Suchergebnisse

Un problème significatif dans l'élaboration et l'utilisation de réseaux sociaux en recherche urbaine se rapporte à la spécification du contenu des relations de réseau. Dans une étude sur le terrain chez les Danois américains de la Californie, certains facteurs furent de grande utilité dans la définition des liens de réseau. Ce sont: le cadre institutionnel à l'intérieur duquel s'élaborent les liens de réseau; les situations qui leur permettent d'être opérants et la nature affective de ces liens de réseau. En plus de leur valeur opératoire, ces facteurs permettent au chercheur d'évaluer la qualité et la diversité de la vie urbaine.A significant problem in the construction and use of social networks in urban research is that of specifying the content of network relationships. In fieldwork among Danish‐Americans in California, the institutional framework in which network ties were recruited, the situations in which such ties were activated, and the affective nature of network links were useful in defining network bonds. In addition to their operational utility, these factors allow the investigator to assess the quality and diversity of urban life.

Interest has centred recently on the application of the theory of directed graphs to social networks. Graph theory provides a vocabulary and a set of measures which enable the formal properties of a social network to be expressed. A social network may be represented by a number of directed graphs each of which depicts some institutional or interactional aspect of the relationships among individuals involved in it. Such directed graphs may be so complex that their properties are not easily ascertained by visual inspection. However, all the properties of a directed graph may be obtained by performing certain operations on its adjacency matrix.)Whilst a computer may be programmed to perform these operations, optical coincidence cards may be adapted to provide a novel and simple alternative method of manipulating boolean matrices up to 50 × 50 in size which is of low cost and does not require special skills or access to special equipment.

The cultural transformation of our time stems from the extension of the industrial-technological revolution into the sphere of message-production. The mass production and rapid distribution of messages create new symbolic environments that reflect the structure and functions of the institutions that transmit them. These institutional processes of the mass-production messages short-circuit other networks of social communication and superimpose their own forms of collective consciousness—their own publics—upon other social relationships. The consequences for the quality of life, for the cultivation of human tendencies and outlooks, and for the governing of societies, are far-reaching. Informed policy-making and the valid interpretation of social behavior require systematic indicators of the prevailing climate of the changing symbolic environment. A central aspect of cultural indicators would be the periodic analysis of trends in the composition and structure of message systems cultivating conceptions of life relevant to socialization and public policy. Findings of studies of the portrayal of violence in network television drama illustrate the terms of such analysis, and demonstrate the need for more comprehensive, cumulative, and comparative information on mass-cultural trends and configurations.

Este trabajo trata acerca de un tipo de escuela en la realidad educativa chilena, denominada "escuela-isla", caracterizada por su aislamiento institucional del entorno social, económico, político, religioso y cultural donde se encuentra. El concepto nace de una serie de reflexiones bajo el marco formativo de las prácticas pedagógicas tempranas, a partir de un conjunto de experiencias que configuran al centro de enseñanza y que resultan clave para la comprensión de la naturaleza del término. El documento hace una caracterización de este tipo de escuela, reconociendo cualidades que no son propias de una institución social. Asimismo, se propone y justifica la necesidad de un tipo de "alianza simbiótica" entre la organización educativa y el resto de organizaciones de la comunidad (red de enlace) para complementar y potenciar su función educativa (formativa). Por último, se destaca la importancia de la interacción de la escuela con otras instituciones de la sociedad, y que tales vínculos constituyen una estrategia educativa para el desarrollo social y comunitario. This work is about a type of school the Chilean educational reality, to known as school-island, mainly by institutional isolation from the social, economic, political, religious and cultural. The concept stems from a series of reflections within the framework formative early teaching practices, based on a set of experiences that shape the educational unit and are keys to understanding the nature of the term. The document provides a characterization of this type of school, recognizing qualities that are not characteristic of a social institution. It also proposes and justifies the need for a kind of "symbiotic partnership" between the educational organization and other community organizations (network link) to complement and enhance its educational. Finally, it highlights the importance of interaction between the school and other institutions of society and that such links are an educational strategy for social and community development

SummaryThe Role of Regional Organization in Rural DevelopmentThis paper constitutes a report on the concept of regional organization in Israel and some aspects of its implementation. The term 'regional organization' is used in its broadest sense, covering formally organised enterprises as well as networks of relations, and including both manifest and latent functions. Regional organization is treated both as a method of development and as a social system growing out of daily interaction. The paper consists of four parts: first, a brief outline of rural and general development in Israel is sketched, as the background against which regional organization is analysed. Second, the concept of regional organization in Israel, i.e. the goals and functions, is presented. Third, the problems which arise during the implementation of this concept are discussed, including: a. the size and composition or the regional system, b. its ecological basis as opposed to its functional character, c. the scope of regional cooperation, d. the internal conditions necessary for the sustained development of the regional system as a whole, e. the general institutional conditions suitable for regional development. Fourth, and finally, a brief description of a current research project on some of these problems is given.

As Lévi-Strauss puts it, social facts are primarily communication facts. From this point of view political communication is not characterized by the objects it bears upon, but by its praxeologicial character; it is concerned with the effectiveness of communication, and more precisely with power relations and with strategies. So, political communication is to be analysed as a game structure, and not as a network structure or a code structure. It is shown by an example that political communication really presents a game structure, after which some distinctions are made between mastery and control, and then between material, informational, symbolic, and juridical means of power. Like the other structures, game structures are characterized by the laws which govern them. Three of them are specified: the law of equilibration, the law of connectedness, and the law of communal closure. Finally, after reviewing briefly the different orders (practical, institutional, and ideological) where a structure can be seen in operation, three positive aspects of such a game analysis are noted: it is concerned with the inner part of human action, it is well-suited to overcome the limits of functional and systems analysis, and it has the virtue of isolating a truly political dimension in human action.

CAPITAL IS DEFINED AS 'VALUE IN PROCESS' & THE SR ENVELOPING THIS PROCESS; PRODUCTION & CIRCULATION OF CAPITAL & THE CORRESPONDING CLASS RELATIONS ARE MENTIONED. INTERNATIONALIZATION OF CAPITAL IS DISCUSSED WITHIN THE 2-FOLD DEFINITION. THE ORIGIN OF THE MARKET ON THE OUTSIDE OF PRIMITIVE COMMUNITIES IS RELATED TO THE USE VALUE/EXCHANGE VALUE DICHOTOMY. THE PROCESS OF NATION-BUILDING IS THE CREATION OF NEW POLITICAL UNITS CENTERED ROUND SUCH A MARKET & BASED ON A DOFL CUTTING THROUGH PRECAPITALIST SOCIAL FORMATIONS. INTERNATIONALIZATION OF CIRCULATION & EVENTUALLY OF PRODUCTION & CIRCULATION RESULT FROM THE CONTRADICATIONS OF THE CAPITALIST MODE OF PRODUCTION & DEVELOP ALONG THE LINES OF PRENATIONAL TRADE NETWORKS. CONSTRUCTING A SPECIFIC 'NEO' IMPERIALISM ON THE BASIS OF INTERNATIONALIZATION IS NOT VALID. 1870-1914 IMPERIALISM WAS THE FUSION OF INTERNATIONALIZATION OF CIRCULATION & OF PRODUCTION, WHILE TODAY'S IS THE INTERNATIONALIZATION OF PRODUCTION IN FULL SWING. CAPITAL AS A SR IS EXPLICITLY ATTACHED TO THE DESCRIPTION OF THE INTERNATIONALIZATION PROCESS. COMBINING 2 CONFLICT DIMENSIONS (CAPITALIST/LABOR & INTERCAPITALIST) CAPITAL REQUIRES SYSTEMATIC ENFORCEMENT OF EXISTING CLASS RELATIONS, WHICH IS PROVIDED BY THE STATE. THE STATE PERFORMS 2 GROUPS OF FUNCTIONS, EACH DISPLAYING DIFFERENT CHARACTERISTICS IN THE COURSE OF THE INTERNATIONALIZATION PROCESS. IT IS THE MUTUAL DETERMINATION OF THE 2 CONFLICT DIMENSIONS THAT ACCOUNTS FOR THE SYSTEMIC NATURE OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS UNDER THE CONDITIONS OF INTERNATIONALIZED PRODUCTION & CIRCULATION; BECAUSE OF STATE FUNCTIONS INTERNATIONALIZING ALONG WITH CAPITAL, AN INSTITUTIONAL SUPERSTRUCTURE OF THE SYSTEM IS VISIBLE. HA.

SummaryPLANNED REGIONAL‐RURAL DEVELOPMENT IN ISRAEL PROCESSES, PROBLEMS AND ISSUESThe paper discusses some of the problems and processes of social and institutional restructuring in Israeli rural life in the context of regional settlement. First, the sociological meanings of region and regional organization before statehood, and the major changes in regional‐rural settlement during the period of independence, are presented. The differential regional‐physical and socio‐economic focuses in the two main sectors of rural settlement ‐ the collective and the co‐operative —are explained.The bulk of the analysis is devoted to regional settlement of new immigrant villages, in which the functional and dysfunctional consequences of regional organization are studied in one planned regional network, established according to some new sociological planning concepts. In this context, inter‐ and intra‐institutional tensions between existing and emerging rural organizational patterns, and the re‐integrative functions of the new organizations are dealt with on different levels as political and/or religious reintegration, regional enterprises and regional independence, political empowerment of the regional leadership, and regional participation in national decision‐making.RÉSUMÉLA PLANIFICATION DU DEVELOPPEMENT REGIONAL RURAL EN ISRAEL PROCESSUS, PROBLÈMES, RÉSULTATSCet article a pour objet une présentation critique des quelques uns des problèmes et processus de restructuration sociale et institutionnelle de la vie rurale israelienne dans le cadre de la mise en valeur régionale. L'auteur présente, en premier lieu, la signification de concepts tels que «région», «organisation régionale», avant la création de l'Etat d'Israël. En second lieu, il expose les changements principaux dans la mise en valeur régionale depuis cette époque. Enfin, sont exposés les caractéristiques spécifiques, géographiques, sociales, économiques, des deux principaux secteurs: collectif et coopératif, de la mise en valeur.L'essentiel de l'analyse est consacréà l'implantation régionale des villages de nouveaux émigrants; les conséquences fonctionnelles et dysfonctionnelles de l'organisation régionale sont étudiées en prenant l'exemple d'un réseau régional planifié, établi en fonction de concepts sociologiques nouveaux en matière de planification. Dans ce contexte, les tensions inter‐ et intra‐institutionnelles entre les modèles d'organisation existants ou naissants et les fonctions de restructuration des nouvelles organisations sont abordées à différents niveaux de la réalité sociale: intégration politique et/ou religieuse, entreprise régionale et indépendance régionale, accroissement du pouvoir politique des autorités régionales et participation de la région à la prise de décision au niveau national.ZUSAMMENFASSUNGGEPLANTE LÄNDLICHE REGION ALENTWICKLUNG IN ISRAEL PROZESSE, PROBLEME UND AUFGABENDer Beitrag diskutiert einige Probleme und Prozesse der sozialen und institutionellen Umstrukturierung im ländlichen Leben Israels im Kontext der regionalen Siedlung. Zuerst werden die sozialen Inhalte von Region und regionale Organisation vor der Staatsbildung und die wesentlichen Veränderungen in der regionalen ländlichen Besiedlung während der Periode der Unabhängigkeit dargestellt. Die unter‐schiedlichen regional‐physikalischen und sozioökonomischen Brenn‐punkte in den beiden Hauptsektoren der ländlichen Besiedlung ‐ der kollektiven und der genossenschaftlichen Siedlung ‐ werden erklärt. Der Hauptteil der Analyse ist der regionalen Ansiedlung von neuen Immigrantendörfern gewidmet, in denen funktionale und dysfunktionale Folgen der regionalen Organisation in einem geplanten Rahmen untersucht werden, der entsprechend neuen soziologischen Planungskonzepten geschaffen wurde. In diesem Zusammenhang werden behandelt Spannungen in und zwischen existierenden und sich entwickelnden ländlichem Organisationen und die reintegrativen Fuuktionen neuer Organisationen auf den verschiedenen Ebenen der politischen und oder religiösen Reintegration, der regionalen Unter‐nehmen und der regionalen Unabhängigkeit, politische Machtbildung der regionalen Führung und regionale Teilnahme an den nationalen Entscheidungen.

Issue 34.5 of the Review for Religious, 1975. ; Revtew ]or Rehgtous ts edited by faculty members of the School of DIvlmty of St Louts University, the edttorlal ol~ces bemg located at 612 Humboldt Buddmg, 539 North Grand Boulevard; St. Louis, Missouri 63103. It is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute; St. Louis, Missouri. Published bimonthly and copy-right (~) 1975 by Review [or Religious. Composed, printed, and manufactured in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri. S!ngle copies: $1.75. Subscription U.S.A. and Canada: $6.00 a year; $11.00 for two years; other countries, $7.00 a year, $13.00 for two years (for airmail delivery, add $5.00 per year). Orders should indicate whether they are for new or renewal subscriptions and should be accompanied by check or money order payable to Review ]or Religious in U.S.A. currency only. Pay no money to persons claiming .to represent Review ]or Religious. Change of address requests should include former ad~ciress. Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Everett A. Diederich, S.J. Joseph F. Galicn, S.J. Editor Associate Editor Questions and Answers Editor September 1975 Volume 34 Number 5 Renewals, new subscriptions, and changes of address should be sent to Review for Religious; P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, Minnesota 55802. Correspondence with the editor and the associate editor together with manuscripts and books for review should be sent to Review for Religious; 612 Humboldt Building; 539 North Grand Boulevard; St. Louis, Missouri 63103. Questions for answering should be sent to Joseph F. Gallen, S.J.; St. Joseph's College; City Avenue at 54th Street; Philadelphia, Pennsyl-vania 19131. / ;" ~: :°~Vith these ,words Po o ~t only for Jesmts,~but-~f6r all~rehg~ous;~ )s wh6, .in ~varyingways, ~dentff, y:.o. 671 A Survey of the Thirty-second General Congregation John R. Sheets, S.J. Fr. Sheets, chairman of the theology department of Creighton University and director of its new Masters Degree in Christian Spirituality program, was an elected delegate of his province (Wisconsin) at the 32nd General Congregation. He resides at Creighton University; 2500 Califor-nia St.; Omaha, NB 68178. The Thirty-second General Congregation of the Society of Jesus began on December 2, 1974. It finished its work on March 7, 1975. The Holy See authorized the promulgation of its decrees on May 2, 1975. In this article I will attempt to set down in an intelligible way a description of what went on during those ninety-six days, especially for (hose who are not Jesuits but who are in-terested in the congregation. Having gone over once again both the official documents and the Acta of the congregation, and having tried to recapture.my own experience over those days, I feel keenly the limitations of what follows. In the first place, it is difficult to give a survey of the vast amount of material covered by the various commissions;-secondly, it is hard to detail my own ex-perience without writing an autobiography; thirdly, it would take someone with both a sense of historical detail and a journalistic flair to present the in-terplay that took place among the various identifiable groups within the con-gregation, and also what took place between the Vatican and the congregation. In spite of these reservations, I hope that the observations that follow might provide some insight into what happened, and at the same time provide a counterweight to impressions given to the public through the general press. For me personally the congregation was the peak experience of my life. I am still trying to sort out the reasons for this. There is the obvious fact of hav-ing been part of a decision-making body whose decrees could have momentous importance for the Societ), of Jesus and for the Church at a very critical mo- A Survey of the Thirty-Second General Congregation / 673 ment in history. Again there was the experience of being "companions in the Lord" with two hundred and thirty-six other Jesuits from all over the world, united in the same Ignatian vision, sharing a common purpose, praying and working together to formulate with the help of the Holy Spirit responses to what the Church and the world ask of the Society today. The "honeymoon experience" of the first days gave way, as the weeks went on, to the .experience of fatigue, the perplexities of the search for the proper wording, the experience of working on disparate problems at the same time, without any clear point of convergence. Added to these was the experience of the interaction between the Vatican and the congregation which brought with it great anguish. However, it was also perhaps the experience that changed the congregation from a group of planners relying much on our own wisdom into something approximating an instrument of the Holy Spirit. The whole experience of the congregation in many ways paralleled what a person goes through in making the Spiritual Exercises, where one is subject to the movement of different spirits. On the one hand, it was the occasion of the greatest consolation; on the other, 1 have never in my life experienced such heaviness of heart. There were moments when one could almost feel the presence of the Holy Spirit, particularly at the concelebrated liturgies where one was drawn into the mystery of the communio jesuitarum, both the living and the dead, ~hrough our sharing in the Eucharist. Certainly the con-celebrated Mass, celebrated on the opening day of the congregatiofi in the Gesu, a church hallowed by the memories of Ignatius, Xavier and the early history of the Society, with seven hundred Jesuits participating, was one such moving experience. But if there were consolations, there were also periods of desolation, the worst desolation I have ever experienced. These came from the pall of uncer-tainty cast over the congregation from the communications of the Holy Father through Cardinal Villot in reference to the way the congregation had proceeded on a particular point concerning the Fourth Vow in the Society. This was also the occasion for the Holy Father to remark with pain that he detected from the Acta of the congregation attitudes among the delegates which were at variance with the kind of disposition a Jesuit should have toward the Pope. To be frank, however, it was not so much the interventions of the Holy Father that depressed me. In fact, as events would show, he was under the im-pression that we had received a specific communication on the subject that he had given to one of the delegates to be transmitted to us. But because of a mis-understanding the delegate did not in fact communicate it, and the congrega-tion learned about it only after we had taken a step which seemed to con-travene directly the explicit instruction of the Holy Father. To me the tone of his and Cardinal Villot's letter, while severe, was comprehensible in the light of this misunderstanding on the communication of their earlier message. What was far more upsetting was the sudden change in the mental climate of the congregation. Somewhere Kierkegaard mentions that the sudden is the 1574 / Review for, Religious, Volume 34, 1975/5 category of the demonic. In the course of only minutes, the demon of rumor, suspicion and recrimination was let loose. Suddenly it all fitted into a kind of master plot to discredit Fr. Arrupe, bring about his resignation, and bring to nothing the efforts of the congregation. No one knew who the enemies were, but some gave the impression that there was one hiding behind every column in the Vatican. Among the memories which will always be with me are the occasions when I used to walk in St. Peter's Square at night, when it was deserted, except for a police car and a few pa~sers-by. The majestic beauty of the facade of St. Peter's, bathed by the light of the moon, the beauty of the fountains flashing in the lights, the Vatican apartments with a light here and there, formed a setting of peace which seemed to overflow into me, particularly when events occurred which plunged the congregation into gloom. Looking back over those difficult periods I am certain that if it were not for the example and leadership of Fr. Arrupe we would have lost courage. He transmitted to us both by word and example a sense of the working of God's providence and the life-through-death process in which we were engaged. We were faced with the humbling and humiliating fact that we experts who were supposed to discern the signs of the times could not discern a sign that was much closer to us. In many ways the misunderstandings did not "have to be," when one looks at them from a human point of view. The reports from the press about con-frontation, maneuver and counter-maneuver were the product of journalistic imagination. The sad fact is that pain was caused by people who were trying their utmost to act with responsibility to the Holy Father and to the Society. But I have probably got ahead of myself. All I wanted to do in these in-troductory remarks was to point out that for me personally the experience of those three months led by the diverse paths of joy and anguish to a deeper ex-perience of the ways of God, that "If Yahweh does not build the house, in vain the masons toil." The Procedure Followed in the Business of the Congregation In preparation for this congregation there had been four years of highly organized participation on the level of the local communities and the provinces. The extent of this participation varied. In general, however, it had a beneficial result in creating the awareness that this congregation would grow out of the discernment that took place on the local level rather than work from the top down. Perhaps some might consider that this was a waste of time and money when we measure the results of those years of preparation, and the little impact that it had directly on the congregation. However, the minimal result of this preparation was that at least we did not come into the work of the congregation cold, but had some awareness of the problems that confront us, as there were seen by a large segment of the Society. For those who are not familiar with the structure of the Society of Jesus, a few words of explanation may be helpful. In the Society of Jesus the supreme A Survey of the Thirty-Second General Congregation / 675 authority is vested in the General Congregation. It does not meet at regular in-tervals, but only on two occasions, either to elect a new superior general, or to face a particular state of affairs which can be handled only by the highest authority of the Society. Of the thirty-two congregations that have met in the four hundred and thirty-five years of the Society's history, all except seven have been called to elect a new superior general. When, therefore, in 1970 Fr. Arrupe decided to call a General Congregation to convene after appropriate preparation, he felt that the state of the Society needed to be reviewed. It was an opportune time, since ten years would have elapsed since Vatican II and our last congregation. Delegates to a General Congregation are basically of two kinds: the provincial superiors, who attend by right of office, who make up ap-proximately one-third of the membership of a congregation and the other two-thirds who are elected. The only delegates who were unable to attend the 32nd General Congregation were a few from behind the Iron Curtain. Their unoc-cupied desks remained an ever-present symbol to the assembly of the oppres-sion of the Church in various areas. In spite of these absences, there were two hundred thirty-six delegates present. In the Society of Jesus the agenda is made up after the congregation con-venes. It is based mainly on the postulates (requests) submitted either from in-dividual Jesuits or provinces. Contrary to what one might suspect, there is probably no more democratic legislative group than is to be found in the General Congregation. Any Jesuit can send in postulates either through his province or directly, as an individual to the General Congregation. All of these are considered on their merits independently of their source. Over one thousand postulates were submitted. After a preliminary analysis, it was seen that they could be organized according to ten categories. Ten commissions were set up roughly corresponding to these ten categories. Initially the commissions had a membership of about twenty-five each, com-posed of representatives from different parts of the Society. Later, for the sake of efficiency in composing the documents emerging from the commissions, the number was reduced to four or five. The amount of work that went into the final draft of the documents was enormous. The work of the commission would be submitted to the whole assembly, receive revisions (or even be re-jected), be returned to the commission; then again be submitted to the assembly, with a repetition of the same procedm:e, until the assembly was satisfied with it. The whole assembly convened in a large hall that had been especially renovated for the congregation. Electronic equipment was installed to provide simultaneous translation. Voting was done by means of a small switch at each desk. In the front of the hall in full view of all the delegates was a large elec-tronic board, with indicator lights arranged accordihg to the seating plan in the hail. This board registered the votes with a green light if affirmative or a red, if negative. At the top of the board was a place where the total affirmative and negative vote would register immediately after the vote was taken. All ~'~' ~ ~.~. 