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Kentucky or India, gospel thrust marks SCN outreach
By ARTHUR JONES NCR
Staff Nazareth, KY.
This particular evening, the Sisters
of Charity of Nazareth June assembly had a task before it -- to elect the
director of The Archangel Choir.
The gatherees approached the vote as a political convention --
state delegations all lobbying for their candidate. Mississippi fielded a lone
delegate, Maria Vincent Brocato, who attempted to command a following as
antebellum-gowned Miss Melanie Magnolia Moore, extolling the
states pecan trees, beautiful cotton and the most hospitable people
youll ever find in your life.
Unsuccessful at the fun night election, Brocato
received a different distinction -- in September she started a five-year term
as SCN president.
As such, said Brocato, back in her day clothes, she and her team
of Srs. Shalini DSouza and Mary Elizabeth Miller, have member-generated
priorities -- to make the congregations governing structure more
relational and simpler, to reflect the orders current numbers and
international nature, and to strengthen our international ties,
which will include discernment regarding Africa.
Theres a marked contrast between the aging of the
congregation and the energy behind its activities. Take as one example the
many-acred Nazareth motherhouse campus itself. Its practically a
self-contained hamlet -- yet open to everyone.
Theres a Montessori school for toddlers and two Nazareth
Villages providing accommodation for more than 150 elderly and people with
disabilities.
Theres Heritage Hall Museum, plus a conference/retreat
center -- retreats that can (for a small fee) include massage and other
holistic services.
The surrounding community uses the campus, its walks and its lake
as its local park -- the order uses it as an environmental issues training
ground -- plus the community participates in Nazareth Arts for Life programs
that use the arts and performance for everything from recreation to
therapy.
Like many alert, large congregations with declining numbers, the
Sisters of Charity have been looking to the future, and to consolidation, for
years. Early into Social Security, they have had leaders who, said outgoing
president, Sr. Elizabeth Wendeln, shepherded the orders income into
investments and began monitoring, 25 years ago, the corporations in which they
invested.
In the past, the community received assistance from the fund for
aging religious, she said, but not currently because we know other
communities are worse off than us. The day may come again. Wendeln said
that projections suggest the congregation, cautiously, can handle the next two
decades financially.
In the United States the sisters activities range from
Covenant House work in Florida to social services in Brockton, Mass., and
Maryland.
But continuing this core outreach work also requires a change in
mindset. Weve been very hesitant in the past, Wendeln said,
to be the link between people who want their money to go to places of
need and those places. Now we see we can be, she said.
Vincent de Paul did that, she said. He had the
Ladies of Charity who couldnt be present to the poor but who could give
and the Daughters of Charity who could be with the poor and did not have the
money.
During Wendelns term, as buildings continue to be converted
to meet new requirements, the sisters have created a development unit to handle
fundraising.
To date its helping in Belize City, where the Sisters of
Charity of Nazareth have worked since 1975. Theyve opened their first SCN
Center -- to serve as a boarding house for women from outlying areas trying to
get their high school and college degrees. Sisters will help tutor them. In
Independence Village, Belize, two sisters tutor women villagers pursuing high
school diplomas through correspondence courses.
In the United States, earlier leaderships, she explained,
consolidated the hospitals and clinics, and brought lay trusteeship to schools
and colleges, closed institutions when necessary; current leaderships grapple
with less tangible questions.
Were now looking at greater depths inwardly, she
said, at transforming our own value system. The last assembly called it
transforming consciousness. Those might just be words, but they are
deep because they are a call for conversion.
Weve started some international teams in the
congregation, and this, she said, was not understood at the
beginning: Why are we having sisters go to international meetings -- why are we
paying for it when the money could serve the poor? Why is it the executive
committee had a meeting in England -- yes, its halfway between India and
the U.S., but so what? Cant the U.S. meet here and give India a
call? These were the questions.
