing to take on the job. Deo Gratias.
Neither the “National Catholic Reporter” nor the “Leadership Conference of Women Religious,” is CATHOLIC!! They are all staunchly ANTI-CATHOLICS— liberal leftists, who deny true Church teachings, promote immoral beliefs, and are very worldly, following the immoral, secular, anti-Christian leftist liberals, who hate the Church! Of course, this mindless “nun” can see no future, for her so-called “religious” order– it is DEAD, and they are all anti-Catholics!! BIG HORSE LAUGH!! The Vatican refuses to tell the TRUTH on these un-Christian, non-Catholic “nuns!!” The Pope botched the silly, worthless “investigation” of the fraudulent “Leadership Conference of Women Religious!”
The nuns of the LCWR are a SCANDAL!! To start off with– many promote feminism, birth control and abortion, and gay “marriage!” I have seen news stories of some of these horrid “nuns,” acting as escorts for pregnant women, to obtain abortions, at abortion clinics!