676;~ R~i~.w for Religious, Volume 34, 1975/5 voting~'~bhe exception," was public. The exception came at the request of the congregatiori ~hen it came to vote on the question of grades in the Society. Doubtless this pr0ce.dure was intended to provide the general with the oppor-tunity to vote in a way that would not compromise him in whatever future ac-tions he would have to take.as a result of the vote. The Main Themes Seventeen documents issued from the congregation, most of them originating from the ten commissions which had been established. Other documents came from special commissions appointed as the need arose. Though the documents differ in content, some common themes run throughout. Perhaps the main theme reflected in the documents is that of mission. Related to this is a reawakened awareness of the Society as a whole, of which the local communities are part. The Society, while it exists also for the sanc-tification of its members, takes its special meaning from its apostolic orienta-tion. This apostolic orientation is specified by its relationship to the Holy See, particularly through the Fourth Vow, and in its service to the Church through the promotion and defense of the faith. A characteristic of this apostolic orienta-tion is adaptability to the needs of particular times and places. In our day this involves an overriding concern to overcome the injustices which oppress so many millions of people. However, in all of its apostolic work, the goal and the means it uses are to be consistent with the tradition of the Society as set forth in its Formula of the Institute which sets forth its fundamental pontifical law. This ties in with the identity of the Society, a theme that is both the subject of one particular document and one that runs through all of the others as well. The Society is a priestly, apostolic body, bound to the Holy See in a special way for the defense and promotion of the faith. The sense of mission involves not only working with those who are op-pressed but it also involves becoming identified with them as far as this is possible. Our poverty, therefore, which has its juridical as well as evangelical aspects, takes on a particular experiential mode in so far as, by it, we can iden-tify with the poor. The decree that has to do with union of hearts and minds is also intimately related to the nature of the Society as an apostolic body. Ignatius clearly saw that the Society's apostolate depended first of all on the union of the members with God, and then derivatively on their union with one another. One theme which is conspicuous is that of repentence. The Society acknowledges that it has failed in recent years to live up to those characteristics which were suppose to distinguish it, such as obedience, loyalty to the Holy See, fidelity tO the principles of the religious life. The State of the Society One of the commissions set up early in the order of business was the one charged to examine the state of the Society. Its purpose was to form some A Survey of the Thirty-Second General Congregation / 677 kind of an evaluation of the condition of the Jesuit order at this point in its history, assessing both its weaknesses and its strengths. To provide this com-mission with input, the delegates met in small groups over a period of several days. These small groups were of two kinds: what were called "assistancy groups" (for example, all of the American Jesuits belong to one "assistancy," the French to another, etc.), and "language groups," composed of people from different countries who had some facility in their own and other languages (German-English, French-English, Spanish-French, etc.) These groups dis-cussed the state of the Society in reference to key points such as formation of Jesuits, religious observance, the apostolate. These sessions broadened the practical knowledge each of us had of the Society and helped to create among us an awareness of community. They were also informative, first of all in bringing us to realize that many of the problems were common, with varying degrees of acuteness, while others were peculiar to a particular section of the Society. A criticism which many of us in the western world resonated with came from one of the German provincials in my group when he said that the image that the Society in Germany gives is that of B~rgerlichkeit, which in English connotes a comfortable, gentlemanly, middle-class existence. On the other hand, the situation of the Jesuits from behind the Iron Cur-tain, some of whom were also in my language group, has spared them some of the enervating effects of secularization. For one reason, their apostolate, where they are able to exercise it, is mostly pastoral work; secondly, their precarious existence serves to keep their faith at a high level of vitality. The delegates from the Third World countries brought other emphases. From the Spanish speaking countries there was a strong orientation toward social change, bringing with it problems of political involvement and the degree to which such involvement could subscribe to an ideology which often had Marxist overtones. In other regions, such as Africa, Indonesia and the Far East, one of the main problems is "inculturation," embodying the faith and the spirit of the Society in forms peculiar to their own cultures. As part of this evaluation on the state of the Society, Fr. General himself gave a picture of the way he sees the Society at the present, as a body which is very much alive, but with certain illnesses. He also gave a detailed description of his own relationship with the Holy See and the other officials in the Vatican, providing afterwards an opportunity for the delegates to question or discuss any of the points he had brought up. The document on the state of the Society which came out as a result of all this exchange is not one of the papers published to the Society. It was intended only for the delegates and their work in the congregation itself. However, the document is not in fact that useful. Its main value was in providing the oppor-tunity for the delegates to familiarize,themselves with the state of the Society through their live exchanges with one another. A document of this kind by its nature remains general, and gives little sense of the extent and import of either the positive or negative points. 671~ / Review for Religious, l/olume 34, 1975/5 The Work of the Commissions As was mentioned above, ten commissions were formed, more or less along the lines of the categories of material received in the postulates. While a few others later came into being and some of the original ones were changed, these ten commissions formed pretty much the working base of the Congrega-tion. Risking over-simplification, they could be divided into those which looked mainly inward, for example, about our "grades," the Fourth Vow, for-mation, final incorporation into the Society (final vows), central government, the constitution of provincial and general congregations; those which looked outward, namely, the mission of the Society today, inculturation, the service of the Society to the Church; and finally those which look both inward and outward, for example, on union of hearts, the Jesuit today. Some comments on a few of the documents might contribute to a better understanding of them. 1. The Mission of the Society Today The decree which took up the lion's share of the time, and which provided the platform for most of the rhetoric was the one that dealt with the mission of the Society today. The very nature of the topic explains why it took so long to come up with a satisfactory formulation. It involves an articulation that had to bring together the old and the new: fidelity to the essentials of the Society's apostolic nature, and coming to grips with the needs of today. While such a formulation has its own difficulties, the problem was exacer-bated by an initially one-sided approach and by the impression that some gave of using language more appropriate to political parties than to a religious group attempting to clarify its mission. The initial approach was largely horizontal, too much concentrated on the socio-economic aspects, with too lit-tle of the priestly. In the effort to make the congregation conscious of the urgency of these problems there was a tendency to absolutize what was in fact only one aspect of the Society's apostolate. One of the observations offered by Cardinal Villot in the letter in which he com-municated the Pope's authorization to promulgate the work of the congregation pertains to this decree. He stresses an important point, which is already present in the decree, but which deserves emphasis, namely, that the total work of evangelization has a comprehen-sion that cannot be reduced to working for social justice, and secondly that there is a priestly way of working for social justice that is distinct from the proper role of the laity. No one can judge from the final document how much work went into it. If one were tothink of a carpenter shop filled with shavings, and one tiny cabinet to show for the work, the comparison would be apt. The final decree, though somewhat diffuse, manages to relate the fundamental apostolic orientation of the Jesuit life as a priestly order to the promotion of faith which in the real-life situation is inseparable from the promotion of justice. 2. Poverty The. subject of poverty has continued to bedevil our recent congregations. A Survey of the Thirty-Second General Congregation ] 679 As everyone knows, there are two main aspects to what is called religious poverty: the juridical and the evangelicalwor the personal appropriation of the values of evangelical poverty. The decree on poverty, probably the most im-portant document to come out of the congregation, has two parts, the first be-ing more inspirational and exhortatory, while the second is juridical, setting down a basic reform in the structures of our institutional practice of poverty. It is not possible to enter into the technicalities of the juridical part of the decree since it presupposes some knowledge of the structure of the Society. Suffice it to say that the decree formulates what is, to my mind, a creative way of realizing for our own times the Ignatian ideal of poverty, taking into con-sideration the different socio-economic conditions of the twentieth and six-teenth centuries. On the personal side, frugality, the sense of being part of the kenotic mystery of Christ, dependence on the community, and identification with the poor are stressed. in his letter, Cardinal Villot makes two points concerning this decree. After commenting on the fact that the Holy Father was aware of the immense amount of work that had gone into this decree, which attempts to relate the traditional practice of poverty in the Society to the needs of our times, he says that considering the newness of the approach, it would be better to promulgate the decree ad experimentum, to be reviewed in the next General Congregation. He also cautions that the decree should not jeopardize the Society's traditional approach to gratuity of ministries. 3. Grades and the Fourth Vow No other subject discussed by the congregation received as much attention from the press as that of our "grades" and the Fourth Vow. As I remarked above, the delegates had proceeded in a spirit of obedience to the Holy Father's wishes, but in the spirit of Ignatian obedience which allows represen-tation of one's case to the superior, with full openness, however, to the final decision of the superior. But, as I mentioned above, the delegates were not aware of an important communication from the Holy Father which he had given to one of the officials manifesting his mind clearly on the topic. We were made aware of this special communication only after we had proceeded in good faith to take up the question, and to give an "indicative" votewone that is not definitive, but from which it is possible to infer the mind of the delegates. The indicative vote was overwhelmingly in favor of abolishing grades. One can imagine the consternation of the Holy Father when he read of the results of this in the Acta, a copy of which he received regularly, especially when he learned that we had not been given his specific directive on this matter which had been communicated to one of the officials of the congregation. This unfortunate series of events precipitated a strong response from the Vatican. First there was a letter from Cardinal Villot in the name of the Holy Father expressing his consternation at the proceedings. Later there was a letter from the Holy Father himself, tin which he expressed his wonderment, pain, disappointment. What the delegates found particularly difficult to understand in Cardinal Viilot's letter was the strong language used about the failure of Fr. Arrupe to exercise the proper kind of leadership that could have headed off this series of unfortunate events. I~1~0 / Review for Religious, Volume 34, 1975/5 While the delegates were still reeling from this unexpected turn of events, they learned of the directive that had been given by Cardinal Villot to one of the officials to be given to the congregation. The official explained before the whole congregation that he had not understood that he was supposed to transmit this directive to the delegates in any official way. This was a costly mistake. Yet in some ways I think it was a felix culpa because of the benefits which came out of it, as I shall comment below. At this point I should say something about the meaning of the grades and the Fourth Vow for those unfamiliar with the Society's structure and legisla-tion. When the idea of the Society was evolving in the mind and experience of Ignatius, one of the features that emerged was a conception of having membership in the Society on different levels, or "grades." For those with their final vows, there were to be three levels or grades. First of all, there are the "solemnly professed," with solemn vows of poverty, chastity, obedience, and a Fourth Vow of special obedience to the Holy Father in regard to mis-sions, that is, apostolic commissions. In the past one hundred years about 40% of Jesuit priests have belonged to this grade. In the mind of Ignatius the professed were supposed to exemplify to a special degree what he looked for in every Jesuit, proficiency in learning, a high degree of virtue, mobility, a life supported only by free-will offerings, exemplifying in their lives a similar relationship to the Vicar of Christ that the disciples showed toward Christ Himself. In addition, key positions in government were reserved to the professed, such as the office of provincial. Again, only the professed could take part in a General Congregation. In the second place, there were priests whose final vows were simple, not solemn. Without going into detail on the differences between solemn and sim-ple vows, it is sufficient to remark here that for one thing they differ accord-ing to the seriousness of the reasons needed for dispensation. This grade is that of "spiritual coadjutor." Members of this grade do not take the vow of special obedience to the Holy Father. In the third place, there are "temporal coadjutors" or brothers. Their final vows are also simple vows of poverty, chast.ity, and obedience. They have the same apostolic purpose as the priests, but have a different way of contributing to the realization of it. The grades are a feature that are peculiar to the Society. As one would sur-mise, the distinction has not been an unmixed blessing in the history of the Society. Though Ignatius never conceived of a Society which would have privileged and unprivileged castes, human nature being what it is, the results were predictable. Since human nature associates power with authority, the professed came to be considered as a kind of first-class type of Jesuit, and the non-professed as second-class. In recent years there has been much historical research on the origin of the ~grades. Also there has been considerable discussion whether the distinction of ~the grades was inextricably tied up with the vision of St. Ignatius, or whether it was something that with the change of times no longer served a purpose. The A Survey of the Thirty-Second General Congregation Thirty-first General Congregation did not face the question head-on. It con-tented itself with broadening the norms by which a person could be admitted to profession. It also transmitted the final solution of the problem to the Thirty-second General Congregation. The intervention of the Holy Father did not directly concern grades. He limited himself to the question of the Fourth Vow, which he said could not be extended to non-priests. This intimates that the Holy Father was concerned not simply about a juridical division in the Society which could be changed by another law, but about a theological question concerning the relationship between the priestly identity of those who take the Fourth Vow and the mis-sions which are the direct object of the vow. Again (I am speculating) the intervention of the Holy Father might be a healthy reminder in this age of blurring all distinctions for the sake of dubious notions of equality, that differentiation in functions does not necessarily mean division. Reserving the Fourth Vow to priests helps to keep the priestly focus of the apostolic work of the Society which has characterized it from the begin-ning. This need not create first- and second-class citizens, but it could engender an awareness that there are different gifts within the same body by which the same goal is realized. 4. The Union of Hearts A commission without a name was set up as a kind of catchall to handle four topics that on the surface had little unity: the question of union and pluralism, communal discernment, religious life, and community life. Since I was a member of this commission from beginning to end, I feel more in touch with it than with the other commissions. It was a kind of a "Benjamin" com-mission compared with those set up to handle the "important" topics like mis-sion, grades, poverty, etc. Ironically, Benjamin was suddenly given an importance late in the con-gregation. The Holy Father in his intervention had commented on the fact that he had heard a lot about mission and justice, but little about renewal of the religious life, even though we had already been at it for two months. So all of a sudden the pressure was on to come up with something significant along those lines. The final document on union of hearts is a contemporary commentary, on Chapter One of Part VIII of our Constitutions, "Aids Toward the Uniori of Hearts." Under this heading the commission found a focus which could unite the various topics given to it. Much effort was spent in an attempt to formulate a clear statement on the subject of union and pluralism. Many of the postulates asked for such a state-ment, some of them stressing the harm coming from internal divisions, others emphasizing the need for a "healthy pluralism." Eventually the commission decided that a theoretical statement would not be helpful. Instead it for-mulated, along with principles on which union of hearts is based, certain prac-tical directives on prayer, community life, sacraments, and communal discern-ment. 682 / Review for Religious, Volume 34, 1975/5 The subject of communal discernment received a lot of discussion. Some wanted to turn it into a kind of Aladdin's lamp which could call forth some kind of a jinni. Others were more skeptical over the possibility of univer-salizing the practicableness of such a process. The final statement in the docu-ment attempts to locate communal discernment within the spectrum of various kinds of spiritual exchange within a community, not exaggerating its role, but on the other hand recognizing the value that it has when the right dispositions and circumstances are present. Incidentally about midway through the congregation, an ad hoc commis-sion was also established to see whether the congregation itself could not carry on its work through a method of communal discernment. After a couple of meetings, it dissolved, because it felt that proceeding according to a formal method of communal discernment was impractical for the congregation because of the large numbers involved and the wide range of subjects on the agenda. 5. The Jesuit Today In the light of the diversity that has appeared in Jesuit life over the past ten years, it was felt necessary to have a statement which would describe the meaning of being Jesuit today. The congregation was presented with five different papers, each of which approached the subject of Jesuit identity from different points of view. They opted for the one which now appears among the official decrees. The decree relates Jesuit identity today in a very simple way to our Igna-tian tradition, to our apostolic mission, and to the source, center, and goal of Jesuit life, which is the imitation of Christ. The Holy See and the General Congregation We have already commented on the intervention of the Holy See in regard to the subject of extending the Fourth Vow to non-priests. However, this is only an application of something which is much broader. The interest of the Holy See in this congregation is unparalleled in the whole history of the Society. Perhaps this comes from the fact that Pope Paul had a keen sense of its importance for the Society and for the Church itself. I have just finished once again going over the papal documents, beginning with the letter written to Fr. Arrupe on September 15, 1973, which the Holy Father wrote after Fr. General had announced the convening of the General Congregation, and concluding with the covering letter which was added to the approbation of the decrees. There is one theme running through all of these communications: the necessity of being faithful to the distinctive nature of the Society as it is expressed in the Formula of the Institute, a distinctiveness which has proved its fruitfulness over hundreds of years of experience. Specifically, the Society is described time and time again as a priestly apostolic order, with a special bond of obedience to the Holy See. There is, to be sure, a stress on the need to adapt to the needs of our times, but such adap- A Survey of the Thirty-Second General Congregation I 683 tation must always maintain the essentials as these are to be found in the For-mula. 1 Pope Paul wrote of his concern for the Society not only as the Vicar of Christ who has responsibility for the whole Church, but in terms which, unless I am mistaken, are unprecedented in the history of this relationship between the Society and the Holy See. He speaks of himself as the one who has the chief responsibility for the preservation of the Formula of the Institute, "supremus 'Formulae Instituti' fideiussor," and the chief protector and preserver of the Formula, "Formulae Instituti supremus tutor ac custos." It would not be true to say that all of the delegates responded with un-qualified enthusiasm to the interventions of the Holy Father. Though all recognized his right in abstracto to intervene, a~nd the corresponding attitude of obedience to which we were obliged and, which all gave without contesta-tion, nevertheless when the interventions came in this particular way, with these particular words and in this particular timing, there were signs of ruffled feelings. In case anyone needed reminding, we learned in the process that the delegates as a whole, while good and responsible men, are not yet ready for canonization. However, we did see in an exemplary way the incarnation of Jesuit obedience in at least one person, Fr. Arrupe. This was not something he did just "to give good example." His whole life has been so totalized by his faith that even his perceptions pick up the reality beneath the appearance. He senses the presence of the Vicar of Christ beneath the appearance of Pope Paul. The concern of the Holy Father shown in so many ways over the past few years and in a special way through his vigilance over the activities of the con-gregation are to my way of thinking a special grace for the Society. In a way that we never planned on, the interventions of the Holy Father brought us to a level of faith we would not have reached by ourselves. It also brought us to a realization that the Society is a servant of the Church. In some small way the history of this congregation parallels the description of Peter's death, about whom our Lord said, "You will stretch out your hands, and somebody else will put a belt round you and take you where you would rather not go" (Jn 21:18). Father Arrupe I have already mentioned that if it were not for Fr. Arrupe's example and leadership the congregation would have capsized under the difficulties it ran into. He constantly called us to a vision we needed in order to see what was happening from a supernatural point of view, and in order to avoid the traps of tNot many Jesuits are aware either of the content or the importance of the Formula of the Institute. Yet, even more than the Constitutions, it is the basic rule or fundamental code of legisla-tion in the Society. It contains the results of the deliberations of Ignatius and his companions in 1539 which provided the first sketch of the Institute of the Society of Jesus. It was first approved by Paul Iil in 1540, then again by Julius 111 in 1550 in a slightly revised form. 684 / Review for Religious, l/olume 34, 1975/5 self-pity or recrimination that were only too present. Like one of th~ prophets, he reminded us to see what was happening as coming from the hand of God, and to use it for our own purification and conversion. In a talk given to the delegates on the second day of the congregation, he spoke of the answer that we had to give to the needs of our times. It should be the foolishness of the cross by which Christ redeemed the world, which is the wisdom of God. "In the absolute foolishness of the Cross, the emptying of all things, we find the key to the ultimate solution to the problems of today." In a way we did not foresee, those words were prophetic. Again, he exercised his leadership by leaving the congregation free to follow the paths where its deliberations would take it. In its authority, the General Congregation is superior to the general. Fr. Arrupe always acted with full awareness of this fact. On occasion he would let the delegates know how he felt about certain things, not to pressure them, but in order to make this part of the input of their deliberations. The congregation showed its appreciation of his leadership over the past ten year,s in many ways. There are few who have had to pilot a ship through such a stormy period. The burden has not been easy. But there is always evi-dent in him the same buoyancy and infectious joy that somehow puts him in touch with the Stillpoint that is beyond, above, beneath the storm. Yet, while realizing his outstanding qualities, the delegates did not apotheosize Fr. Arrupe. They realized that with all of his gifts there were also limitations. In fact, the decree which set up a council for the general was framed mainly to supply the kind of help which might balance out the one-sidedness of some of his gifts. Differences Between This Congregation and the Previous Ones The Thirty-second (2ongregati0n had many characteristics which made it very different from any preceding General Congregation. Some of the more important ones might be the following. As was mentioned above, there was a four-year period of preparation for this congregation which was unprecedented. Similarly a few months before the actual opening day a special preparatory commission met to organize the material. This was the first General Congregation where, from the start, traditional rules of secrecy were lifted, except for the prohibition against making public either the names of delegates who spoke on the different questions, or the tally of the votes. Five Jesuit journalists were given free access to the meetings. They published a report about every week that kept the Society informed of the progress of affairs. In this Congregation for the first time the voices of the Third World were not only heard in larger numbers, but they showed a vitality that added zest to the meetings. However, even among these voices there were different accents. All of them were keenly aware of the injustices which oppress their peoples by reason of the exploitation of the capitalistic countries. However, the Spanish- A Survey of the Thirty-Second General Congregation / 685 speaking delegates tended to stress political and social involvement; the Africans continually reminded us of the need for the sense of the transcendent, the specifically God-and-Christ-centered nature of our apostolate; and those from the Far East, while keeping these same perspectives, also stressed the need for approaches that were directed both toward personal conversion and change of the structures. No other congregation has met at a period when there has been such a crisis in vocations. Over the past ten years, the Society has diminished from about 36,000 to 30,000 members. While in some places the number of novices has begun to pick up again, the overall picture remains dim. In 1965 there were 1902 novices compared to 705 in 1974. In the United States there are about 200 novices, showing a slight increase over the past few years. In some coun-tries, however, the picture is dismal. Spain, for example, had 269 novices in 1965. In 1974 it had only 30. Germany had 114 in 1965. At present it has about 30. Similar figures could be given for France, Belgium, Holland, Italy. When one compares the number of scholastics presently in their training with the number of priests engaged in apostolic work, there is only one scholastic for every five priests. This will seriously change the scope of our apostolic work over the next fifty years. Another unique factor was the everpresent concern of the Holy See in regard to the preparation for the congregation, the things taken up, and the final results, as I have mentioned above. The theme was repeated over and over again: be faithful to yourselves, especially to your identity as it is ex-pressed in your Formula of the Institute. The only specific feature which was singled out in the expressions of this concern was fidelity to the lgnatian idea of the Fourth Vow, both positively in the fact that it should be a vital factor in the life of the Society, and negatively in that it should not be extended to non-priests. Again, the fact of asking the congregation to submit its decrees to the Holy See for its approval before they were promulgated was unprecedented. The approbation was given with, in some instances, a few qualifications. Another characteristic which distinguishes this congregation from begin-ning to end and is evident in the decrees is thee theme of repentance. There is a mea culpa, mea maxima culpa evident in the Introductory Decree, the Decree on Mission, on The Jesuit Today, as well as in others. The Society is painfully conscious of its failings over the past ten years. Particularly in contrast to the Thirty-first Congregation, with its stress on freedom, subsidiarity and conscience, this one stressed the complementary features of the limits of pluralism, the need for norms that are applicable for Jesuit life as a whole, the responsibility of superiors for a greater firmness in governing, the importance of the manifestation of conscience both for the spiritual direction of the individual, and the good of the apostolate, the value of communal discernment when the proper conditions are realized. This congregation, unlike others, had a unifying theme throughout: the mission of the Society today. This did not happen because it was planned. There was a kind of unconscious dynamic at work which imperceptibly gave 686 / Review for Religious, Volume 34, 1975/5 this orientation to the various decrees. The consciousness of