Whats occurring, said Wendeln, is a switch on where the
congregation spends some of its money, and that touches a nerve in some
people. But the deeper part of it is our ability to communicate with one
another as sisters. Were an international order.
When one comes from another country, another culture, what
one says -- the words may be English words yet come from an experience that is
totally different. Its the same with Belize with our African-American and
Spanish-speaking sisters here, said Wendeln.
When I say something from my most sincere heart, said
Wendeln, it could be understood as totally opposite when it goes into the
ears of a person of another culture.
If youre trying to communicate by fax, that makes it
that many levels harder. You try telephone conferencing, but the electricity in
Patna [India] doesnt permit it. So we do it in person -- to try to look
at among ourselves how my behavior affects your behavior affects my behavior.
Its so easy to say were interconnected,
summarized Wendeln, so hard to live it. Transforming our consciousness is
still in process. But it is coming. Its more than just exchanging recipes
and dress and rituals. Though its hard to articulate, it is exchanging
hearts.
It is also sharing risks, some quite serious: Sisters in Belize
have publicly sided with banana workers seeking better pay. In India, where
anti-Christian attacks are rising under Indias current fundamentalist
religious government, sisters have been in the organizing forefront, especially
on womens issues.
Last year Sr. Ann Moyalan and Fr. Tom Nelly organized 500 Parkala
villagers to protest atrocities against women. Women and childrens health
issues mean outreach work in towns and villages and cities -- a shelter for
women and children in Gurgaon where, in collaboration with the Italian lay
Movement of St. Francis Xavier, House of Hope shelters the marginalized and
prostitutes, and promotes literacy and health-care.
Sometimes the work brings conflict with church authorities, too.
Vice President DSouza, until recently working with prostitutes in New
Delhi, was called before the nuncio and the local bishop for distributing
condoms to prostitutes to protect them from AIDS.
The support from her sisters was superb, said DSouza,
especially the letter from the congregation president [Wendeln] saying
that whatever the bishop says, remember, we are behind you.
The funny thing was, said DSouza, after
being corrected by the bishop, he met me at a party and said, Hows
the rubber factory doing? So I felt that in his moments away from the
office he was able to understand.
In the larger context, Wendeln told NCR, theres
such a diversity of where Gods calling us today. Its like starting
all over. But centering that in the Christ, finding our link with the Roman
Catholic church, keeps us in a paschal mystery of death and new life.
I believe we, too, are a challenge to the church, she
said. And how that continues to grow I dont know. I pray we and I
will be very much a part of that healthy tension. The religious life according
to our Holy Father is not a part of the hierarchical church but a gift to the
church.
A charism is a gift to the church. If we truly live the
charism we will be stretching ourselves and the church, said Wendeln.
Its a holy task, and I pray we continue it.
The Sisters of Charity of
Nazareth |
Founded: 1812 in Nazareth,
Ky., by Fr. (later Bishop) John Baptist David with Mother Catherine
Spaulding. Membership: 592 strong in the
United States, but only 140(24 percent) are under 65, and only 12 sisters are
under 50. In India -- founded as a province in 1947 -- 96 percent of the 194
are under 65, two-thirds of them under 50. Candidates: United States 4; India
15. Apostolates: Opened orphanages,
hospitals and schools, including todays Spaulding University and
Presentation Academy, Louisville, and Our Lady of Nazareth Academy in
Wakefield, Mass. The schools today have their own lay trustees; the hospitals
and clinics as a single group entered in 1997 into cosponsorship with 11 other
congregations in Catholic Health Initiatives. The congragation is member of the
Federation of Sisters of Charity and the U.N. non-governmental organization
network and is deeply committed to monitoring corporate responsibility because
of its own investments -- and from pressure from SCN Indian sisters who see the
downside of multinational expansion in their country. Missions: In 1947, at the invitation of U.S.
Jesuits, sisters began work in India. They have worked in Belize sisnce 1975
and Nepal since 1977. |
National Catholic Reporter, March 5,
1999
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