Stop theologizing, go to most needed places: Indian nun

May 20, 2016

ROME: The first Asian nun to lead the global congregation of the Sisters of Notre Dame called on the heads of the world’s communities of Catholic women religious to stop “theologizing” about the needs of the poor and to instead get to work in the places most in need.

Sr Mary Sujita told about 900 women religious representing nearly 500,000 sisters globally at the International Union of Superiors General (UISG) meeting May 10 that they can no longer “reduce (their) mission to some traditional ministries and good charitable deeds” but must work for deep, structural changes around the world.

“What is my real identity? Am I who I claim to be as a woman religious?” she asked. “Who is benefiting from my vows? Will my life make any difference in the lives of those most in need?”

Sujita, who led her order at their Rome headquarters from 1998 to 2011, said congregations should not focus their energies on questions of diminishment — the lower numbers of young women joining their orders — but on serving those on the margins of society.

“The future of religious life will be decided on the peripheries where Christ is in agony,” Sujita said in a plenary address to a triennial meeting of the UISG. “It will not be decided on the number of sisters we have. Let us be clear on this.”

“Sisters, we who have everything and often are among the most privileged woman of the world, what are we afraid of?” Sujita asked. “What is the root of our cowardice and fear?”-- NCR