mission, if fully appropriated in all of its richness, could do much to revivify the Society, over-coming in the first place a great deal of individualism and self-will, and bring-ing about a greater sense of the living presence of Christ sending through His Church, and through superiors. In the actual procedure of the congregation there were unique features arising from the sharing that took place in smaller groups. One of the most im-portant parts of our daily life was the concelebrated Mass which was celebrated according to the different language groupings. Finally this congregation is probably distinctive in the fact that a little over half of the delegates were under forty-nine years old (122 out of the 236). Strengths and Weaknesses of the Congregation Like all meetings of this kind there are both strengths and weaknesses to be found. I could not resist the temptation to say that one of the strengths was un-doubtedly sheer psychological tenacity to "keep at it" for over three months when everyone was exhausted both from the work itself and the emotional strain. But the main strength of the congregation is the sense of solidarity manifest among the delegates and throughout the Society, a solidarity coming from a vision based on faith and brought into an Ignatian focus through the Spiritual Exercises and our Jesuit tradition. However, I think that there are also some deficiences evident in the work and structure of the congregation. Some way has to be found to expedite the carrying out of business. Though it was an attempt to get the input from the whole Society, on balance, the analysis of the postulates took up too much time. And questions of order consumed interminable hours. In regard to particular questions, in retrospect, it might have been a serious mistake not to have separated in some way the question of the Fourth Vow from that of grades. While they are related, they are distinct. And the interven-tion of the Holy See was concerned with the Fourth Vow, and not directly with grades. Again the expression given to the relationship of the Society to the Holy Father is "safe," but it creates the impression of one who is driving a car with one foot on the accelerator and the other on the brake. It does not seem to ex-press the 61an of Jesuit spirituality in its fullness. One reason for this inade-quacy stems from the fact that the congregation came to the topic only in the last few days before it ended, and the members did not have the mental energy or the time to do justice to it. Another difficulty is in the formulation itself. Attempts to combine both the unreserved expression of the spirit of loyalty and the juridical aspect of limits tend to cancel one another out. For example, there were numerous attempts, all sterile, to speak of "mission" in relationship to "doctrine," wherein loyalty would be unreserved in regard to mission, but conditioned in regard to doctrine. Consequently the resulting statement is bland, not nuanced. This will probably be one of the main topics that will have to be taken up at the next General Congregation. A Survey of the Thirty-Second General Congregation Another deficiency is the fact that the congregation treated those problems which are more obvious because they have a certain shrillness--the problem, for example, of global injustice. Just as important, however, but without the volume being turned up, are questions touching man and technology, par-ticularly the genetic manipulation of man. Again, these questions will probably have to be faced by the next congregation. What to Hope For If the Society as a whole could translate what is set down in the decrees from formulation into fact, it would be renewed. In turn it would become a great force in renewing the Church and the world. What hope is there for such a renewal? The parable of the sower and the seed has its application to the Society as well as to the Church. There are those whose roots are not deep enough to withstand trials. There are others whose life of faith is choked by cares and riches. But then there are the many who do yield fruit, some, a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. Decrees, however excellent, are no substitute for the gospel-call to totality. To the degree that individuals open themselves to the radical call of the gospel will they also open themselves to the decrees, which after all are only a faltering attempt to express this radical call in a way that is both Ignatian and contemporary. There are many factors which will contribute to energizing this renewal. Many feel a need for a deeper life of prayer. The importance of spiritual direc-tion is expressing itself strongly. A fuller appropriation of the Spiritual Exercises ¯ through the directed retreat is a great blessing. Again, an important factor is the reinforcement and leadership given to the Society by other religious con-gregations which have already led the way in the renewal of religious life by bringing their lives more in conformity with gospel simplicity and single-mindedness. We can also hope that we will not repeat the mistakes of the past ten years. Considering the turmoil and confusion coming from "future shock," these mistakes are perhaps understandable. But no organization can exist in a state of continuous convulsion. Many of the delegates, in searching for answers to the problems which faced us "discovered" our Thirty-first Congregation, which someone described as the great congregation in the history of the Society. We found that in many cases we could not do better, in fact could hardly come up to the decrees of the Thirty-first. But we also felt like a traveler who had spent hours trying to find his way only to discover after much meandering that there was a map in his glove compartment. The documents of the Thirty-first General Congreg -tion were such a map. The logical question, then, is: why were not the decrees implemented? A still more haunting question is: will the same thing happen to the decrees of this congregation? This was a problem which preoccupied the delegates throughout the whole time. Meetings were held to discuss implementation. But as the saying goes, 61~! / Review for Religious, l/olume 34, 1975/5 there is many a slip,between the cup and the lip. How much will the Society be able to drink in from the decrees? One of the main sources of hope, in addition to those mentioned above, is a renewed sense of solidarity and confidence among the provincials, and a strong sense of support in Fr. General. In the past ten years very often inaction resulted not from a failure of courage or faith, but because of a blurring of ideas concerning the fundamentals of religious life, often enough because of contradictory views bandied by theologians. The provincials obviously have not suddenly received some formula of universal application to solve all problems, but there is a greater sense of assurance and direction. The weight of implementation turns around the local superiors with the support of the provincials. There is hope here also, because the superiors themselves have a greater sense of their solidarity and of their role as spiritual leaders of the local communities. Ultimately the problem is always the same: conversion. It is something never accomplished once and for all, but continues to repeat its call. There are the perennial obstacles to conversion: inertia, self-love, self-will, the evil spirits that affect us all as individuals. However, it especially in the way that the collectivity reenforces the inertia in individuals that we find the main obstacle today. Group-think and group-feel, in large part created through the media, produce a kind of closedness that filters down from a collective level to in-dividuals, bringing about imperceptibly a closedness in the individual. Each one, young or old, is caught in some degree on this split level of collectivity and self, and suffers from the unfreedom of the collectivity. Jesuits already engaged in the apostolate have to discern how much this group-think affects their personal lives, impeding their personal conversion and the fruitfulness of their apostolate. Jesuits who are in formation have to do the same. The responsibility of those who are in charge of training the younger Jesuits is great. The importance of the congregation comes not from the written decrees but from the support that these decrees give to creating in the Society a different kind of group-think, a "group-feel" based upon the gospel. "My name is legion." Legions can be driven out only by legions. The demonic in collectivity can only be driven out by the embodiment of holiness in collec-tivity. The Society will rise or fall to the extent that the good will of the in-dividual is supported and sustained by a corporate realization of sanctity. No individual can abdicate the responsibility for his own conversion. But in a special way superiors have a responsibility for the whole group. Newman remarked somewhere that good is never done except at the expense of those who do it, and truth is never enforced except at the sacrifice of its propounders. Reformers and prophets have never been well received. Perhaps superiors are destined to enter into that role, not, however, with a martyr complex or heaviness of heart. We have a living example in Fr. Arrupe that it is a role that is compatible with a deep joy. Aiding and facilitating the work of the superiors are the communities A Survey of the Thirty-Second General Congregation / 689 themselves which are called upon, through community meetings and prayerful discernment, to face their own response to the gospel call to simplicity, and to bridge the gap between the radical response to which we have vowed our lives and the actual way in which we live them. When I asked one of the delegates who was in great part responsible for the formulation of the decree on poverty how optimistic he was about its im-plementation, he said: "When I think of human nature, I am not very op-timistic. But when I think of the power of the Spirit, 1 am hopeful. Everything depends on the Spirit. Legislation can support; it cannot convert. Of ourselves we are weak, but with the power of the Spirit we can overcome, overcome even ourselves." POSITION OPEN The Department of Theology in the School of Religious Studies of the Catholic University of America announces the opening, beginning January, 1976, for: Assistant, Associate or Full Professor in the field of Christian Spiritual Theology. Applications should be sent to:Chairperson Department of Theology Catholic University of America Washington, DC 20064 The Catholic University of America is an equal ol~portunity employer. The Recovery =of Religious Life Bro. Raymond L. Fitz, S.M. Bro. Lawrence J. Cada, S.M. Both authors belong to the Marianist Training Network. Brother Raymond Fitz is director of the Marianist Institute of Christian Renewal and associate professor of Engineering Management and Electrical Engineering at the University of Dayton. He lives at 410 Edgar Avenue; Dayton, Ohio 45410. Brother Lawrence Cada is chairman of the Department of Science and Mathematics at Borromeo College of Ohio and lives at 315 East 149 Street; Cleveland, Ohio 44110. I. Introduction~ How long will the turmoils now besetting religious life last? Are they almost over, and has the process of returning to a more normal situation begun? Or will things stay unsettled for some time to come? This article will argue for the likelihood of the latter alternative. On the basis of the models and analyses presented, the article will try to show that religious life in America is undergo-ing a profound transition, which will take another twenty to twenty-five years to run its full course. Moreover, the study will seek to demonstrate that social disintegration (loss of membership, lack of vocations, collapse of institutions, etc.) of religious communities in the Church will probably continue for at least the next ten to fifteen years. The most significant questions facing religious life in those ten to fifteen years will center on "death and dying." Many aspects of the life as it has been known will be passing away. Only after these questions are accepted and creatively answered can religious life be expected to be revitalized and renewed within the Church. This process will demand both a recovery of that deep dynamic impulse which first gave rise to religious life in the Church and a recovery from the malaise through which it is now passing: tThis is a draft of a work in progress. Feedback on the content and style of this paper would be ap-preciated. 690 The Recovery of Religious Life hence the title "The Recovery of Religious Life." Although much of this arti-cle argues for the plausibility of these assertions and their implications for the future of religious life, there will also be provided an explanation of how the data were collected and organized, and of what was called important or unim-portant. In this sense, these assertions represent a starting bias that informs the entire article. As such, this bias merits being stated at the outset. The approach taken in this article2 is to explore the questions about the future of religious life from a historical and sociological point of view. In the first two parts of the article, two models are developed: a historical model of the evolution of religious life as a movement in the Church and a sociological model dealing with the organizational life cycle of an individual religious com-munity. Then, in the final sections of the article, these two models will be used to address questions about the present condition of religious life and its future. Every model represents a simplification of reality, and the models in this arti-cle are no exception. To arrive at the questions posed in the final sections, the article will digest and condense large amounts of material drawn from a variety of sources that are partially indicated in the notes. It is hoped that this simplification is not a serious distortion of the facts and that it will arrange the historical and other data in such a way as to provide an overview from which some tentative generalizations can be made. II. The Evolution of Religious Life: A Historical Model Religious communities in the life of the church are not fixed and static en-tities. Taken together they make up a historical process unfolding over time, and religious life can be viewed as a significant social movement in the history of Western Culture. As parts of a movement, religious communities arose in response to dramatic social change in the Church and in the larger cultural and political arena of Western Civilization. They became a dynamic force in shap-ing and cha~ging the Church and secular culture. They have been both a cause and an effect of social change: the founding of religious communities has fre-quently been a response to major developments of society, and the evolution of the Church and Western Culture has been significantly influenced by the life and work of religious communities. As in all social movements, the role of myth, the emergence of belief systems, the fashioning of institutions and social structures, and the role of personal transformation and commitment are central to the evolution of religious life. The dynamic interplay of all these elements creates, sustains and limits the histo~'ical unfolding of religious communities. ~This article grew from a variety of experiences over an extended period of time with multiple presentations at workshops and reflections from many religious. Especially helpful were Fr. Norbert Brockman, S.M., Sr. Gertrude Foley, S.C., Bro. Thomas Giardino, S.M., and Sr. Carol Lichtenberg, S.N.D. The scheme of dividing the history of religious life into the five eras presented in the second part of this article was first suggested in a lecture given by Fr. David Fleming, S.M., at the University of Dayton in December, 1971. 692 / Review for Religious, Volume 34, 1975/5 A. Organizing Concepts One way to view the unfolding of religious life within the Church is to look at how the image of religious life has evolved over time and what implications this evolution has had for the functioning of individual religious communities.3 The term dominant image of religious life is used here to name a multifaceted reality that includes how religious view their life and its functions and role within the Church and the world during a given period. The term is also meant to indicate the sense of history which permeates religious life at a given time. How do people, both the religious and the members of society at large, picture the past of this way of life? What kind of future are religious supposed to be creating? The process by which the dominant image of religious life evolves in time can be characterized by a repeated sequence of identifiable phases of change: - Growth Phase. A relatively long period of elaboration and develop-ment of the dominant image of religious life and its implications. - Decline Phase. A period of crisis in which the dominant image of religious life comes under strong question. Religious communities seem no longer suited to the aspirations of the age. Religious com-munities lose their purpose, drift into laxity, and disintegrate. Transition Phase. A comparatively short period of revitalization in which variations of the dominant image of religious life emerge and one of these is gradually selected as the new dominant image. - Growth Phase under a New Image. A period of elaboration and development under the new dominant image of religious life. The supposition that religious life has passed through a succession of such phases of growth, decline, and transition is the basis of a model that can be used to organize and interpret the data of the history of religious life.4 The remainder of this section is devoted to illustrating a way this model might be constructed. 3Some sources used to clarify the notion of dominant image were Fred Polak, The hnage of the Future, translated and abridged by Elise Boulding (San Francisco: Jassey-Bass, 1973); Changing Images of Man, Policy Research Report No. 4, Center for the Study of Social Policy, Stanford Research Institute, May, 1974; and Kenneth E. Boulding, The Image: Knowledge in Life and Society (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1961). *Some sources used to clarify the notion of social evolution were Stephen Toulmin, Human Understanding-I (Princeton: P. U. P., 1972); Anthony F. C. Wallace, "'Paradigmatic Processes in Cultural Change," American Anthropologist (Vol. 74, 1972), pp. 467-478; Donald T. Campbell, "'Variation and Selective Retention in Socio-Cultural Evolution," in H. R. Barringer, G. I. Blanksten, and R. W. Mack (¢ds.), Social Change in Developing Areas (Cambridge, Mass.: Schenkman, 1965); Edgar S. Dunn, Economic and Social Development." A Process of Social Learn-ing (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins U. P., 1971); and Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962). The Recovery of Religious Life / 693 The following questions have been used in fashioning the model. First, there are questions about variation that deal with searching and experiment-ing. Under what conditions do variations appear in the dominant image of religious life? If these variations lead in certain directions, what factors in culture, the Church, or religious life itself influenced the choice of those direc-tions? Second, there are questions about selection. What determines which variations in the dominant image of religious life are selected out to serve as essential elements of a new image of religious life? How do members of religious communities distinguish well-founded and properly justified variations from those which are precipitous, not well thought out, and hasty? ¯ Finally, there are questions about retention that deal with incorporating and establishing the new. How are selected variations incorporated into religious communities? What processes are needed? What set of factors distinguishes in-novations which endure from those which disappear quickly? B. Major Eras in the Evolution of Religious Life Using the concepts described above, the history of religious life can be divided into five main periods: the eras of the Desert Fathers, Monasticism, the Mendicant Orders, the Apostolic Orders, and the Teaching Congregations) The description of these eras given in this section constitutes the historical model that will be used in the final portion of this article. 1. Era of the Desert Fathers The first period was the Era of the Desert Fathers. Following the earliest manifestations of religious life in the mode of consecrated virgins and widows within the Christian communities of the persecuted Church, ther~ emerged the image of the religious as the ascetic holy person. The description of the her-mit's life given by Athanasius in his Life of Anthony crystallized an ideal which inspired both solitary anchorites and many communities of cenobites. The desert was seen as the domain of the demons to which they had retreated after being driven out of the cities by the triumph of the recently established Church. It was to this "desert" that generous men and women withdrew to 5Factual and historical data on the history of religious life were gathered from such standard sources as The Catholic Encyclopedia (1907), The New Catholic Encyclopedia (1967), the An-nuario Pontificio, The Official Catholic Directory, and The Catholic Almanac. Some of the other sources on this topic were Raymond Hostie, S.J., Vie et mort des ordres religieux (Paris: Descl~e de Brouwer, 1972); David Knowles, O.S.B., Christian Monasticism (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1969); Humbert M. Vicaire, O.P., The Apostolic Life (Chicago: Priory Press, 1966); Derwas J. Chitty, The Desert a City (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1964); Owen Chadwick, John Cassian, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: C. U. P., 1968); William Hinnebusch, O.P., "'How the Dominican Order Faced Its Crises," Review for Religious (Vol. 32, No. 6, November, 1973), pp. 1307-1321; William A. Hinnebusch, O.P., The History of the Dominican Order, 2 vols. (New York: Alba House, 1966, 1973); Teresa Ledochowska, O.S.U., Angela Merici and the Company of St. Ursula, 2 vols. (Rome: Ancora, 1969); William V. Bangert, S.J., A History of the Society of Jesus (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1972); and Adrien Dansette, Religious History of Modern France, 2 vols. (New York: Herder and Herder, 1961). 69t~ / Review for Religious, lZolume 34, 1975/5 carry on the Church's important work of doing battle with the devil in the wilderness as Christ had done long ago. In this way the desert came to be seen as a place of austere beauty, where the monk was trained in the ways of perfec-tion. He returned from time to time into the midst of his fellow Christians, who saw in him the power to do good--healing the sick, casting out demons, comforting the sorrowful with gentle words, reconciling the estranged, and above all urging everyone to put nothing in the world before the love of Christ. This image captured the imagination of the Christian world as news about the Desert Fathers spread from Egypt to all points of the Roman empire. Throughout the 4th century monasteries sprang up on all the shores of the Mediterranean. By the 5th century, the golden age had begun to fade. In the East, the monks had become embroiled in doctrinal controversy. In the West, TABLE 1: ERA OF THE DESERT FATHERS (200-500) Dominant Image of Religious Life. The ideal of religious life is the holy ascetic who seeks " the perfection of Christ as a solitary or in community with a group of monks. Disciples withdraw into the "desert" and place themselves under the care of a master ascetic who teaches them the ways of perfection. They live nearby as hermits or gather in cenobia or monasteries where the master is the superior. The monk prays, mortifies himself, does battle with the devil for the sake of the Church, and spends his life seeking union with Christ. 2nd and 3rd Centuries 251 Anthony horn Consecrated virgins and widows live a form of 271 Anthony withdraws into the desert RL within Christian communities of the early 292 Pachomius born Church during the persecution. 4th Century 313 Edict of Milan 325 Pachomius founds cenobium 356 Anthony ~lies 357 Athanasius writes Life of Anthony 360 Basil founds monastery in Cappadocia 363 Martin founds monastery in Gaul 376 Melania founds monastery on Mount of Olives 393 Augustine founds monastic group in Hip-po 399 Cassian, disciple of Evagrius, migrates from Egypt to West Hermits and cenobites flourish in the Egyptian desert. Various forms of solitary and com-munity RL spread around eastern rim of the Mediterranean (Palestine, Syria, Cappadocia). First monasteries are founded in the West. 5th Century 410 Alaric sacks Rome RL continues to expand in the East. Spread of 415 Cassian founds monastery in Marseille wandering monks and various kinds of 455 Vandals sack Rome monasteries in the West while the western half 459 Simon the Stylite dies of the Roman Empire crumbles. 476 End of western Roman Empire 1st TRANSITION: SPREAD OF BENEDICT'S RULE The Recovery of Religious Life / 69t~ the foundations of Roman civilization weakened under the onslaught of the barbarian tribes, and the ties between the eastern and western halves of the Empire began to break apart. The monasteries in Gaul and other parts of the moribund West became refugee cloisters, where the monks gathered the few treasures of civilization they could lay hold of. As dusk settled on the glories of imperial Rome, the stage was set for the rise of feudal Europe and with it the next period in the evolution of religious life. 2. Era of Monasticism The next period was the Era of Monasticism. In his attempt to regularize religious life as "a life with God in separation from the world," Benedict produced a new dominant image of religious life. This image was not only a correction of the abuses which had crept in during the 5th and 6th centuries, it also, and more importantly, turned out to be a successful adaptation of religious life to the feudal society of the Dark Ages and the early medieval period. Benedict's short and practical Rule furnished workable guidelines for all monastic activity and every age and class of monks. It combined an uncom-promising spirituality with physical moderation and flexibility. It emphasized the charity and harmony of a simple life in common under the guidance of a wise and holy abbot. By the 9th century, this new image had spread to virtually all the monasteries of Europe. The ideal of the Benedictine monk became the model for Christian spirituality and played a part in the stabilization and unification of society. Various modifications, such as the Cluniac, Carthusian, and Cister-cian Reforms, maintained and adapted the dominant image to the developments in European society. Cluny and the Cistercians devised methods of uniting monasteries into networks that became harbingers of the modern order. However, by the time the 'first stirrings of urbanization began at the end of the 12th century, the dominant image began to show its inadequacies and once again laxity in religious life was not uncommon. There was also a great debate between monks and canons about which form of religious life was a more authentic embodiment of the apostolic ideal. As the civilization of the high Middle Ages began to emerge, new possibilities were felt in society and with them came the opportunity for a transition in religious life. 3. Era of the Mendicant Orders When Francis and Dominic launched their communities, they ushered in the next period, the Era of the Mendicant Orders. As mendicant friaries sprang up in towns across Europe, they met with an initial hostility which could not fathom how this new style could be an authentic form of religious life. Gradually, though, the new image of religious life became acceptable, and it proved to be a much better adaptation of ~:eligious life to the needs of urban society than was possible for the monasteries in their rural settings. During the course of the 13th century, even the monastic orders established studia close 696 / Review for Religious, l/olume 34, 1975/5 to the new universities, where the mendicants were flourishing. As Christen-dom was passing through its zenith, the image of a religious life unen-cumbered with landed wealth played a key role in the cultivation of the in-tellectual life by the Church within society and in the preaching of the Gospel for the Church. TABLE 2: ERA OF MONASTICISM (500-1200) Dominant Image of RL. Life in a monastery is the ideal of the religious. The daily round of liturgical prayer, work, and meditation provides a practical setting to pursue the lofty goals of praising God and union with Christ. Within the Church and society, the monks set an example of how deep spirituality can be combined with loving ministry to one's neighbor and dutiful fidelity to the concrete tasks of daily living. 6th Century 529 Benedict founds a monastery to live ac- Spread of monasteries throughout western cording to his Rule Europe (Gaul, Spain, Ireland, etc.). Various 540 Celtic monasticism takes root in Irela'nd formats. Excesses and laxity are common--as 590 Columbanus founds monastery in Lu~r are wandering monks. euil 7th and 8th Centuries 642 Arab conquest of Egypt Gradual spread of Benedict's Rule to.more and 700 Venerable Bede more monasteries of Europe. Missionary 746 Boniface founds monastery in Germany journeys of Celtic monks to evangelize 755 Canons of Chrodegang founded northern Europe. 