Francis mandates wide changes for contemplative women religious

Pope Francis has issued a new wide-ranging set of guidelines for how the tens of thousands of Catholic women religious living in contemplative communities around the world should regulate their lifestyles, calling on them to implement changes in 12 diverse areas from prayer life to work habits.

Jul 28, 2016

By Joshua J. McElwee
Pope Francis has issued a new wide-ranging set of guidelines for how the tens of thousands of Catholic women religious living in contemplative communities around the world should regulate their lifestyles, calling on them to implement changes in 12 diverse areas from prayer life to work habits.

The Pontiff has also mandated that each of the global communities of contemplative women religious will need to adapt their various governing constitutions or rules to the new changes and send new versions of their documents to the Vatican for approval.

Francis makes the changes in a new apostolic constitution released on July 22 titled Vultum Dei Quaerere (VDQ) (Seek the Face of God.) The document is addressed only to Catholic women religious in contemplative communities, such as those that live in cloisters or whose lives are marked by a lifestyle devoted mainly to prayer instead of evangelical outreach or work.

While the Pontiff uses the new document to issue effusive praise for such women — especially lauding their ability to serve as an example of stability in a contemporary world often marked by temporary commitments — he also calls for them to begin to institute changes particularly in their prayer lives.

In one example, the Pope mandates that all contemplative women religious communities should practise Eucharistic adoration. He also stresses the use of Lectio Divina, the traditional Benedictine practice of scripture reading, meditation, and prayer.

Addressing his reason for writing to the women with the new norms at this time, Francis states: “In these past decades, we have seen rapid historical changes that call for dialogue. At the same time, the foundational values of contemplative life need to be maintained.”

“Through these values — silence, attentive listening, the call to an interior life, stability — contemplative life can and must challenge the contemporary mindset,” the Pope continues.

The Pontiff then calls on the women worldwide to implement changes after reflecting upon 12 aspects of the monastic tradition: Formation, prayer, the word of God, the sacraments of the Eucharist and reconciliation, fraternal life in community, autonomy, federations, the cloister, work, silence, the communications media and asceticism (see the article below).

The Pope ends the document with 14 articles establishing new canonical norms for how contemplative women religious should live, saying he is setting aside any canons from the Code of Canon Law that “directly contradict any article of the present Constitution.”

Among the most direct changes are:

-- Review its prayer life “to see if it is centred on the Lord” and “set aside appropriate times for Eucharistic adoration, also inviting the faithful of the local Church to take part” 

-- Be a part of some sort of federation with other communities, unless obtaining Vatican permission to not do so 

-- Request Vatican approval “whenever a different form of cloister from the present one is called for”

-- Disallow “recruitment of candidates from other countries solely for the sake of ensuring the survival of a monastery,” stating it should be “absolutely avoided” 

-- “Wait for further instruction from the Vatican’s Congregation for Religious Life on how to implement changes in the 12 specified areas of life and “once they have been adapted to the new regulations, the articles of the constitutions or rules of individual institutes are to be submitted for approval by the Holy See.”

Archbishop Jose Rodriguez Carballo, secretary of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, said at a press conference presenting the new document that his office would now be working on drafting a new instruction to specify how communities are to make the changes in their lifestyles.

The new document will replace the congregation’s 1999 instruction Verbi sponsa and will regulate the “formation, autonomy and seclusion” of contemplative communities, Rodriguez said. --NCR

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