9th Century 816 Regula Canonicorum of Aix-la-Chapelle Observance of Canons Regular is made uni- 817 Charlemagne's son decrees that form by the spread of the Rule of Aix. Con- Benedict's Rule is to be observed in all solidation of Benedict's Rule. Virtually all monasteries. This project coordinated by monasteries are "Benedictine." Benedict of Aniane. 910 Cluniac Reform 1084 Carthusian Reform 1098 Cistercian Reform 10th and llth Centuries Various reforms breathe new life into Benedict's ideal and introduce organizational variations. 1111 Bernard joins the Cistercians 1120 Premonstratensians founded 12th Century Canons Regular unite into orders which are a variation of the monastic networks of Cluny and Citeaux. Military orders attempt a new form of RL which is temporarily successful (Knights of Malta, Templars, Teutonic Knights, etc.). 2nd TRANSITION: RISE OF THE MENDICANTS After a rapid flowering, the mendicant orders were affected by the same changes which spread across the Church and European society in the 14th and 15th centuries. As the Renaissance presaged the new humanism, the secularization of European society, and the breakup of the unity of Christen-dom, there emerged the conditions for yet a new kind of religious life. The Recovery of Religious Life / 697 TABLE 3: ERA OF THE MENDICANT ORDERS (1200-1500) Dominant Image of RL. The simple friar who begs for his keep and follows in the footsteps of the Lord is the ideal of RL. He prays as he goes, steeping himself in the love of Christ. Unencumbered by landed wealth, the mendicants are free to travel on foot to any place they are needed by the Church. They hold themselves ready to preach, cultivate learning, serve the poor, and minister to the needs of society in the name of the Church. 1211 Franciscans founded 1216 Dominicans founded 1242 Carmelites founded 1256 Augustinians founded 13th Century Mendicant friaries spring up in medieval towns across Europe. These foundations lend themsel~,es to work in the new universities and the apostolate of preaching. Rapid expansion of the mendicant orders. Monastic orders make some attempts to take up the style of the mendicants. 1325 75,000 men in mendicant orders 1344 Brigittines founded 1349 Black Death 1400 47,000 men in mendicant orders 1415 Hus burned at the stake 1450 Gutenberg 1492 Columbus 1500 90,000 men in mendicant orders 14th Century ~tabilization and slow decline of the mendicant orders. Abuses in RL are prevalent. 15th Century Various reforms restore the mendicant ideal and produce a gradual increase in membership. First stirrings of the Renaissance introduce an uneasiness into the Church and RL. 3rd TRANSITION: THE COUNTER-REFORMATION 4. Era of the Apostolic Orders The transition to the next period in religious life, the era of the Apostolic Orders, happened with the Counter-Reformation. Not long after Luther sparked the Protestant Revolt, the new image of religious life appeared with the foundation of various orders of Clerics Regular, the chief of which were the Jesuits. The verve and style of this new foundation set the pace for religious life, The mendicant orders had taken up this ideal in part by joining in the mis-sionary conquests,of the Church in the newly discovered lands. The new image also spurred religious to come to terms with the secularizing trends of the scientific revolution, modern philosophy, and the rise of nationalism in Europe. Jesuits, for example, could be found in the royal courts of almost all of Europe's Catholic kingdoms, in the laboratories of the new scientists, and teaching the youthful Descartes at La Fl~che. As the proponents of the Enlightenment testily challenged the very ex-istence of the Church, a slow decline descended upon religious life. Large and nearly empty monasteries dotted the European countryside. Jansenist and Enlightened thought undermined the.rationale for religious life from opposite directions. The Bourbon kings succeededin persuading Rome to suppress the 69~! / Review for Religious, l/olume 34, 1975/5 Jesuits in 1773. On the eve of the French Revolution, worldwide membership in all the men's religious orders stood at about 300,000; by the time the Revolution and the secularization which followed had run their course, fewer than 70,000 remained. Many orders went out of existence. As the 19th century began, there was need of a thorough-going revival of religious life, which could realistically cope with the new consciousness of Europe. TABLE 4: ERA OF THE APOSTOLIC ORDERS (1500-1800) Dominant Image of RL. Religious are an elite of dedicated and militant servants of the Church with a high level of individual holiness, a readiness to defend the Church on any front, and the zeal to win new expansion for the Church to the very ends of the earth. 1517 Luther sparks the Reformation 1535 Ursulines founded 1540 Jesuits founded 1541 Francis Xavier sails for Far East 1545 Trent starts 1562 Discalced Carmelite Reform 16th Century RE virtually wiped out in Protestant Europe. Founding and expansion of a new kind of RL in the format of the Clerics Regular. These groups work at shoring up the Church's political power in Catholic Europe, reforming the Church, and spreading the Gospel in the foreign missions. 17th Century 1610 Visitation Nuns founded 1625 Vincentians founded 1633 Daughters of Charity founded 1650 St. Joseph Sisters founded 1662 Ranc6 launches Trappist Reform 1663 Paris Foreign Mission Society founded 1681 Christian Brothers founded 1700 213,000 men in mendicant orders Flowering of spirituality, especially in French School, leads to new foundations such as the various societies of priests and clerical con-gregations. Bulk of men religious still belong to mendicant orders. 1725 Passionists founded 1735 Redemptorists founded 1770 300,000 men in RL in world 1773 Jesuits suppressed by Rome 1789 French Revolution starts 18th Century A few clerical congregations emerge, but RL as a whole seems to be in decline due to the in-roads of Enlightenment thought, Jansenism, wealth, and laxity. Weakened RL is given the coup de gr?tce by the French Revolution, which sets off a wave of political suppression and defection in France and the rest of Catholic Europe. 4th TRANSITION: FRENCH REVOLUTION 5. Era of the Teaching Congregations The revival of religious life which occurred in the next period, the Era of the Teaching Congregations, set off in a new direction. There were about 600 foundations of new communities in the 19th century. They were, for the most part, dominated by the movement of educating the masses. For the first time The Recovery of Religious Life / 699 in European history, the idea of educating everyone had the possibility of be-ing concretely realized. The new congregations joined in this movement in hopes of planting the seeds of a hardy faith in the souls of the children they taught by the thousands. This zeal for the education of children was combined with a cleansed Jansenistic spirituality to form the new image of religious life. While the activity of religious spilled over into other apostolic works such as hospitals, teaching set the pace. Even the few pre-Revolution orders which were managing a slow recovery took on many of the trappings of the typical 19th century teaching congregation. For the first time in the history of religious life, recruitment of adult vocations was almost completely displaced by the acceptance of candidates just emerging from childhood. Through the end of the 19th century and on into the 20th the religious who gave themselves to this demanding work of teaching edified the Church and produced a brand of holiness which was most appropriate for a Catholicism which sought to strengthen a papacy denuded o.f worldly power and to care for the masses of the industrialized wor.ld in need of christianization. By the mid-1960's membership in religious communities reached the highest point in the history of the Church. In the last decade, this trend was reversed for the first time in more than a century. Crises have set in which some ascribe to a loss of identity TABLE 5: ERA OF THE TEACHING CONGREGATIONS (1800-present) Dominant Image of RL. Religious dedicate their lives to the salvation of their own souls and the salvation of others. The style of life of religious men and women blends in intense pursuit of personal holiness with a highly active apostolic service. Identity with the person of Christ unites this two-fold objective into a single purpose. 19th Century 1814 French Restoration; Jesuits restored by Rome 1825 Fewer than 70,000 men in RL in world 1831 Mercy Sisters founded 1850 83,000 men in RL in world 1859 Salesians founded 1870 Papal infallibility declared Revival of RL after widespread state sup-pressions. Numerous foundations of con-gregations dedicated to a return to authentic RL blended with service, principally in schools. Old orders, such as Jesuits and Dominicans, rejuvenated in the format of the teaching con-gregations. Church gradually centralizes around the papacy and isolates itself from secular trends of the modern world 20th Century 1950 275,000 men in RL in world 1962 Vatican II starts; 1,012,000 women in RL in world 1965 335,000 men in RL in world 1966 181,500 women in RL in U.S. 1972 879,000 women in RL in world 1973 143,000 women in RL in U.S. 1974 227,500 men in RL in world Expansion and solidification. In the sixties, crises set in from within RL due to loss of iden-tity and inroads of secularizing process. Numerous defections and decreasing numbers of new members. 5th TRANSITION: (?) 700 / Review for Religious, Volume 34, 1975/5 and the inroads of secularism. It seems that another transition in the long history of religious life has begun. Further considerations will be undertaken in the remainder of this article to better analyze the present situation. 11I. The Life Cycle of a Religious Community: A Sociological Model The previous section of this paper focused on a historical model for the evolution of religious life as such within the Church; in this section attention is turned toward the life of the individual religious community or institute. To this end, a sociological model for the life cycle of individual religious com-munities which organizes the important dimensions of each period in the life of the communities is developed.6 This model allows further probing of the questions concerning the plausibility of a revitalization of religious life, since revitalization of present religious communities is one way that religious life as a whole will be renewed. A. Organizing Concepts To date, only thirteen men's religious orders in the entire his.tory of the Church have ever surpassed a membership figure of 10,000 at some point of their existence. The membership pattern of three of these orders--the Dominicans, the Minims, and the Jesuits--is graphed in Figure 1 below. Although these three examples are taken from among the largest orders of the Church, they are representative of the membership pattern in most religious communities, large or small. Typically one finds one or more cycles of growth and decline in the number of members. These membership patterns suggest a dynamic of inner vitality that goes on in a religious community. Using such analogies as the human life cycle and other cycles of growth and decline, a sociological model has been devised which divides the life cycle of an active religious community into five periods: foundation, expansion, stabilization, breakdown and transition. The model is shown schematically in Figure 2. The shape of this curve is intended to repre-sent the over-all vitality of the community as it passes from one period to the next. In the following section salient events and characteristics which typify each of these periods are described. An attempt is also made to isolate the crises which occur during each period. ~Some sources used to clarify the notion of a life cycle were Hostie, Vie et mort; Wallace, "'Paradigmatic Processes"; Gordon L. Lippitt and Warren H. Schmidt, "Crisis in a Developing Organization," Harvard Business Review (Vol. 45, No. 6, November-December, 1967), pp. 102- 112; and Lawrence E. Greiner, "Evolution and Revolution as Organizations Grow," Harvard Business Review (Vol. 50, No. 4, July-August, 1972), pp. 37-46; Thomas F. O'Dea, The Sociology of Religion (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1966); Luther P. Gerlach and Virginia H. Hine, People. Power and Change: Movements of Social Transformation (Indianapolis: Bobbs- Merrill, 1970). The Recovery of Religious Life / 701 _z 20 LLI ~ lO 30 1200 1300 ! \/ , st 1400 1500 1600 1700 I t I t I I I II ! I ! 1800 1900 2000 Figure 1: Membership of Dominicans, Minims, and Jesuits IFOUNDATIONIEXPANSION ISTABILIZATION BREAKDOWN TRANSITION Figure 2: Life Cycle of a Religious Community B. The Periods of the Life Cycle 1. The Foundation Period The first period in the life of a religious community centers around a found-ing person and his or her vision. The founder or foundress undergoes a radically transformi,ng experience, which can usually be pinpointed to an event or series of events, and .which is perceived as an abrupt shift in the founding 702 / Review for Religious, I/olume 34, 1975/5 person's identity and a timeless moment in which a vision or dream is received. Contained in the transforming experience is a new appreciation of the message of Jesus which leads to innovative insight on how the condition of the Church or society could be dramatically improved or how a totally new kind of future could be launched. A new impetus to live the religious life in all the totality of its demands is felt, and a new theory emerges that is at once a critique of the present, an appropriation of the past, a compelling image of the future, and a basis for novel strategies. The founding person's transforming experience is followed by the initial emergence of the community. A fortuitous encounter takes place between the founder or foundress and some contemporary men or women in which the founding experience, the innovative insight, the emerging theory, and the call to holiness are shared. The group unites under the guidance of the founding person to search for and invent new arrangements for living the Gospel together and working toward the realization of the Kingdom of God. The foundation period may last ten to twenty years or longer and fre-quently coincides with the last part of the founding person's lifetime. Integra-tion and cohesion center on the founding person and still more deeply on the person of Christ. The structural identity of the community appears in seminal form, and authority in the community springs from the wisdom of the found-ing person. Founding events of religious communities have a uniqueness about them which has caused them to be especially treasured as significant moments in the Church's past. Examples of founding persons and their visions readily come to mind: Angela Merici's dream of a new kind of religious life for women that centered on an active apostolate; the hopes of Robert of Molesme to restore fervor through the primitive observance of Benedict's Rule in the wilderness of C~teaux; Don Bosco's contagious vision of loving Christ and joyfully serving the poor. The more striking cases of founding persons receiving their in-spirations have become part of the common heritage of all religious: Anthony hearing in a Sunday Gospel the words which were the key to his life's aim; Ignatius retiring to Manresa to receive his visions. For the most part the foundation period is a time of grace and charism for a new religious community. But there are also crises that must be faced. The crisis of direction forces the community to decide which undertakings are im-portant and which must be sacrificed. The crisis of leadership confronts the community with the problem of finding out how it will live beyond the time of its founding person. The crisis of legitimization engulfs the nascent community in the question of whether or not the Church will approve it as an authentic form of religious life. The Waldensians, for example, showed some signs of becoming a new religious order on the pattern of the mendicants, but they never overcame the crisis of iegitimization. Instead of becoming a religious community, they ended up as renegades who had to hide out in the woods of medieval Europe. The Recovery of Religious Life / 70a 2. The Expansion Period When the community has emerged from the foundation period, it un-dergoes a fairly long period of expansion, during which the founding charism is institutionalized in a variety of ways. A community cult and belief system solidifies, a community polity is fashioned, and community norms and customs take hold. As members of the community's second generation mature and grow older, they recount stories of the foundation, which they have heard from the pioneers or have themselves experienced in their youth. These stories enshrine decisive events which set the community's direction or establish its characteristic traits. Gradually, rituals and symbols which express and com-memorate the most treasured facets of the foundation are fused with the.iore of the older members into a sort of sacred memory and cult that begins to be passed on from generation to generation as the community's "founding myth." Attempts are made at thinking through the founding myth and expressing it in terms of contemporary thought patterns. Eventually these efforts result in theories, interpretations, and social models which coalesce into a belief system and give a rational structure to the more intuitive thrust of the founding myth. Simultaneously, procedures are devised for community decision making and communication, and bit by bit the community's polity.takes shape. Norms are set down and customs emerge which cover all aspects of the community's life, such as membership criteria, leadership standards, and apostolic priorities. The members of the young community experience an excitement about the growth and success which characterizes the expansion period. Large numbers join the community, and new works are rapidly taken on which enhance the possibility of a still broader recruitment. Major interpreters of the founding vi-sion are recognized. Patterns of spiritual practice are determined, and the community's spirituality is made concrete in manuals of direction or other written documents. With expansion come certain organizational crises. How is authority to be delegated? What means will be used to integrate and tie together the rapidly expanding network of establishments and the burgeoning membership. When Bernard joined the Cistercians thirteen years after their foundation, he led the community through this kind of organizational crisis. In the process, a new en-tity, the general chapter, was invented to cope with the situation, and this in-novation is still a standard feature.of most religious orders today. Another crisis of this period centers on maintaining the pristine vigor of the founding vision. As rival interpretations arise, which will be discarded? A classic exam-ple of this kind of crisis occurred in the great debates about poverty among the early Franciscans just after Francis died. 3. The Stabilization Period After a fairly long expansion, which may last two to three generations or "/04 / Review for Religious, l/olume 34, 1975/5 longer, there ensues a period of stabilization. Numerical increase in membership may continue, but geographical expansion usually slows down. The stabilization period may last a century or more, but it is sometimes as brief as fifty years or so. A feeling of success pervades the community during the stabilization period. Members experience a high degree of personal satisfaction from simply being in the community. The prevailing image of religious life is clear and accepted. It provides a basis for describing unambiguous social roles for religious. The community is accomplishing its purpose and this purpose is self-evident. The need to improve is not seen as a need to change things but simply to do better what is already being done. Gradually, as stabilization sets in, more and more of the community assumes that religious life has always been the way it is now and that it will always remain so in the future. There is little need to elaborate the understanding of the founding vision or penetrate into it more deeply. It is simply accepted and repeated to new members who join. No one is left in the community who knew the founding person or the first dis-ciples personally. Memory of the founding events takes on the cast of past his(ory that is separate from the present moment. Formation of new members emphasizes their conformity to standard patterns of external behavior that are seen as the best means of cultivating interior commitment. The over-all feeling of success which is so typical of the stabilization period is not illusory. There is in fact a job that is being done and done well by the many generous religious who devote themselves to its accomplishment. The kinds of crises that Crop up during the stabilization period are linked to the other characteristics of the period. The crisis of activism occurs. Members become so absorbed in work that they lose sight of its spiritual and apostolic underpinning. They allow the satisfactions of accomplishment to dis-place a centeredness in Christ. Loss of intensity is another crisis of the stabilization period. Is it possible to maintain the intensity of vision and com-mitment among members, now that the community has become so highly in-stitutionalized? They can often be simply carried along by the sheer inertia of the community's activity and held in place by the pressure of social expecta-tion placed on their role as religious from people in the Church. Another danger stems from the crisis of adaptation. In the midst of success the com-munity is seldom open to adaptation, and any changes that have to be made are fraught with difficulty. Quite often, even the most legitimate changes are rejected, and their proponents are righteously and intolerantly silenced. The failure of later Jesuit missionaries to implement the ideas of Matteo Ricci con-cerning Confucian practices among Chinese Catholics is perhaps a good ex-ample of the sort of resistance to adaptation that can be found during the stabilization period. 4. The Breakdown Period Eventually the seeming immutabilities of the stabilization period start to give, and the religious community enters the breakdown period. The The Recovery of Religious Life / 705 breakdown may be gradual and last a half a century or more, or it may be rapid and run its course in a few decades. In either case, what happens is a dis-mantling of the institutional structures and belief systems that arose in the ex-pansion period and served the community so well during the stabilization period. This collective decline gives rise, in turn, to stress and doubt in the in-dividual members. Initially .a number of persons become dissatisfied with the current state of the community. Perhaps they are simply struck by what they judge to be the silliness of some of the community's customs or procedures. Or they may come to see that the community's life and work are not equipped to handle im-portant new challenges. Unanswered questions about the function and purpose of the community begin to accumulate and start to raise doubts. Levels of in-dividual stress increase slowly at the beginning, but then rise rapidly as doubt spreads to more and more levels of the community's social structure. To handle the growing problems, standard remedies are tied. All that is needed, it seems, is to get back to doing well what has always been done and to renew commitment to the community's mission. However, the usual problem-solving techniques become increasingly ineffective. A sense of crisis grows as community authority and decision-making structures become confused. The community's belief system begins to appear archaic and bound in by the trap-pings and articulations of a bygone age. The founding experience and myth, which had been internalized by the community's early generations, is no longer felt by the members. As the community loses its sense of identity and purpose, service to the Church becomes haphazard and lacks direction. Moral norms in the com-munity are relaxed and some members perhaps distract themselves with sex and a misuse of wealth. There is a net loss of membership through increased withdrawals and decreased recruitment of new members. The crises that arise during the breakdown period center on the various phenomena of decline in the community. The crisis of polarization can become acute when those who have faith in the community as it was align themselves against those who in varying degrees reject the community as it is. The crisis of collapsing institutions sets in as the community is forced to stop doing "business as usual" and abandon long-established works. The resulting demoralization leads to the crisis of the community's impending death. What is to be done as the chilling awareness grows in the community that it is inex-orably listing into disintegration on all sides? 5. The Transition Period The breakdown is followed by a period of transition. Three outcomes are possible for religious communities during this period: extinction, minimal sur-vival, or revitalization. Extinction, the first of these outcomes, occurs when all the members of a community either withdraw or die and it simply passes out of existence. This happened, for example, to 76% of all men's religious orders founded before 706 / Review for Religious, l/olume 34, 1975/5 1500 and to 64% of those founded before 1800. From a historical perspective, then, a reasonable expectation would seem to be that most religious com-munities in the Church today will eventually become extinct. A religious community which does not die out may go into a long period of low-level or minimal survival. If the membership pattern of presently existing religious orders founded before the French Revolution is examined, one finds that most of them enter into a period lasting across several centuries in which the number of members is very low. In fact, only 5% of all men's orders founded before 1500 and only 11% of the orders founded before 1800 have a current membership which is larger than 2,000. The Minims (Figure 1) are typical of the orders which once were quite large and now have a small membership. This type of outcome should not be interpreted as a dis-appearance of vitality in every case. The Carthusians, for example, follow this membership pattern. Yet they seem to be living UP to their reputation of never having relaxed their observance--never reformed and never needing reform. To this day the order's spiritual impact appears greater than its numerical strength. There is also a small percentage of religious communities which survive the breakdown period a~d enter into a period of revitalization. At least three characteristics can be singled out in all communities which have been revitalized in this way: a transforming response to the signs of the times; a reappropriation of the founding charism; and a profound renewal of the life of prayer, faith, and centeredness in Christ. The time in history fn which revitalization occurs seems to make a difference. If the revitalization occurs during one of the shifts in the dominant image of religious life singled out in the historical model above, the com-munity takes on many of the characteristics of the emerging image, and the transforming response to the signs of the times seems central to the revitaliza-tion. If the revitalization occurs midway during one of the major eras in the history of religious life identified earlier in this article, the revitalization takes on the characteristics of a reform with the reappropriation of the founding charism playing a central role. In either case the community experiences the revitalization as a second foundation. Personal transformation or conversion is central to revitalization. With personal transformation comes innovative insight and a new centering in the person of Christ. The innovative insight allows the transformed individuals within the community to develop critical awareness of the assumptions un-derlying the traditional meaning of the community and functioning of that community within the Church and the world. This innovative insight brings with it a focusing of energies through a new positive vision of what the com-munity should be in the future. The vision allows the emergence of a new theory which gives meaning to the experiences of individuals and the shared events lived within the community and spurs the community to building and creating its future. Such a new theory guides the community in the search for The Recovery of Religious Life / 707 and the invention of new models ~of living together as a community bound by. the evangelical conditions of discipleship in the service of the Church. A more complete sketch of the human dynamics of revitalization will be given in the last section of this article. The essential components of this dynamic, namely, insight and vision, and new theory and new models, are mentioned at this point to complete the picture of the life cycle of a religious community. Some limitations of this sociological model and the historical model of the previous section are given in the next section together with some generalizations that can be drawn from the models. IV. Some Limitations and Generalizations A. Limitations of the Models Before proceeding, some concluding and cautionary remarks must be made. Evidently the rapid overview of the history of religious life given in the first portion of this article should not be taken as anything more than a demonstration of how the evolution of religious life can be interpreted so as to fit the model of the five main eras that are being postulated in the proposed historical model. The account is far too compressed and over-simplified to provide an adequate and proi~erly nuanced telling of the story of religious life. For example, little attention was given to the Canons Regular, who constituted a significant portion of men religious from the Middle Ages to the French Revolution. There was no discussion of the medieval military orders nor of Orthodox monasticism. A still more gaping lacuna is the almost complete absence of any analysis of the way women's religious life differed from or followed the same pattern as that of the men. It may be that the sources used in this study were not sensitive to the distinctive role women actually played in the evolution of religious life. On the other hand, it may be that up to the present time the trends of women's religious life have been very parallel to those in the men's orders. The models proposed for the evolution of religious life and for the life-cycle of a religious community are also both simplifications. Some might validly question, for example, whether there were just five major eras in the history of religious life and whether the transitions between the eras occurred as clearly as the historical model suggests. The description of the dominant image of religious life for each era is a simplification of what was in every case a rather complex phenomenon. Hopefully, the liberties that have been taken are justified by the intention of trying to synopsize the history of religious life in such a way as to make some tentative insights more easily accessible to someone who is not a professional historian. Similarly, the breaks between the successive periods in the life cycle of a religious community are nowhere near as clear-cut as the proposed sociological model suggests. In .history, breakdowns sometimes occur within one order in different geographical locales at different times. Revitalizations often occur in some places for an order, while it decays elsewhere. At times 708 / Review for Religious, Volume 34, 1975/5 there are orders in which the role of the founding person is rather minor and does not have the decisiveness described in the model. Some communities have been founded in rather modest historical circumstances that were not accom-panied by the profound inspiration described in the model. These and similar qualifications must be kept in mind when the sociological model is used to in-terpret the life cycle of any particular community. B. Generalizations The models presented in the previous sections suggest some generalized conclusions. These conclusions can be helpful in exploring the present crisis of religious life. The historical evidence suggests that there have been significant shifts in the dominant image of religious life across the centuries. These shifts seem to occur when there are major societal changes astir and when the Church is un-dergoing major changes. The first transition happened as the Roman Empire fell in the West and feudal Europe was beginning; at the same time the rift between western and eastern Christianity was starting. The second transition occurred as feudal Europe was giving way to medieval urbanization and as the Church was gathering all of Europe into the unity of Christendom. The third transition took place at the start of the modern period of Western Civilization as the Church underwent the shock of the Reformation. The fourth transition resulted from a direct attack of society on the Church as a whole and on religious life in particular. Admittedly each of these changes in the culture and the Church differed from one another in many respects. However, the pattern seems clear enough at least to permit one to ask whether perhaps another shift in the dominant image of religious life would happen if major changes in society and the Church should come to pass. Although religious communities have been founded in almost every cen-tury of Christian history, it seems that each major shift in the dominant image of religious life is heralded by some significantly new foundations which em-body a new image in an especially striking way. This could be said of the earliest Benedictine monasteries for the first transition, of the Franciscans and Dominicans for the second transition, of the Jesuits for the third transition, and of the plethora of 19th century foundations for the fourth transition. It also seems to be the case that many communities go out of existence at each transition. Those that survive either continue in a diminished form or somehow blend the new dominant image with the charism of their own foun-dation to get another lease on life. The mendicant orders, for example, grew numerically stronger during the Era of Apostolic Orders as they adapted their own special gifts to the new style of religious life. The culture of the high Mid-dle Ages was rapidly and irretrievably passing away, but the mendicants adapted and flourished. One might ask, then, if the Church would witness the death of many religious communities and the foundation of new and different ones if a shift in the dominant image of religious life were to occur. The remainder of this article will explore the plausibility of maintaining that The Recovery of Religious Life / 709 another major transition has in fact begun in the history of religious life. Should this hypothesis be true, it would be appropriate to pose questions about h6w religious life is dying and how a recovery and revitalization might happen. Another observation that suggests itself from this brief survey concerns the continuity that underlies the shifts of the dominant image of religious life. As the image evolves it continues to hold up the impelling ideal of a radical following of the conditions set forth by Christ for an evangelical discipleship embedded in a life of prayer and deep faith. While the contemporary religious would probably not feel called to take on the externals of the life of the Desert Fathers, he or she will surely understand and be drawn to the stark beauty of the life of radical discipleship that moved Anthony to withdraw into the desert. Similar remarks could probably be made about the ultimate aims of the first Franciscans and the first rugged band of Jesuits. Through all the twists and turns in the make up and style of religious life, there is a deep core of seeking union with Christ in a special and total way that endures century after century. A great deal of historical precedent would have to be explained away by anyone who would wish to maintain that religious life is about to disappear as a separate and distinguishable way of life in the Church. The historical pattern seems to be one of repeated recovery. The present moment is indeed a time of trouble for religious communities, but religious life as a whole will doubtlessly survive. Turning to the sociological model, some further generalizations can be made. In the evolution of a religious community the non-rational elements of transforming experience, vision, and myth play a central role. This is es-pecially true during the periods of foundation and revitalization. Although necessary for each period in the life-cycle of a community, the techniques of rationality (long-range planning, leadership training, etc.) will never be suf-ficient to found a religious community or to revitalize one. The renewed vitality that comes to some religious communities during the time of transition finds its source in plumbing the depths of.the mythic and non-rational and in-tegrating them with the more rational dimensions of human life. A central insight of the myth of original sin is that humankind is not capable of sustained development; breakdown and disintegration are ever-recurring manifestations of the human condition. Since religious men and women exist within the human condition, it should not be surprising that, from time to time, all religious communities experience an extensive period of significant breakdown and disintegration. These bleak realities should be em-braced with humble acceptance of th~ human condition and a faith-filled hope that the Lord will in time resurrect life-giving initiatives from the death-dealing processes of breakdown. V. Where Does Religious Life Stand Today? In the previous sections of this article, the history of the religious-life movement in the Church and of particular religious communities was ex-amined to determine the major factors within culture, the Church, and 710 / Review for Religious, Volume 34, 1975/5 religious communities themselves that significantly influence the evolution of this movement. Generalizations from the proposed models indicate that major. transitions are likely to occur in religious life when secular culture is in the midst of a major crisis, and when religious life has experienced a period of major breakdown. The factors can serve as a useful matrix for answering the question, "Where does religious life stand today?" As was mentioned in the in-troduction, the answer proposed in this article is that religious life is undergo-ing a pervasive transition that will last for the next twenty to twenty-five years and which will significantly change the style of life and service of religious communities. The plausibility of this assertion is developed in this section. A. Signs of Transition in Secular Culture Many writers have noted that contemporary culture is in the midst of a societal transition. Some compare the present time to the Renaissance. Others claim that the present multifaceted change is equal to if not greater in magnitude than the agricultural and industrial revolutions. Many strands of societal transition have been pointed out. Spiritual, intellectual, philosophical, psychological, political, economic, and many other crises in society have been described by writers from a wide range of disciplines. For the purposes of this article, a cluster of these difficulties, which might be broadly termed the socio-economic crisis, will be summarized below as a sample of the sort of comment on contemporary society being made today. Catastrophic events and critical trends are continually reported by the news media. These reports range from widespread famine in the Sahel and South Asia to the continued downward spiral of the national economy. Careful analysts and writers have noted that these events and trends are a manifestation of the parallel growth of a set of interrelated critical issues which they have designated as the "world problematique.''7 A list of the critical issues that make up the "world problematique" would include: Energy Problems: Runaway growth in domestic and worldwide use of energy; shortages and scarcity of energy; insufficient capital resources to develop new energy sources. Food Problems: Food supply unable to meet the demand for food; worsening of weather conditions through pollution; increasing food prices due to food scarcity and increasing cost and consumption of energy; deterioration of arable land through increased urbaniza-tion and ecological undermining; actual widespread famine; potential long term problems of hunger and famine. Pollution Problems: Rise of pollution-induced illness; exponential increhse in the pollu-tion of the air and seas; denuding of natural environment through strip mining. 7.Some sources used to examine the "world problematique" were Kenneth E. F. Watt, The Titanic Effect: Planning for the Unthinkable (Stanford, Conn.: Sinauer Associates, Inc.); Donella H. Meadows, et al., The Limits to Growth (Washington: Potomac Associates, 1972); Mihajlo Mesarovic and Eduard Pestel, Mankind at the Turning Point (New York: Reader's Digest Press, 1974); Lester R. Brown, In the Human Interest (New York: W. W. Norton, 1974); and Lester R. Brown with Eric P. Eckholm, By Bread Alone (New York: Praeger, 1974). The Recovery of Religious Life / 711 Economic Problems: Growing world inflation; market saturation (e.g. airplanes, elec-tronic equipment, automobiles); instability and manipulation of monetary system, lack of alternatives to growth economics; increasing gap between the "have's" and the "have not's." Work Problems: Increasing unemployment and underemployment; saturation of the labor market; decreased productivity; increasing alienation and dissatisfaction with work; depersonalization of work environments. Problems of Urban Areas: Deterioration of urban areas; increasing crime rates; in-creasing cost of essential urban services. Problems of International Order." Hazards of international competition and war; com-petitive economic policies. What makes the "world problematique" different from problems en-countered in previous eras is its complexity and the pervasive interrelationship of its elements. Hence, the "world problematique" is not amenable to normal methods of problem solving. Attempts to address such critical issues in a singular or joint fashion introduce fundamental dilemmas that do not appear resolvable within conventional modes of thought. Among such dilemmas which seem to be plaguing the contemporary politico-economic situation, four might be singled out: the dilemmas of growth, guidance, global justice, and social roles.8 These dilemmas are delineated more fully in Table 6. One may ask if these problems and dilemmas have not been present during most of the Industrial Era. Are not the problems of the 20's and 30's very much the same as those of the 70's and 80's? What makes the above mentioned problems and dilemmas different is that they have not been ameliorated through the use of conventional wisdom and standard problem-solving ap-proaches. In fact, one may argue that application of these approaches has led to many unanticipated and undesirable consequences. Resolution of the problems and dilemmas is dependent upon a thorough-going shift in social perceptions, involving restructuring of beliefs, images, and human aspirations at a fundamental level. B. Crisis in the Church and the Breakdown in Religious Life The Catholic Church in America has been profoundly influenced by con-temporary change. For at least fifteen years the Church has been experiencing a transition of its life. The Second Vatican Council (1962-1964) was a result of the early stages of this transition and a triggering event for its later stages. The Church began to open itself to a world which was undergoing a dramatic secularization. This opening up or aggiornamento had significant impact on all dimensions of Church life. Parish life and parochial education are no longer the only shapers of the values and beliefs of American Catholics. The once-clear norms and social roles ~vithin the Church no longer seem to serve their original purpose. For example, the Vatican's official position on birth 8The schematization presented in Table 6 is based on the work of Bill Harmon, Director of the Center for the Study of Social Policy, Stanford Research Institute. 712 / Review for Religious, I~'olume 34, 1975/5 TABLE 6: SOME DILEMMAS OF CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY Growth The fundamental "new scarcity" of fossil fuels, minerals, fresh water, arable land, habitable surface area, waste-absorbing capacity of the natural environment, fresh air, and food come from approaching the finite limits of the earth. These limits demand a radical slow down or leveling off in material.growth and energy-use curves of the past.' Yet, the present economic and political system is built around a growth hypothesis. The economic and political consequences of limiting growth appear unbearable. Guidance Dilemma Ecological considerations along with awesome power of modern technology to change any and all aspects of the human environment establish a mandate for greater guidance of technological and social innovation. Yet, the political price of such guidance is very high. Such guidance is perceived as con-trary to man's fundamental right to freedom and as an inhibition to economic growth. Global Justice Dilemma Further advances by the industrialized nations make the rich nations richer and the poor nations relatively poorer. The impressive ac-complishments of the industrial economy are largely built on a base of cleverness plus cheap energy, the latter from the world's limited stockpile of fossil fuels. Yet, the costs of not redressing these inequities may be serious political and economic world instabilities as well as widespread famine and inhuman suffering in the poorer nations. Social Roles Dilemma Present economic system is failing to provide Yet, the absence of satisfying and personally an adequate number of satisfying social roles meaningful roles for women, youth, the especially for women and minorities. The aged, and minorities along with worker employment market is saturated; there is a dissatisfaction in general results in in-need to keep youth and the aged out of the creased I~ersonal alienation and erodes labor market, the morale of the nation. control is considered unacceptableto an increasingly large number of Catholics. Difficulties are arising in the functioning of such Church structures as the priesthood and the traditional role of the laity and of such Church institutions as parishes, schoo|s, and hospitals. Their once-unquestioned role within the Church no longer seems to satisfy the needs of an increasingly large number of church members. This crisis and transition within the Church has had a dramatic effect on religious communities of women and men. Religious communities have begun to experience all of the signs of entering into the breakdown and disintegration period described earlier in this article. There has been a sharp decline in membership due to increased withdrawals and a decrease in new recruits. Re- The Recovery of Religious Life / 713 cent literature9 gives a statistical picture of this breakdown in the United States. - A recent National Opinion Research Center study indicated there is a larger relative number of resignees among those already established in church careers than in any other equivalent period of time since the French Revolution. - For the years between 1965 and 1972 66% of the yearly decrease in communities of religious women was due to dispensation or termination of vows. In communities of religious women the average annual net increase over these years was approximately 768 members, the average annual net decrease was 3841, with only one-third of that loss caused by deaths. - The total number of Sisters in 1974 had declined 17% from 1960 and 23% since their peak membership year in 1966. - The total number of religious Brothers in 1974 had decreased 12% since 1960 and 26.5% since their peak membership year in 1966. The purposes of religious communities which were once clear and widely understood have become vague and meaningless to some in the midst of the modern church crisis. The structures of authority and process of communica-tion and decision making within religious communities seem no longer to fit the needs of the individuals within the community or suit the evolving work of the communities. The processes of formation to religious community have sometimes become disorganized and seem to lack purpose. These and other signs indicate that the last fifteen to twenty years have been a time when most religious com-munities have begun to experience breakdown. This cluster of the signs of breakdown in virtually all communities seems to indicate that we are ap-proaching the end of another major era in the history of religious life. C. Restatement of the Bias This review of the transitions in secular culture as well as the current crisis of the Church allows us to use the historical and sociological models of the evolution of religious life and religious communities outlined in the previous sections to answer the question "Where does religious life stand today?" In the introduction of this article, an answer was given in what was called the fun-damental bias of the article, namely, that religious life in America is undergo-ing a profound transition, which will take another twenty or twenty-five years to run its full course. The arguments leading up to this bias can be set forth as follows: 1. The dominant image of religious life has undergone several major tran-sitions as religious life has evolved as a movement within the Church. 2. The occurrence of these major transitions is associated with a number 9Carroll W. Trageson and Pat Holden, "Existence and Analysis of the 'Vocation Crisis' in Religious Careers," (pp. 1-3) in Carroll W. Trageson, John P. Koval, and Willis E. Bartlett (eds.), Report on Study of Church Vo

Issue 34.3 of the Review for Religious, 1975. ; Review ]or Religious is edited by faculty members of the School of Divinity of St. Louis University, the editorial offices being located at 612 Humboldt Building: 539 North Grand Boulevard: St. Louis, Missouri 63103. It is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute; St. Louis, Missouri. Published bimonthly and copy-right (~ 1975 by Review [or Religious. Composed, printed, and manufactured in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri. Single copies: $1.75. Sub-scription U.S.A. and Canada: $6.00 a year; $I1.00 for two years; olher countries, $7.00 a year, $13.00 for two years. Orders should indicate whether they are for new or renewal subscriptions and should be accompanied by check or money order payable to Review ]or Religious in U.S.A. currency only. Pay no money to persons claiming to repre~nt Review ]or Religious. Change of address requests should include former address. Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Everett A. Diederich, S.J. Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Editor Associate Editor Questions and Answers Editor May 1975 Volume 34 Number 3 Renewals, new subscriptions, and changes of address should be sent to Review for Religious; P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, Minnesota 55802. Correspondence with the editor and the associate editor together with manuscripts and books for review should be sent to Review for Religious; 612 Humboldt Building; 539 Noah Grand Boulevard; St. Louis, Missouri 63103. Questions for answering should be sent to Joseph F. Gallen, S.J.; St. Joseph's College; City Avenue at 54th Street; Philadelphia, Pennsyl-vania 19131. Models of Spiritual Direction David L. Fleming, S.J. David L. Fleming, S.J., is Co-director of the Institute of Religious Formation at the School of Divinity of St. Louis University; 3634 Lindell Boulevard; St. Louis, Missouri 63108. Religious men and women today often find themselves in deep disagreement about the role of spiritual direction in their lives. The basic problem lies often enough in the inability to distinguish the various ways of understanding spiritual direction which have been developed in the Christian tradition. A. Models of Spiritual Direction lnspi~:ed by Father Avery Dulles' book, Models of the Church, 1 would like to propose a similar approach.to be used to better our understanding of spiritual direction. Dulles carefully makes the case that church has no single comprehensive definition, but as contemporary theology views it, church is in need of many models held simultaneously to gain a more adequate under-standing. In a similar way, I believe that we will come to a far richer apprecia-tion of spiritual direction if we consider various models which haye tried to capture what it is and how it works. The advantage of models in understanding spiritual direction, just as in working with the notion of church, arises out of the necessary obscurities of religious language and the area of religious experience. Spiritual direction deals with an ultimate level of religious mystery of a God and man love-relationship. As a result, our religious language should be looked upon as forming models because it can only approximate the object which it is trying to grasp. Whenever we use a model conception, we break the illusion that we are actually holding the infinite within the finite structures of our language. Moreover, a variety of models opens up the possibility of our not getting fixed upon any particular one and taking it as an idol. At the same time, through a 35'1 352 / Review for Religious, Volume 34, 1975/3 variety of models we will more easily allow for the greater expression of the subjective element which is at the core of,all religious experience. 1 will propose, then, five models of spiritual direction that are found in our Christian heritage. Spiritual direction can come in a group setting such as faith-sharing groups, small group discussions, or review-of-life groups. But here I will propose five models that deal only with personal spiritual direction, that is, one director with one being directed. For personal direction holds a privileged place in our tradition, and group activity does not eliminate its value or its need. 1 do not pretend that five models form an exhaustive list, but I think that it covers a help.ful spectrum of ideas about spiritual direction as it has come to be understood and practiced in the Church. The five models 1 have chosen are: I) direction as institutionalized; 2) direction as interpersonal relationship; 3) direction as charismatic; 4) direction as sacramental; and 5) direction as incarnational. ! will describe briefly spiritual direction as un-derstood in each of these models, touching somewhat on both the strengths of the model and the weaknesses. In trying to identify each clearly, I face the risk of caricaturing, but that is not my intention. All models should be valued and respected. I) Direction as Institutionalized Spiritual direction is institutionalized in the functions of the novice direc-tor, the designated spiritual director of a seminary, the tertian director, and sometimes the superior, especially as understood in the original role of the ab-bot or in the lgnatian idea of a superior. Direction in this model is carried out particularly by instructing in the spiritual and religious life. Spiritual direction is considered in terms of formation; it has a molding role, and so it connotes a certain control over a person's life development. Oftentimes direction in this model exercises a judgmental role because candidates for religious life or for the priesthood must be declared fit or not fit and so accepted or rejected. Spiritual direction in this designated job-form plays an important part in the Church today, just as it has in past centuries. Among the advantages of this model, the clarity of formation is assured, because the necessary instruction about spiritual development is not left to chance. Definite goals and some set means are a part of the direction ex-change, in this model, we find a certain control over the competency of the director since the "job" of direction was assigned usually by superiors who have judged a person's fittingness for such a role. From the letters of St. Paul giving direction to communities and to individuals, through the early models of direction by the desert fathers, we find deep in Christian tradition the bases of this institutional model. But a number of weaknesses are also apparent in this model. Obviously freedom is minimal in setting up the relationship of direction since the one be-ing directed must subject himself to the person whose function it is to fulfill the assigned job as director. Direction seems to be more a matter of imposition of Models of Spiritual Direction life style and spiritual practices than an evoking of personal growth. Direction also appears to be quite limited in time-value, for it covers primarily the for-mational period or, beyond that, the possible crisis period which needs infor-mation or judgment. 2) Direction as Interpersonal Relationship In this model, spiritual direction is defined primarily in terms of a per-sonal relationship--the closer the friendship the better. Direction, then, usually has the aspect of friendly sharing and loving support. While still main-taining the interpersonal basis, this model of direction sometimes makes studied use of psychological techniques, e.g. the transactional analysis methods. Even with the possibility of a certain psychological approach being consciously employed, direction attempts to focus equally upon the interper-sonal relationship of the two friends (the one directing and the one directed) and the growth in a life-response to God. Frequently in this model, the two people involved exchange roles of director with each other so that spiritual direction becomes a mutual involvement. The strengths of this model are evident in the presence of the love, care, and concern which permeate the relationship in all its aspects. As in any friendship, the free gift of self to each other is assured. Self-disclosure with all its dreams, ideals, fears, and disappointments flows very naturally as the friendship continues to deepen. While contemporary attitudes, especially in reaction to the institutional model of direction, favor this kind of approach, historically it also rests on strong evidence from the example of various saints' friendships with each other and from the written correspondence of direction. When we consider the weaknesses, we note that such a model may overstress the humanistic and so not allow for the distance between reason and grace, which never perfectly coincide. Even though in one sense friends can speak up honestly and forthrightly to each other, in another sense their lack of distance may blind each other to the very areas which need attention. Sometimes even the best of friends find that they are frozen in speaking about one or other area because of the delicacy of the love relationship between them. Another difficulty arises when psychological techniques enter into the picture too consciously; we may find a good helping relationship, but one which takes very little notice of the presence of God or the dynamism of grace. 3) Direction as Charismatic Spiritual direction in this model finds a basis in the diakrisis or discretio of St. Paul's grace-gifts within the Body of Chrigt. Because of the stress upon the special character of this person who is truly a "spiritual discerner," spiritual direction itself is seen as a rarity. St. Teresa of Avila is often quoted in support of this viewpoint because she said that only one person in a thousand is capable of direction work. Just to make the point more clearly, St. Francis de Sales is cited for his observation that a director may number only one in ten thousand. 354 / Review for Religious, Volume 34, 1975/3 Following the biblical image of forgiveness as seventy times seven, both saints are not using modern statistics, but rather they are indicating the special gift which is demanded of the director in spiritual direction work. For spiritual direction as understood here is defined more in terms of insight or infused in-tuition from God. Direction has an aura of the marvelous about it. The emphasis seems to focus more on the arcane directions which will be given to the person directed--special divine messages which come from the "reading of a soul" by the inspired director. The strengths of such a view certainly include the great stress made upon the gift-notion of spiritual direction. Direction in this model catches up two people in the atmosphere of the divine, and the process receives its proper emphasis of being more than human technique and human response, it does point up that a "seeing deeper" with the eyes of faith highlights the relationship of direction. There is a certain basis in both the Old and New Testament, and some examples in Christian hagiography to support such a viewpoint. The weaknesses become apparent in the over-significance attributed to the power of God's grace--looking for its presence only in the spectacular or the marvelous. It seems to restrict God's gifts far too much to the extraordinary in the light of human judgment. As a result, spiritual direction itself becomes an extraordinary means in the life of the Church spiritual tradition. But the history of spirituality does not support this conclusion. 4) Direction as Sacramental Spiritual direction has long been seen in terms of a sacramental model because of the confessor-penitent relationship in the sacrament of penance. Because of the sacramental grace of priestly ordination, the priest himself was seen to be a very special instrument of God and to embody the gifts of ministry which we find in the writings of St. Paul. The words which a priest speaks, then, have greater importance than mere human opinion or advice because they are spoken by God's human representative. More particularly, within the sacrament of penance the priest-confessor often has words of advice or counsel. This context becomes the only true setting of spiritual direction because of the certain ex opere operato effect of words spoken within the sacramental encounter. Such counsel within the context of the sacrament takes in, not just the area of sinful tendencies, but all the attitudes and ways of acting which relate to the God-orientation of a person's life. The advantages of this model include the emphasis given to a more balanced sense of the sacrament of penance. Confession itself is not a mechanistic forgiveness; it has a human relationship involved between the priest-representative of the Church and the penitent. There is no doubt that God-inspired words of counsel or advice do take place in the sacramental con-text. Yet as every priest knows experientially, such words cannot be presumed automatically--one flagrant handicapping of God's action being the prepared Models of Spiritual Direction / 355 little "sermon" which each penitent, no matter what he may confess, may receive on a particular Saturday confession period. But two-human beings, so consciously aware of the special presence of God in the sacramental relationship, are both more readily open to the word of God being spoken and being received. The merit of this viewpoint rests upon a long tradition stem-ming from the penitential manuals of the Irish monks of the eighth century to the more contemporary confession manuals dating from the seventeenth cen-tury in which direction brings a fullness to and finds its proper setting in the sacrament of penance. The weaknesses of such a model are found in the restrictions which it puts upon spiritual direction itself. Because of the sacramental setting, a priest is the only qualified spiritual director. Direction, then, flows properly from the ministry of priesthood. If other men and women carry on this work, it is only as "secondary" helpers to the priest who gives over to them this function. This viewpoint seems to take for granted that priesthood ministry inclu.des all the ministries to be found within the Church, but this conception has no sound basis in scripture or tradition. Direction in this model also takes on too magical a sense in that whatever is said within the context of the sacrament becomes true spiritual counsel. 5) Direction as Incarnational This model of direction is one that is probably receiving most attention to-day in the revival of the practice of spiritual direction. The name incarnational given to describe it calls a little too ostentatiously to the Christian connotation of God-becoming-man. Spiritual direction takes it place among the many "fleshly" means which make up God's ordinary way of salvation as un-derstood in Christianity. From Jesus Christ through the Apostles down to our own contemporary Church, we know that God has a design of salvation mediated by our fellowmen. Direction, then, is seen in its ordinariness of one man helping another to clarify and objectify God's will in his life. At the same time, direction is known to be a relationship of two persons caught up in the presence and power of God in this very ordinary encounter, and so both are aware by faith of the privileged grace-time which direction makes available. Elements which are present in the incarnation of the God-man have their analogous components in the direction relationship. Human preparation, faith, and an openness to the movement of God are necessary, and then a recognition that any true fruition of the direction relationship comes from the Spirit. This model of direction is also properly identified as incarnational in that no aspect of a person's life is left apart from the direction context, since man as a whole--physically, psychologically, and spiritually--must grow in his response to God's unique call to him. The advantages of this model are especially seen in terms of the developments of our own day. It presents a conceptual notion of direction that is deeply in tune with the whole process of renewal in the Church. It builds 356 / Review for Religious, Volume 34, 1975/3 upon the richness of contemporary scriptural and theological studies, par-ticularly in the areas of Christology and Ecclesiology. It maintains a sure emphasis on the humanness of this relationship in direction, while still placing the solidity of growth as a God-empowered gift. Direction in this model is an ordinary means of spiritual growth in the embodied spirituality which is Christianity. This way of understanding direction has good foundation in both scripture and tradition since we find God acting through men in giving advice and warning (e.g. Jeremiah), in making a person aware of how to listen to God (e.g. Samuel and Saul), in clarifying and objectifying a response (e.g. David and Nathan), and in instruction (e.g. Ananias and Paul). The example con-tinues in the many volumes of spiritual writings and letters which we have as a legacy from holy men and women in our Catholic history. The weaknesses of this model arise somewhat from the novelty of its recent re-emphasis. It may too easily be seen as a good human relationship sprinkled over with pious words about God's will. Direction may look so ordinary that the only conclusion to be drawn is that everyone needs it and is capable of profiting from it and just about everyone has the ability to give direction. Then, too, taking in the whole of one's life as the subject-matter seems to leave this model of direction open to a lack of preciseness--no clear understanding of the concerns of direction or the ways of going about it. In a similar way, direction seems to lack clarity about the quality of this spiritual relationship--mixing friendship and distance or professionalism, and or-dinariness and the sense of the holy. B. A Model of Models? In review, all the models have played and do play an important part in our full understanding of spiritual direction--what it is, who does it, to whom it has value, how to go about it, and so on. What 1 hope to have shown is that we can understand spiritual direction in various ways (not just one right way), and that as a result there are various expectations on the part of the director and the one being directed, various methods of directing, and even different ways of valuing its importance for mature spiritual life. To try to reduce the various models of spiritual direction to a single one is to lose sight of the incomprehensible richness of religious experience which forms the content of direction. Neither the strengths nor the weaknesses of the various approaches or models are neatly reducible to a single model. Even after describing each model in its purity, we should be aware that a blending often happens in ~ictual praciice. What we tend to do is to make one model our pivotal model for adapting and understanding other ways of functioning in spiritual direction. But to hold one model as pivotal is quite different from maintaining that there is only one way of understanding and practicing spiritual direction. If I were to opt for a pivotal model for our own day, 1 would choose direc-tion described as incarnational. I believe that it allows for a greater understand-ing of the continuing importance of spiritual direction, especially for the men Models ojSpiritual Direction / 3!i7 and women who have recognized or who are in the process of recognizing the call to specialized ministry roles within the Church. It also more easily allows for the importance of other understandings of direction and other methodologies according to circumstances, though it maintains an adequacy for its own method as a common pattern. Far more work must still be done to gain .an appreciation of the richness which we possess in the Christian practice of spiritual direction. Presently, to be able to hold the different models of direction in tension allows us to draw a little closer to a more adequate truth and a more varied beauty which encompass the mystery of spiritual direction ministry. Creative Response To A Call Within "The Call" Sister Marie Gatza, I.H.M. Sister Marie Gatza, I.H.M., participated in the Workshop of National Vocation Directors which met at Mercy Center in Farmington, Michigan, during the summer of 1974. She is Assistant General of the Sisters Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary; Saint Mary Convent; Monroe, Michigan 48161. The area of "Transfer," is, I am told, fast becoming a matter of concern among Vocation Directors. In the past, there have been rare instances of transfers centered mostly on permissions given to leave an active for a con-templative congregation, a less strict order for a stricter one. However, the topic of "Transfer" is a relatively recent new-comer among religious life con-cepts within Congregations of women in the United States, and so not too much has yet made its way into current literature. Opportunities to learn more about the idea of "Transfer,'" "therefore, come best through situations like the workshop of Vocation Directors at Mercy Center in Farmington where during the Summer of 1974, I had the privilege of contributing the ideas developed in this essay. In trying to think how I could most effectively focus the concentration of workshop members on the topic of"Transfer," 1 found that four key questions readily surfaced: I. Why would a Sister desire to leave her parent Congregation? 2. What factors greatly influence the thinking of Sisters in their search for a Congregation into which they can transfer? 3. What motivation would impel a Congregation to welcome into its membership a Sister who has already finalized her commitment in another Congregati6n? 358 Creative Response to a Call Within "The Call" / 359 4. Given mutuality on the part of the Sister to enter and of the Congrega-tion to receive, what procedural steps are basic to achieving the transfer of a Sister from one Congregation to another? I would like to treat each of these questions, now, in some detail. Then in addition to these four questions, it seems well to attend, even briefly, to the beginnings of evaluation of the concept of "Transfer" as we perceive it operating today within religious Congregations. I Why do Sisters feel convinced that they must leave the Congregation in which they pronounced Perpetual Vows? Because the reasons given by each of the Sisters cited here are so in-dividual, it would not be wise--or even possible--for me to generalize in response to this question. What we can do, however, is to take some mini-glimpses into the lives of a few Sisters who saw "Transfer" as vital to the continuance of their religious commitment. From them we may learn that the motives which led Sisters to request transfer are many and varied. My first example is SISTER P who had been for almost twenty years a member.of a cloistered Congregation, which recently, as a matter of entering into renewal of Religious life, permitted coursework for its Sisters on the cam-puses of nearby Catholic colleges. Sister P was greatly enthusiastic about her opportunity for college education, and discovered that she had a gift for and a great desire to impart knowledge to others in a classroom situation. She found the world of apostolic teaching increasingly fascinating, and at the same time was aware of a persistent questioning within herself as to whether she was really fitted for, or any longer drawn to the contemplative life, despite the years she had already spent within it. She asked for a leave of absence in order to test out her vocation in a Congregation whose main apostolic thrust is education. SISTER N became a candidate in the Congregation of her choice after completing secondary school, and entered, with apparent enthusiasm, into full-scale studies toward becoming a teacher in the Congregation's apostolate of education. Toward the end of nearly twenty years of service in various schools, and maintaining only love and reverence for her own active congregation, she felt the persistent call of the Lord to continue'her religious life in a more con-templative setting. Her transfer to a contemplative community was, therefore, effected. SISTER T's story is a second testimonial to the fact that transfer is a two-way proposition: some come, others go. 360 / Review for Religious, Volume 34, 1975/3 Sister T, brilliantly endowed intellectually, chose to transfer from the original foundation Motherhouse of her congregation to one of its branches. Her choice for this action seemed to be motivated by the fact that the style and tempo of that community much more surely encompassed her thoughts on renewal in religious life than did that of her own Congregation. When SISTER S first came into contact with the congregation into which she ultimately transferred, she was in her early thirties, and had already been questioning her current situation in religious life. Sister S's diocesan Com-munity consisted of only thirty-four, mostly older members, who in Sister's es-timation had not sufficient theological background to enable them to cope with renewal. At the offset, Sister's motivation for approaching another religious con-gregation was primarily one of a desire to earn her degree. In the course of completing her studies, she came into close contact with the life-style of the faculty, Sisters who were her peers in the Juniorate, and a number of other Sisters belonging to the Congregation which staffed her college. At gradua-tion, Sister realized that the determination to transfer was still much alive within her, and took a most natural next-step: seek transfer permanently to that congregation. SISTER G, educated in elementary an'd secondary schools staffed by Sisters dedicated primarily to education, chose to enter another congregation whose apostolate included social work, for which she felt-a strong inclination. Ironically, at the time she requested entry into religious life, the congregation of her choice was in great need of teachers rather than of social workers, and so, Sister G was educated for the teaching field, a profession in which, however, she learned to find joy and satisfaction. After 19 years in community, Sister G's mother became ill and was in desperate need of her help. Sister appealed to her Provincial, requesting to live and teach with the group of Sisters in the town where her mother's home was located, a move that enabled her to be closer to her mother. Because Sister G's congregation at the time did not approve of inter- Congregational living situations, she was required to take a leave of absence in order to'care for her mother. Sister's two years of leave were painful ones for her in that she felt an absence of support from her Congregation, and grew in-creasingly concerned that her request to care for her mother in this way had displeased her former superiors. A sense of disappointment,-discouragement and alienation resulted. Meanwhile, her conviction of being at home and loved in her temporary living situation became more compelling, and Sister's thoughts focused on the advisability of asking for a transfer. Her present status 'is one of preparing to finalize her commitment to the Lord in her new Congregation. SISTER M is a promising young Ph.D., gifted as well with an unusually Creative Response to a Call Within "The ('all" / 361 strong sense of commitment to religious life, and a very real love and loyalty to her own Congregation. Sister M's reason for seeking transfer is expressed clearly in this sentence taken from one of her letters: "I am reluctant to make this transfer, but have found peace of mind with the decision, since affiliation with the community, ¯ promises greater freedom to respond to the heart of my religious vocation and to the needs of the Church as ! understand them." Interestingly, Sister M is at the present moment making one last effort to work things out with her own Congregation. I do not know whether or not her transfer will materialize. These examples, though few, indicate that reasons for thinking of transfer are much conditioned by a variety of circumstances in which Sisters find themselves. I1 What considerations greatly influence the thinking of Sisters in their search for a specific Congregation into which they would hope to transfer? I suppose that it would be next to impossible to make a comprehensive listing of the factors influencing Sisters in their search for another Congrega-tion in which they can live out the religious cohamitment already begun in the first, their parent Congregation. It is my experience that most Sisters who are interested in a possible transfer express in some way a feeling of affinity with the "new" Congrega-tion, and a supportiveness toward its thrust in Renewal. Where a House of Prayer has developed, for example, many Sisters relate very positively to the significance accorded this growing movement in the Christian life of our day, and are attracted by the centrality of importance accorded to both personal and communal prayer. Again, a basic belief in, and an inner assurance of, competency in relation to the apostolate of the new Congregation seems to enter significantly into a Sister's choice of a Community to which she might like to transfer. Sometimes, style Of living is an important consideration. A person's contact in childhood with the elected Congregation, that is, in elementary or secondary school years, or contact with members of a given Congregation in adult years may influence the Sister'.s decision to opt for one Congregation rather than another, if a transfer is sought. Occasionally, a more insightful approach is brought to the resolution of this question, i.e. "which Congregation?" ! recall, for example, a Sister who had entered religious life as an Aspirant after completing the eighth grade. Twelve years later, having pronounced perpetual vows, Sister asked to be ex-claustrated from her Congregation for the purpose of searching out whether religious life should c~ntinue to be her life-style. Her searching she did under direction, concluding that, yes, religious life was, indeed, what the Lord was :362 / Review for Religious, Volume 34, 1975/3 calling her to live; bt~t not, however, within the Congregation she had entered. After asking herself what it was within the spirit and heritage of her own Congregation that had been most helpful and inspirational to her, really at the heart of her vocation, Sister contacted better than a.dozen Congregations ask-ing for brochures. These she studied for indications of the traits that best em-bodied the spirit of the Congregation in which she had made her vows. In the end, it was the Congregation which she thought did this best that she ap-proached asking for a transfer. But whatever the method used, or whatever the degree of logic or clearness of purpose perceived by the Sister considering transfer, I believe it is fairly safe to say that the seeker is hopeful of finding in the new Congregation cir-cumstances that will be favorable for her living, in some rewarding way, a commitment which means very much to her; circumstances which for some reason or other may have been painfully absent in her life in Community up to this point. III What would be the motivation of a Congregation which welcomes as a new member o fits own a Sister who has already lived under permanent profession within another Congregation? First off, let's clarify one point beyond any confusion. There is probably small encouragement in the Church for supporting transfer at all. The nature of religious commitment, as it has been historically understood and accepted, i.e., "Community", "family", "leader-followers" concepts, argues for permanency within the parent Congregation. We have learned to speak of the "charism" of a Congregation: that unique spirit that characterizes a group of Sisters as a religious Congregation. Although it is hard to put one's fingers on exactly what it is that distinguishes one Congrega-tion from another, no one will deny that there is a certain something, a family bond or spirit which is recognizable to the members, and, to an appreciable ex-tent, able to be detected by outsiders, as well. In some effective way, it seems that the act of transferring from one Congregation to another has to take this matter of Community-charism into consideration. Granting this fact, even slight reflection leads to the conviction that transfer is not an action one opts to pursue lightly when life's more adven-turous movements taper, off into routine. No. To transfer from one's Congregation to another can result in virtually total uprooting, loss of friends, and severance from all that has been familiar for the individual. Should transfer become a more.common pr~actice, we could anticipate con-sequences for the parent Congregation, also. Loss of morale within the ranks, and diminished confidence in the Community outlook and thrust on the part of many of the members can develop exceedingly fast, as we have all learned through our own decrease in numbers sustained in recent years. Creative Response to a Call Within "'The Call" / 363 These considerations being so, a large number of transfers could hardly be thought desirable. One might ask, then, why do leaders of Congregations entertain the idea of transfer at all? Their motivation has to arise from a basic reverence for each individual call to religious life, and a desire to support a fellow Sister in her efforts to re-main faithful to her vocation, even if it means a painful re-planting. Those sup-porting transfer would have to act from a willingness and desire: a. to provide for a Sister some "time" and "space" away from her Congregation in which she can be free to sort out priorities while still being basically observant of the life style of a religious, -or-b. to provide a Sister with an opportunity to embrace the life and mission of a new Congregation for the sake of remaining faithful to her commit-ment to Christ, when it becomes apparent that she can no longer achieve this end within her own Congregation, -or much more rarely, willingness to engraft upon one's own Congregation (as was recently the case within a diocesan group in one of our Eastern States) a whole Com-munity of Sisters when a basic similarity of spirit, or charism prevails in the two Congregations in question. These thoughts indicate in some way, why a Congregation is sometimes willing to accept Sisters asking for a transfer. IV Given a Sister who believes she needs to have a new setting in which to continue living her religious vocation, and given a Congregation willing to think of her as a potential new member of its own, what must be done? The essentials are not too numerous, in my .experience. a. Willingness of the General Superiors of both Congregations to allow and welcome the fact of a transfer, is undoubtedly, of the essence. b. Some good help provided the Sister in discerning whether transfer is, in-deed, the Lord's will for her seems essential too. c. And, of course, proper transactions with Rome are required for the ob-taining of the needed "paper"--the Rescript of Transfer. Of these three, the step which admits of many specifics is the second one; the discernment process. Taking more time than not enough at this point, and being free to meet the individual needs of the Sister is a matter that must 364 / Review for Religious, Volume 34, 1975/3 receive priority at all costs. The space of a year, or more, can very profitably be employed in initially resolving the question of whether it would be mutually advantageous to bring about a transfer, and then of building a readiness for a transfer which is directed to future personal and apostolic fruitfulness for the Sister and for her new Congregation. In my Congregation, which has been open to requests of Sisters to transfer, dealing with Sisters who are thinking about this possibility is a work delegated to the Assistant of the General Superior. It is her responsibility as contact per-son to keep the General Superior and Provincials aware of the Sister's progress at stated times throughout the year. It is also understood that the contact person in some suitable way perform the following duties in re to the Sister seeking to transfer: I. The Contact person enables the Sister to find a situation in which she will live and work among her new Sisters as an actual member of her own Congregation for at least one year before any formal request is made to Rome. During this year a two-way evaluation is on-going: on the part of the Sister who is acquainting herself with the new Com-munity; and on the part of the chosen Community which tries to ask honestly: "Can our Congregation assist this Sister in her living of a healthy religious life and further our Community interests as well by welcoming her into our midst?" 2. The Contact person makes efforts to assist the Sister to become familiar with the members of the elected Community and their life-st'yle, Constitutions, prayer, Community history, and so on. 3. She arranges a realistic and practical system of contacts by means of which she herself, will keep in close contact with the possible transfer- Sister throughout the year. 4. It is her responsibility to establish, as well, during the year, some means of contacting the Sisters residing with Sister-transfer to see how they in-teract with her and she with them. 5. The Contact person may significantly assist her Superior in preparing the portfolio of materials needed to formalize the transfer at Rome, and within both Congregations of Sisters. 6. She enters into facilitating plans for the liturgical celebration marking completion of transfer. 7. She, finally, keeps files current: documents, letters, various com-munications. These suggestions form'at least a working outline of practical steps that will take on significance during the discernment period, especially. Here, then, are some thoughts on each of the four questions presented in the beginning of this essay. I have shown that transfer from one Congregation to another is possible; and while certainly not giving the last word on how it can come about, I have indicated the outline of a procedure for a starter. With Creative l~,esponse to a Call Within "The Call" / 365 all of this, ~owever, there is a yet unasked, but key question that must be sur-faced: I When all the externals and!formalities of the transfer have been com-pleted; when the document~ have been validated; when the ceremonial commemorating the event l~as become a matter of history, it still seems imperative to ask: Did a transfer really occur? Is it possible for a person to sink permanent roots in new soil twice in the space of a single, human lifetime? What sort of on-going~considerations would have to be borne in mind by the "new" community and satisfactorily dealt with by the transferred Sister so that she will not: -- be constantly lone!y? -- be often lacking in ~nderstanding because her past is so foreign in many ways fro~ the past of those with whom she now lives? -- be many times Iook~ing backward to a chapter of her life which is largely unsharable with others and now closed even to herself?, These questions--very real and, sometimes, harsh, lead one, unerringly to the ultimate question: "For h~w many can transfer really be an alternative'?" This presentation really c~uld end with the question 1 have just posed. Ho ever, as a kind of epilog~te, let me ask one further: w'what would happen were it possible for a Sister to live within another Congregation on an extended leave until such time arrived at which she could return in dignity an~ peace and joy to her own Congregation?" Might not this be an unusu~ai service of love that a Congregation could ex-tend not only to an individual ~eligious, but to its Sister-Congregation, as well? it's worth a thought! I Integrity in the Religious Life Sister Mary John Mananzan, O.S.B. Sister Mary John Mananzan is attached to St. Scholastica's College; 2560 Leon Guinto, Sr. St.; P.O. Box 3153; Manila, Philippines. There are virtues which are so all-encompassing that one can explain the other facets of religious life through them. It is not infrequent to explain religious life primarily through one of the vows--(of poverty, of chastity, and obedience) or primarily as a life of love and from there explain all its other features. One such encompassing virtue which, however, is rarely used to view religious life, is integrity. And it is not infrequent that religious people who ex-hibit m~iny external manifestations of virtue can be lacking in integrity. This lack of integrity .can be so subtle that such religious people become a real problem to honest but simple people who deal with the.m. These cannot put their .finger to a particular fault but somehow .they feel something is wrong somewhere. This article will try to analyze situations that exhibit the presence of integrity or the lack of it particularly in the religious life. Integrity is a many-faceted word. Its nuances encompass different but related levels of meaning--from honesty to wholeness of being. But all along this spectrum of meaning runs a single beam that relates them to each other, namely TRUTH. Integrity describes the many aspects of being true. That is why it is a basic virtue. Without it all other seeming virtues are a show and the lack of it makes any manifested virtue suspect. The most basic meaning of the word is "wholeness" or oneness. A religious who is a "whole" is one who has achievi~d a certain harmony in his being, which presupposes a basic self-understanding and self-acceptance. Further-more he has a certain sense of reality and a coherent system of values which form the framework for this authentic self-awareness. Most religious tend to mature intellectually before they do emotionally and morally. There is thus a Integrity in the Religious LiJ~" / certain incongruence and inconsistency in their life. They can give very good lectures, sermons, or write beautiful articles about behaviour, attitudes or vir-tues which can be sadly lacking in their lives. The catching up of one's emotion and one's will with one's insight is a progressive growth in integrity and wholeness. This tendency of the earlier maturation of the intellect may explain the expert way religious.can rationalize actions which deep in their heart they feel guilty about. Laymen can be more honest about their faults than many religious because they don't need to live up to an image. Religious on the other hand have to live up to the imperatives that rule their lives--the imperative to perfection, the imperative to excellence, the imperative to fidelity, the im-perative to unselfishness, the imperative to sacrifice, etc. There is thus a ground for varying degrees of hypocrisy in the religious life ranging from unconscious inconsistency, through semi-conscious in-congruence to alarming schizophrenic tendencies. In this connection, one can look at the crisis of celibacy today as the crisis of integrity. Celibacy can be viewed as the virtue of integrity par excellence. The fact that physical integrity is a sign of virginity is a significant symbol of the main characteristic of celibacy which is personal wholeness. Lived celibacy is not just renunciation but it is at the same time a fulfillment--namely the coming together of heart, mind, body in a singleness of purpose of serving God and being wholly there for others. Any religious who has had a crisis of celibacy must have undergone the literally heart-rending experience of being drawn to two poles--to the demand of the religious life and to the preoccupa-tion with the person with whom one is emotionally involved. Even without indulging in sexual relationships this inner splitting of one's heart threatens one's integrity as a religious. Sooner or later one will reach a critical point which can result in two ways: It can result in a greater wholeness, in a greater integrity due to a conscious re-direction of one's being to one's religious commitment or to a totally new way of life. But it can also lead to disintegration in one who refuses to heal the dichotomy of his heart. At this point all the other forms of lack of integrity will come in--justification, dis-simulation, outright deceit. The more clever the religious the more ingenious the rationalization. The whole of theology can be overhauled to justify the in-fidelity of the human heart, In those who have come to the point of indulging in sexual relationships, the element of passion comes in which blinds them to an almost unbelievable degree. It is not just a matter of moral disintegration that ensues; it can mean a disintegration of pe~sonality. Whole articles can be written about the so-called "third way." Here, only its effect on one's integrity has been discussed. Less dramatic but nevertheless harmful forms of lack of integrity can be found among religious. Where positions of power are held, there certain danger to one's integrity is present. As has already been said, the imperatives of the religious life conditions the failings of religious to be less glaring, less gross, more subtle, more refihed, and consequently more insidious. One can, 361~ / Review for Religious, Volume 34, 1975/3 for example develop a way of manipulating facts to serve one's purposes, it is not a matter of downright deception or lie but a way of leaving out facts or choosing them or presenting just an angle of them in order to get what one wants. One cannot put a finger on any downright falsified item but the whole thing is a lie nevertheless. The manipulation of reality can be so subtle that only the most clever can see through the whole scheme and yet ordinary people have an uneasy feeling about it. A more serious form of this lack of integrity is the manipulation of people. It is bad enough to manipulate facts, it is worse to manipulate people. There are clever persons who can play on the weaknesses and strength of other people to their advantage. When one has a project all wiles will be exerted to manipulate people into it. This can lead to sickening forms of "false sweetness," to borrow from the little girl who transformed the 8th commandment into--"Thou shal( not bear false sweetness against thy neighbor." For a positive treatment of integrity, one has to go back to the basic mean-ing given earlier in the article, namely--wholeness. There is in the religious who has achieved a certain amount of integrity, a certain consistency and con-gruence which gives his personality an identifiable core. This gives him a cer-tain reliability and trustworthiness lacking in "shifty" personalities. One. knows where one stands with him. One is aware of encountering someone who remains what he essentially is in differing circumstances. He is real! This solid ¯ reality of his personality is, moreover, transparent, not made opaque by masks, pretensions, dissimulations, or defenses. He is by this very fact vulnerable, because he does not change color like a chameleon or become elusive like an eel. Therefore his weak points are apparent and open to attack. But even this vulnerability is an asset because it is what makes him at home with all men. The link that binds human beings is most often their capacity to be hurt rather than their invulnerability, their common misery rather than the superiority or achievement which set some apart from others, It is a vulnerability that survives being pierced without falling apart. The process of personality integration is an on-going one. A person who has reached a certain degree of integrity continues to make experiences which are to be integrated into his personality if they are to become meaningful to him. One's integrity when one's world is still relatively simple is qualitatively (not only in degree) different from that which one has achieved after going' through major life experiences. There are experiences that are more easily in-tegrated than others because of their familiarity and relative lack of impor-tance. Utterly new experiences, shattering or overwhelming ones are more dif-ficult to integrate. These can cause crisis situations. A person of integrity however, can undergo the most serious crisis, even one caused by his own failings and therefore incurring real guilt without suffering a personality dis-integration. He somehow arises from the ruins battered but whole. He is able to integrate even these negative experiences into his life making him richer and. even more whole because of the confirmation of the links that unite his per-sonality. Integrity in the Religious Life / 369 This is probably the reason why religious who sense an inner integrity in their being tend to take more risks and are less bound by conventions or legalistic observance of rules. They have a sure instinct for what is right, what is true, what is demanded by a situation, what is false or genuine in people they live with. Because of all these, they enjoy an inner freedom which makes them more creative and innovative in the living of their religious commitment. Reprints from the Review "The Confessions of Religious Women" by Sister M. Denis, S.O.S. (25 cents) "Institutional Business Administration and Religious" by John J. Flanagan, S.J., and James I. O'Connor, S.J. (20 cents) "Authority and Religious Life" by J. M. R. Tillard, O.P. (20 cents) "The Death of Atheism" by Rene H. Chabot, M.S. (20 cents) "The Four Moments of Prayer" by John R. Sheets, S.J. (25 cents) "Instruction on the Renewal of Religious Formation" by the Congreg~ition for Religious (35 cents) "Meditative Descriptiori of the Gospel Counsels" (20 cents) "A Method for Eliminating Method in Prayer" by Herbert Francis Smith, S.J. (25 cents) "Religious Life in the Mystery of the Church" by J. M. R. Tiilard, O.P. (30 cents) "Profile of the Spirit: A Theology of Discernment of Spirits" by John R. Sheets, S.J. (30 cents) "Consciousness Examen" by George A. Aschenbrenner, S.J. (20 cents) "Retirement or Vigil?" by Benedict Ashley, O.P. (25 cents) "Celibacy and Contemplation" by Denis Dennehy, S.J. (20 cents) "The Nature and Value of a Directed Retreat" by Herbert F. Smith, S.J. (20 cents) "The Healing of Memories" by Francis Martin (20 cents) Orders for the above should be sent to: Review for Religious 612 Humboldt Building 539 North Grand Boulevard St. Louis, Missouri 63103 Religious Government: A Reflection On Relationships Sister Doris Gottemoeller, R.S.M. Sister Doris Gottemoeller, R.S.M., whose reflections here have grown out of her experience with the nine provinces of the Sisters of Mercy as well as conversations with members of many other congregations, resides at the Generalate of the Sisters of Mercy; 10000 Kentsdale Drive: P.O.,Box 34446; West Bethesda, Maryland 20034. The renewal of religious life inaugurated by Vatican II required the adaptation of every aspect of that life, both external practices and internal attitudes. One of the most readily observable of these external areas is that of religious government, the network of structures which regulate the interrelationships of members and groups within a community. If the revitalization of communities in the light of Gospel vision and community charism was to occur, the Council saw that it had to be done in the light of the "physical and psychological con-ditions of today's religious," "the needs of the apostolate, the requirements of a given culture, (and) the social and economic conditions everywhere."' More particularly, the Council specified that the way in which communities are governed had to be re-examined in the light of these same standards.~ In order for renewal to truly involve and touch each member of a com-munity, structures had to be altered in order to create channels for each in-dividual voice. Moreover, the spirit of collegiality and subsidiarity which enlivened the Council itself implied the necessity for structures of participative decision-making within other Church groups, such as dioceses, parishes, and religious communities. Before renewal began, role definitions of officials in religious communities (e.g., major superiors, councilors, local superiors) had 'Vatican Council II, Perfectae Caritatis. no. ~. ~lbid. 370 Religious Government." A Reflection on Relationships / 37"1 ¯ provided predictable patterns of decision-making. Furthermore, little revision of rule or policy was required from year to year in an era when lack of change was valued as a sign of strength; constitutions and custom books provided guidelines for every situation, whether of great or trivial importance. With the recognition of the need for on-going adaptation, however, structures had to be altered to provide for on-going participation in the vision-building and direction-setting of a community by every member of that community. Not only was widespread grassroots participation needed for the successful carry-ing out of the special general chapters which inaugurated adaptation, but government plans had to be tailored to allow for continuing involvement in the affairs of the community. At least five years have elapsed since this work began, and some obser-vations can be offered as the fruit of a backwards glance over those years. The remarks which follow can be characterized as insights gleaned from observing the efforts of many communities to re-structure their governments into more responsive and responsible models. They are reflections on the phenomena--not evaluations from a religious or a theological point of view. This work of evaluation is certainly called for, but first we must form a good idea of what is happ.ening before we probe further. The following observations apply to representative bodies, to administrative groups, and to the methods whereby leadership is selected. Representative Bodies The ultimate authority in a religious community has always been vested in its general chapter. Accordingly the efforts to update communities had to begin here in a twofold sense: the chapter itself had to be updated as an instru-ment of leadership and then it, in turn, had the responsibility to inaugurate change in every Other aspect of community life. To this end communities modified their chapters in various ways and, in some cases, supplemented them with other representative groups described variously as assemblies, boards, and congresses. All .of these representative bodies are discussed together here, because certain observations can be made which pertain to all of them. Therefore, in the paragraphs which follow, "chapter" is used to refer to any representative body with responsibility to and for an entire religious in-stitute or a large portion thereof, e.g., a province. I. Most representative bodies have been made truly representative. Great progress has been made here, in the sense that chapters are no longer con-trolled by a preponderance of ex-officio delegates. In most cases the size of the group has been expanded and communities have been diligent in trying to bring together a genuine cross section of the congregation--diversified as to age, apostolic experience, community experience, and geographic location (in instances where a community is widespread). One thing we have learned here, however, is that this effort has its own inherent limitations, in the sense that to specify the configuration of the delegate group too particularly may arbitrarily 372 / Review for Religious, Volume 34, 1975/3 limit the freedom of the community members to have the representatives of their choice. In other words, suitable chapter delegates are not always or necessarily found in equal proportions in each geographic region or age group. 2. A distinction between the chapter and other non-legislative representative groups is not always viable in practice. This observation applies to those com-munities which have created an additional representative group to serve in the interim between chapter sessions in an advisory .capacity to the administrative group (major superior and council). The composition of this new group usually overlaps, to a large extent, the chapter membership, so a certain confusion of roles and responsibilities results. As chapter members, while the chapter is in session, the delegates have dominative authority over the affairs of the in-stitute or province. As assembly members, however, the delegates have only a consultative function. However, a crisis of confidence in the leadership of the administrative group would soon develop if they overrode or ignored the con-sidered judgment of the assembly very often. So, in practice, the assembly becomes, effectively, legislative or policy-making. Also, assembly members would soon lose interest in serving in that capacity if the matters submitted to them were not of real significance and/or if their judgments were not adopted and implemented by the administrative group. Therefore, the tendency is for such assemblies to either develop a quasi-legislative function or else to be con-sistently frustrated by the ineffectiveness of their role. The question must be asked, though, how many significant agenda items are t~ere which should receive the attention of a broad-based chapter group? It would seem that on many issues the administrative group would profit more from consultation with a more specialized committee within the community, such as the representatives of one particular area of apostolic service, than from the broad-based consultation which a chapter can provide. 3. The frequency with which the group meets is more significant than whether or not it is defined as legislative. If the group meets frequently (e.g., as often as bi-monthly, or even quarterly), there is a tendency on the part of the ad-ministrative group to submit a comparatively larger number of items to its consideration and to defer action even on relatively noncontroversial issues un-til after consultation with the chapter or assembly. Thus there is the possibility of paralyzing the activity and initiative of the administrative group, or at least of weakening their effectiveness as a leadership group. Major superiors may hesitate to make any personal creative approach to a problem or issue without submitting it to a chapter 'referendum.' In some cases this is by design: the administrative group is conceived of as the executive arm of the chapter which, in a sense, retains ordinary authority in the community. If this is patterned on the federal government's model of separation of powers, it fails to take account of the fact that the executive and legislative arms of the federal government are (ideally!) separate but equal and, furthermore, are counterbalanced by the judicial arm. If it is patterned on the model of the relationship between a board of trustees and administrators Religious Government: A Reflection on Relationships / :373 who are responsible to the board, then it should be noted that trustees or-dinarily entrust a large amount of ordinary authority to their administrators. If the administrators abuse that trust, they are replaced by the trustees, but the latter are not involved in the administration per se of the institution. One ques-tion which a community which adopts this "strong chapter/weak ad-ministrator" model must ask itself is to what extent the chapter members are willing to prepare themselves to consider and to involve themselves in a succes-sion of varied problems and issues. Too frequent meetings also may have the unfortunate effect of discourag-ing otherwise qualified community members from serving as delegates. Once this occurs the moral authority of the chapter is subtly undermined because the community senses that somehow serving as a delegate is not a priority respon-sibility and that the composition of the delegate body does not reflect the 'first choice' of the members of the community. 4. Chapter authority is weakened by confusion over its function. Formerly the understanding of what chapter delegates were to do was quite clear and recognized throughout the community. Ordinarily general chapter meetings coincided with the election of the major superior and other officials, and this task was the primary responsibility of the delegates: In addition to this elective function, the delegates knew they had legislative authority. However, in the pre-Vatican Ii era little change was expected or seemingly desired. Therefore the responsibility for this legislative function did not weigh too heavily on the delegates. Beginning with the special general chapters, however, the whole situation changed, and the legislative aspect assumed great prominence. Chapters vir-tually legislated anew on every aspect of religious life, even to the extent of abrogating their former constitutions almost in toto. Since that time com-munities have been using interim constitutions and chapter decrees in place of their former constitutions. The changes reflected in these documents, of course, could not be effected by simply promulgating them: on-going develop-ment had to take place in order to assist community members, delegates and non-delegates alike, to test out the new vis{on in terms of concrete experience and to internalize that vision in their personal value structures. Quite naturally, chapter delegates thus saw that their responsibility did not end when a chapter session adjourned. They had to communicate the chapter vision to everyone and become agents of on-going renewal. Subsequent chapter sessions then became occasions of further corporate reflection on the values embodied in earlier chapter decrees and led to appropriate modifications, refinements, a shared search for ways to implement ideals, and so forth. Thus the legislative function of chapters shaded into a new one, the renewal function. While this evolution of chapter responsibility is understandable and, from some standpoints, desirable, from another viewpoint an unfortunate blurring of distinctions may occur. That is, all of the pronouncements of the same legislative body tend to carry the same weight. As a result, chapter enactments 374 / Review for Religious, Volume 34, 1975/3 may appear to regress to the minutiae of an earlier era, and hence invite dis-regard, or they may all appear to be merely exhortatory without the benefit of stress or emphasis. If the authority of the chapter becomes weakened in the general estimate by too frequent pronouncements, there will be no authoritative voice left in a community to make a really solemn or effective point when it is called for. Perhaps this is an argument for less frequent chapter meetings, preceded by extensive reflection and development of issues within the community. The renewal function, then, would remain primarily the responsibility of the ad-ministrative group and such other community members and committees as they invite to share their responsibility, while the deliberative and legislative function--the ultimate direction setting--would remain the primary emphasis of the chapter itself. Administrative Groups The day-to-day administration of religious communities as well as or-dinary authority between chapter sessions is entrusted to a major superior and councilors and staff persons who collaborate with them. Just as with represen-tative bodies, there have been a variety of new approaches to maximizing the effective service of~.administrative groups. 1. "Teamwork" is seen as an ideal for administrative groups. Scarcely a group could be found today which would not lay claim to functioning as a "'team," but the connotations of this term are sometimes elusive. The use of it probably reflects an effort to escape from a hierarchical arrangement within the administrative group in which distinctions of rank and authority were strictly maintained, or from a rigid system of role descriptions within the council which tended to discourage creativity and initiative among the members and to stifle leadership in all but the major superior. To state what a team is not, however, is not the same as filling the concept with positive mean-ing. The chief characteristic of a team relationship is probably the high degree of communication and interaction among its members. Team organization is not incompatible with differentiation of tasks and authority among the members--after all, there is only one captain of a football team, and everyone plays a different position on it. (There are even offensive players as well as defensive ones, althgugh one would not like to push the analogy this far!) A team does imply a common goal for the members' efforts, however, and a genuinely concerted effort to reach it. There can be a distribution of authority on a team, and there certainly should be a flexibility in approach, a willingness to capitalize on one another's strengths and to compensate for one another's weaknesses, and a relative freedom to revise the "game plan" or to strategize as play progresses. A few communities have organized their administrative groups in such a way that two or more persons have co-equal responsibility. For example, there Religious Government: A Reflection on Relationships / 37~i may be three co-provincials who have different spheres of responsibility (such as religious formation, apostolic placement, finances, etc.), but seemingly equal accountability for the affairs of the total province. At least one com-munity reported that they found this to be an ineffective and inefficient arrangement because~f the lack of dynamism and leadership which resulted. Another effect of dividing the decisions to be made into approximately equal shares might be that the "co-provincials" tend to make decisions in isolation from one another without reference to the fact that these decisions ought to flow from an integrated vision of what the community is and is about. On the other hand, if "co-provincials" are all equally involved in every decision, the community's expectation will be that all will be equally knowledgeable about every area of responsibility--which would be a wasteful use of time and effort in some cases. These difficulties highlight the importance of studying the decision-making functions of the administrative group in order to provide, insofar as it can be anticipated, for participation which is proportionate to the centrality and im- 'portance of the issue. Formerly, constitutions took care of this by enumerating those matters which required a deliberative vote of the council and those for which only a consultative vote was required. The fact that administrative teams function in a more collegial and less formal style today should not obscure the insight that different matters require varying amounts of delibera-tion and ~consultation. 2. Administrative responsibility is increasingly shared with staff persons. This phenomenon results from the newly-emphasized distinction between charismatic and administrative leadership, as well as from an increasingly specialized and professional approach to traditional areas of administrative responsibility, such as finances, communications and record-keeping, per-sonnel services, and the management of apostolic institutions. Major superiors and their councils are seen primarily as 'in-spirators' and 'enablers' of religious community life--a role which is distinguished from the more management-oriented phase of their responsibility. It is further recognized that such tasks as financial management and personnel services require specialized preparation which is not always had by those whom the community wishes to elect to office. Also, these specialized tasks are often done better when a continuity of responsibility is maintained, and the tenure of such per-sons as the treasurer is not tied into an elected term of office. While in principle such distinctions can be made, there are also certain dif-ficulties which have been evidenced. First of all, the distinction between "charismatic" and "administrative" leadership cannot be exclusively main-tained: a religious leader who did not have a firm and sympathetic under-standing of the realities of the community's existence in every facet of its life would not be able to give credible inspiration to anyone. The leader's respon-sibility is to-cultivate an integrated vision of every aspect of community life in order to be able to challenge the members to further generosity in their 376 / Review for Religious, Volume 34, 1975/3 religious and apostolic life. Therefore the superior and council must collaborate closely with any staff persons in order to keep abreast of what they are learning about the community and also to help determine the priorities of the staff and to set the overall direction of their work. Another difficulty is apparent when the staff has insufficient authority to be effective. Community members must respect the expertise, community dedication, and delegated authority of the staff in order for their collaboration with the administrative group to really benefit all concerned. There are infor-mal as well as formal ways for the administrative group to i'einforce the staff's authority and responsibility in the community's eyes. For example, if a staff person has been designated to respond to a certain type of regularly-recurring request, the councilor should usually refuse to deal with such a request unless it can be shown that the staff person failed to give satisfactory service. Community members themselves sometimes create problems by requiring leaders to hold in confidence information which effects a staff member's role performance. Then the councilor is forced to intervene in the staff person's area of responsibility and to give a seemingly arbitrary direction, thus cir-cumventing the whole process. Councilors must be wary of allowing such situations to occur very often if they wish to have the assistance of a credible and effective staff. The relationship between the administrative group and the staff brings into focus the question of how large each group should be. This is probably a more relevant question than one which is more frequently'heard, "How many full-time persons are r(quired for community leadership?" In a day of declining membership and ever-pressing apostolic demands, releasing talented members for full-time community leadership often seems like a luxury which a com-munity cannot afford. But if more attention is given to a proper balance of elected leaders (full or part-time) and a supportive staff (full or part-time, lay or religious), new possibilities for maximizing leadership potential can be en-visioned. Obviously this answer varies from community to community, depend-ing on such factors as size, geographic expanse, diversity of apostolates, and the willingness and/or ability of council members to perform staff functions. Choice of Leadership No attempt will be made here to discuss varying and even inconsistent ex-pectations of leadership, although how to deal with that reality is a challenging question that applies both to representative bodies and to administrative groups. As noted above, community members expect chapter delegates~to be e.lectors, legislators, and (sometimes) renewal facilitators. They also expect major superiors and their councilors to furnish both charismatic and managerial leadership, in varying proportions. These areas of ambiguity do furnish a backdrop, however, for some remarks about the ways in which leaders have been chosen in recent years, a period in which there has been ceaseless experimentation with differing methods. In fact, most chapters spend Religious Government: A Reflection on Relationships / 377 more time determining the method by which they will choose their leaders than they do in carrying out the proce.ss itself. In general, four methods can be identified: choice by discernment, election by the chapter, election by the total community, and a nominated-appointed method. 1. Discernment. This method is difficult to define because its interpretation and application vary in different situations. In brief, though, it is a method whereby the electors reach a prayerful consensus about their choice of leadership. It is an application of the spirituality of discernment--the prayer-ful and communal effort to discover and respond to God's will for a group--to the specific matter of selection of leadership. Its proponents usually contrast it to an election which is considered to be mechanical or political or insufficiently attuned to God's will for the community. Since the effectiveness of the method is dependent on khe development of faith community within the group, its usefulness is qualified if the electors represent a very large or wide-spread community, and do not ordinarily see one another except on the occasion of a chapter meeting. In some cases the discernment process has involved not the chapter delegates, but the nominees themselves. In other words, after a process of nomination (in which the entire community has both active and passive voice), those nominees who decide, after personal discernment, that they would be open to being called to community leadership enter into a process of com-munal discernment. Great objection can be raised to this practice, however, since it arbitrarily restricts active voice in the election to only the nominees. Religious constitutions have traditionally specified very exactly who enjoys the right to elect the major superiors, namely, the chapter delegates. To create a situation in which there are no electors except the nominees themselves--some of whom may have received only a single nominating vote while others may have received hundreds--runs contrary to this whole tradition. There must be many qualified electors in a community who are not themselves potential can-didates for the office of major superior. 2. Election by the Chapter. This is the traditional method for selection of leadership, but the manner in which this process is carried out within the chapter admits of many variations. For example, communities have ex-perimented with nominating procedures which involve the entire community and/or with search committees who are charged with developing a list of nominees. Within the chapter itself great efforts are made to allow candidates to discuss their views and their vision of the future direction of the community in an open forum before the election takes place. The election of major superiors, since it is one of the gravest respon-sibilities of a chapter, should be carried out in a prayerful context (as should "all of the deliberations of a chapter). The chapter body should strive together to search out the best-qualified persons to call to leadership in the light of the religious and apostolic goals of the community. Prayers for divine guidance, for freedom from prejudice and error, and for generosity in responding to God's will should all surround the election. If this is the case, then the sup- 371~ / Review for Religious, Volume 34, 1975/3 posed contrast between the discernment method and the election method seems to fade in significance. Furthermore, election by the chapter seems to be the only one which readily safeguards the traditional requirements of a valid election, namely, that the votes be free, secret, certain, absolute, and determinate.3 Even a total community election (to be dealt with below) risks compromising these con-ditions. Some would argue that these requirements should no longer apply and that, for example, the community would be better served if ballots were not secret. While at first glance this may seem to represent a growth in the level of mutual trust and evidence a breakthrough in communications within a com-munity, further reflection might lead to an enhanced appreciation of those traditional safeguards which the Church has provided in canon law. Any com-munity which forswears the use of "free, secret, certain, absolute, and deter-minate" ballots should understand full well what it is sacrificing and be con-vinced that a proportionate good will be achieved. 3. Election by the Total Com~munity. It is doubtful whether this method cduid be successfully applied in any but a very small community where all of the members can be present at an election or where the ballots can be collected within a short period of time. Those who advocate a direct popular election probably reflect a lack of confidence in their chapter, a serious problem which should be dealt with in itself since it affects more than the elections. If the chapter is truly representative, however, and the community has confidence in its responsible leadership, then the desire for a community-wide election would seem negligible. 4. Nomination-Appointment. In this method a higher administrative group appoints major superiors from a list of nominees prepared by the constituency. For example, a province (or provincial chapter) may submit a list of nominees to the administrator general and council who then appoint the provincial superiors. Or the provincial administrative group may appoint regional superiors from among nominees presented to them. The alleged advantage of this method is that the higher superior is able to look over the list of nominees and appoint an administrative team with complementary talents, a result which isn't always obtained in a direct election by the appropriate chapter. This method also reflects the authority and responsibility of the higher ad-ministrative group with respect to the smaller units of the community. The method is compromised, however, if the higher superior feels insuf-ficiently informed about the qualifications of the nominees, or is unable to en-dorse any of them with enthusiasm, or does not feel genuinely free to choose from among them. This last condition might apply, for example, if the list of nominees and the total number of votes each received is published to the com-munity at large. Then there is a subtle expectation that the major superior will 3Canon 169. For a discussion of these requirements, see Canon Law for Religious Women by Louis G. Fanfani, O.P., and Kevin D. O'Rourke, O.P. (Dubuque, Iowa: The Priory Press, 1961), pp. 91-93. Religious Government: A Reflection on Relationships / 379 automatically appoint the nominee ~with the highest number of votes, and the appointment becomes only the ratification of a fair accompli. Concluding Remarks Many other aspects of religious government today could be singled out for observation and study. Some of these which come to mind are the utilization of different kinds of balloting in elections (e.g., preferential ballots and weighted ballots), the respective advantages of staggered terms of office and concurrent terms, the participation of ancillary groups such as committees and commissions in the governing process, and the ways in which different units of government discharge their responsibilities (e.g., how they develop their agen-das and how they formulate and communicate policies). Moreover, in addition to the simple observation of phenomena and trends there is a need to evaluate them in the light of assumptions and principles which are acknowledged by the religious community. These espoused beliefs are of many kinds: political, sociological, philosophical, and theological, to name four important areas. This is not the place to develop a list of represen-tative assumptions and, indeed, the renewal process in communities may not have progressed far enough yet for them to be able to articulate these cor-porately. However, any in depth critique of government should deal with questions such as the nature of human persons, the role of law and structure in human life and associations, how government structures can reflect the emphasis of Vatican II on collegiality, subsidiarity,, and shared decision-making, and on the Gospel challenge to be poor, chaste, and obedient in a world which values none of these. Religious government is the point at which a religious community comes together to organize for its collective mission. Those who occupy leadership positions perform a temporary service for the others in order to facilitate that mission. Many relationships should be facilitated by a government structure: relationships of communication, of consultation, of decision-making; relationships between and among community members, community leadership, lay collaborators, Church, and world. The ideal plan of religious government is simple, clear, adapted to contemporary needs, and flexible. The government should be the point of integration of all the concerns of a com-munity, internal and external, and it exists in order to enable the community to better respond to those concerns. There is abundant evidence today that religious communities have in fact grasped the importance of adapting their government structures to these insights and that many of the changes made, and the inevitable trials-and-errors, have brought them closer to that goal. A Note on Religious Poverty J. Robert Hilbert, S.J. Father J. Robert Hilbert is presently assigned to St. Francis Mission; St. Francis, SD 57572 Introduction In many discussions of religious life, it has struck me that, of the three vows, poverty is the most difficult to come to grips with. One is tempted often enough to suspect that the fundamental problem is an unwillingness to take the direct approach of simply being poor. On the other hand, that might be a simplistic move prompted by the desire to escape the discomfort of the in-evitable tension involved in being in the world, but not of the world. There is a fundamental dilemma: poverty is either a good or it is an evil. If it is a good, if it is true that "Happy are you poor," that it really is harder for a rich man than for a poor one to enter the kingdom, then it makes sense for one to himself choose poverty and to counsel others to choose it, but it does not make sense to dedicate one's energies to the elimination of poverty. On the other hand, if poverty is evil, if it hinders man's ability to know, love and serve God, if it is destructive of the human spirit, then certainly it makes sense to work to overcome poverty, but it does not make sense to choose poverty, es-pecially to make it the object of a vow by which one expresses devotion to God. One can say that the Christian concern is not with poverty and wealth as economic or sociological realities, but is rather with poverty of spirit, a spirit which acknowledges man's basic helplessness and dependence on God, which sees man's good as a spiritual good in reference to which material possessions are either indifferent or are subservient as a means. A man who is materially wealthy may have this poverty of spirit in terms of real humility and detach-ment from his possessions, and a man materially poor may have the opposite of this spirit in terms of pride and greed. Yet one does have somehow to deal with the fact that the Gospels present Christ as saying that it is morally im-possible for a rich man to enter the kingdom, that the beatitudes, at least in 380 A Note on Religious Poverty Luke, seem to be talking about the poor and the rich in a sense that includes the material. in considering the sense of Christ's--and the Church's--call to preach the Good News to the poor, one might say of it that it is an assertion to those who are generally looked down on or who experience pain and need and helplessness that they are important to God and are loved by Him. Not that those who experience comfort, and social and mental and physical well-being are not loved, but that they are more apt to know it and so have less need of assurance than do the sufferers. Poverty in this context, one might then say, is not an economic term, but just a generi~ term for those who are needy in any way. Surely Dives is as poor and needy in a spiritual sense as Lazarus? So it is to him perhaps even more than to Lazarus that we are sent to bring the Good News. One hears arguments, too, on the point that Christ did not urge structural social change, much less work for it. Though he responded to physical needs of people on occasion, as when he fed the multitudes or healed the sick, he did not attempt the elimination of poverty or the overthrow of Roman domination any more than he attempted the elimination ~f disease or of earthquakes. Ob-viously he commanded love of neighbor and a practical expression of that love in feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, etc., but he did not preach economic or political structural reform. What manner of reflection, then, led the bishops in their 1971 Synod to say that "action on behalf of justice and participation in the transformation of the world fully appear to us as a constitutive dimension of the preaching of the Gospel, or, in other words, of the Church's mission for the redemption of the human race and its liberation from every oppressive situation?''1 (Is there a possibility that our Lord received his death sentence because his teaching and activity constituted a threat to the established social order?) This note is not an attempt to offer solutions to the difficulties and am-biguities of religious poverty, nor is it intended to touch all the elements in-volved. It is simply aimed at emphasizing a few points that seem to me to be often missed or slighted. Before taking up those, however, it might be worth recalling a few presuppositions on which these reflections are based. The Church's Poverty and Religious Poverty One is that a religious community is a community within the Church. Its way of life, its values and ideals are those of the Church. It gives particular ex-pression to certain values in a way different from the way in which other groups in the Church do, but these values are those of the whole Christian peo-ple. Religious life is to give evidence of, to point to, to make sharply visible certain aspects of what it is to be a Christian. There must, then, be continuity in the sense of poverty of religious life and the sense in which the Church speaks of its poverty. This sense, of course, comes to the Church through the ~Synod of Bishops, Justice in the World (U.S.C.C., Washington, D.C., 1972.) p. 34. 382 / Review for Religious, Volume 34, 1975/3 example and teaching of Christ. "Just as Christ carried out the work of redemption in poverty and under oppression, so the Church is called to follow the same path in communicating to men the fruits of salvation. Christ Jesus, 'though He was by nature God . . . emptied himself, taking the nature of a slave' (Phil 2:6), and 'being rich, he became poor' (2 Cor 8:9) for our sakes. Thus, although the Church needs human resources to carry out her mission, she is not set up to seek earthly glory, but to proclaim humility and self-sacrifice, even by her own example.''~ The Tradition of Religious Poverty Another assumption is that a religious community is both an inheritor of tradition and an interpreter of that tradition in terms of the present day. There is a long history of the practice of poverty in religious life. In the course of generations, we have developed a complex of values in the matter of poverty, including the following: detachment from material wealth; sparingness and simplicity in use of material things; possession of things in common; a life of labor; dependence on providence; hospitality; service of the poor. To some extent there is an'absoluteness in these values, aspects of them which are true in general for all men and all times. Even were there a time when the world had no drastic contrast between the rich and powerful and the poor and helpless, men would need reminders that the good life is not found in having things. "You have made all these things, made them very good indeed, yet You are my good, not they," It will always be true, as non-Christian cultures, too, realize, that man comes before God in nakedness and emp-tiness- not with reliance on possessions, nor on education, skills, achievements, nor even with security in good works as giving him in any way a claim on God; he comes to God with awareness of his own nothingness, and of God's infinite and personal love. Response to Particular Periods or Societies Beyond such timeless elements, howe, ver, values involved in religious poverty and modes of expression of that poverty are related to the contem-porary social situation of any given period. Modes of expression of religious poverty differ among various orders and in various times and places in part because religious poverty is an affirmation of values endangered by a particular period or society. !t is a prophetic witness directed to the needs of the time and place. Benedict, Francis and Ignatius had initially very different modes of poverty in their orders, not because they had different views of the fundamental and timeless values expressed in poverty, but because they were responding to the needs of the Church in different histo.rical periods. In considering renewal of religious poverty for our times and situation, ~Vatican 1 I, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church,//8. (Documents of Vatican 11. America Press, 1966, p. 23.) A Note on Religious Poverty / 383 then, it is not enough to accept the externals of the expression of poverty ac-cording to the traditions of a religious order; one must consider the values and attitudes involved, both the religious values affirmed and the worldly values opposed. Let us put this another way. Christ'.s life of poverty, it has been said, was "characterized by a redemptive use of things.''3 This is not simply an accept-ance of an ideal order of creation; it is also a recognition that there is sin-fulness embodied in the present concrete order, a non-redemptive use of things, which must be counteracted. The non-redemptive use, the sinful use, of God's creation is evil not only because it is an undue or distorted valuing of things (St. Paul speaks of "greed, which is idolatry"), but because it leads men to degrade, exploit and treat unjustly their fellow men. Poverty Is Apostolic Another presupposition is that the poverty of a religious order is not an end in itself. It is ordained to man's redemption, to the development of the Kingdom of God. Hence, there will be variation in the poverty of different g~roups according to the nature of their apostolate. Yet this subordination must not obscure the fact that poverty is really meant and is deliberately chosen. Religious poverty is not a mode of life that is in total equilibrium; it is not a way of life characterized by use of God's creation in what might be the way one would hold up as the ideal for all men in the ultimately just world order. Religious poverty is a deliberate move to the side of the poor and oppressed, an affirmation of intended identification with them. It is this because in Christ God has identified himself with them. Furthermore, religious poverty is a mode of apostolate. A religious may recognize that there are many ways of working for the attainment of man's red, emption. In the spirit of the Kingdom and Two Standards of the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius, however, he chooses to work from a position of poverty and humiliations. This is not a completely rational approach to the improve-ment of the human situation. There is a mystery in God's mode of salvation in Christ--through poverty, humiliation, injustice, eventually an unjust death on the cross. Unless there is an acceptance in faith of that mystery as still operative, there can be no full acceptance of religious poverty. l have stated four points that seem to me to enter in to reflection on religious poverty: that religious poverty is to give clear evidence to the Church's sense of poverty; that it involves a sense of the tradition of poverty throughout history; that there must be a re-statement of the spirit and tradi-tion of religious poverty in light of the sociological and cultural situation of the present day; that religious poverty is apostolic, "as Christ carried out the work of redemption in poverty and under .oppression." As I consider these points and my experience of religious life, it seems to aJohn R. Sheets, S.J., Toward a Theology of the Religious Life. (Studies in the Spirituality of Jesuits, II1,8; Nov., 1971, p. 173.) 384. / Review for Religious, Volume 34, 1975/3 me that three areas which demand much and serious reflection in efforts at renewal are: that religious poverty must be in fundamental, radical opposition to the spirit of our affluent society, and must, then, require fundamental, radical personal conversion on the part of a religious; that contemporary con-sciousness of social injustice is integral and essential to the meaning of religious poverty and its expression in our day; that being concerned for the poor and being poor are not quite the same thing. Religious Poverty in an Affluent Society In referring to our affluent culture, what I am trying to suggest is that simply having things, being relatively wealthy in comparison to the major por-tion of the world's population is not an accidental adjunct to what we are as a people. Our material affluence is rooted in and has sprung from some of the most basic attitudes and values of our culture. In turn, our affluence reinforces and influences the development of these attitudes and values. Surrendering the right to personal ownership, professing a dependence on a superior or a com-munity for material things, even choosing a standard of economic life which eliminates certain superfluities and luxuries, does not signify or produce a very deep-rooted or wide-ranging change in the attitudes and values we have ab-sorbed since birth. It seems to me that this is the fundamental reason why it is so hard for us to come to any clear and satisfactory consensus about the meaning of religious--or Christian--poverty. So long as we consider the matter on the basis of the attitudes and values which are our cultural inheritance, there is no way we can conclude that real poverty is something which can be chosen and prized, for that culture is in diametric opposition to a spirit of poverty. In a brief article such as this, there is not scope for a full discussion of the American value system. What we are as a people, though, can be learned by reflection on our history. It was not an aberration of a few twisted individtials that brought about the centuries of enslavement of millions of Africans and In-dians. The greed, violence, lust for power, unquestioning assumption of superiority that underlay the centuries of European exploration, conquest, dominance and exploitation were not just occasional faults of isolated in-dividuals. They were part of the fundamental value system of an entire culture. Though we now repudiate some of the cruder manifestations, the same values and spirit are still endemic in Western culture, and have been incar~ nated in the social structures that our culture has established. It is not acci-dent, but basic cultural drive that has developed in this, the wealthiest country in the world, an economic and political structure which "virtually guarantees poverty for millions of Americans.''4 The greed, selfishness and exploitation of the colonial period have borne fruit, through the period of the industrial revolution and the growth of the multi-national corporations, in a world 4Poverty Amid Plenty, the report of the President's commission on income maintenance programs, 1969, p. 23. A Note on Religious Poverty / 385 economy which has created an enormous and ever increasing division between rich and poor, which threatens the human race because of the destruction of the earth's environment and resources. So the world is not one. Its peoples are more divided now, and also more conscious of their divisions, than they have ever been. They are divided between those who are satiated and those who are hungry. They a~e divided between those with power and those without power. They are divided between those who dominate and those who are dominated; between those who exploit and those who are exploited. And it is the minority which is well fed, and the minority which has secured control over the world's wealth and over their fellow men. Further, in general that minority is distinguished by the colour of their skins and by their race. And the nations in which most of that minority of the world's people live have a further distinguishing characteristic--their adoption of the Christian religion.5 What is significant is not only the fact of such division, but also our general ability to ignore that fact. How is it, after 80 years of modern social teaching and two thousand years of the Gospel of love, that the Church has to admit her inability to make more impact upon the con-science of her people?. It was stressed again and again that the faithful, particularly the more wealthy and comfortable among them, simply do not see structural social in-justice as a sin, simply feel no personal responsibility for it and simply feel no obligation to do anything about it. Sunday observance, the Church's rules on sex and marriage, tend to enter the Catholic consciousness profoundly as sin. To live like Dives with Lazarus at the gate is not even perceived as sinful.6 A concern for religious poverty which attends only to the externals of per-sonal or community economy is inadequate. If we continue to fit comfortably within the systematized greed, selfishness, cruelty, love of power of our society, we have no poverty of spirit. If we are ourselves to become Christian and to bring the Christian word to our society, we must attain an empathy with the poor and powerless in our own country and in the world. We have to feel the poverty of the migrants who harvest the food that is so plentiful on our tables. We have to know our society as it is experienced by an unemployed In-dian who sees his children growing up undernourished, falsely educated, and culturally destroyed in a country where his grandfathers lived in freedom and plenty. But once again, we have to become aware of and critical of our own ac-culturation. We must ourselves engage in that continuing education described by the bishops, an education which comes "through action, participation and vital contact with the reality of injustice." We must awaken in ourselves "a critical sense, which will lead us to reflect on the society in which we live and its values," and be "ready to renounce these values when they cease to promote justice for all men.''7 This examination will include not only our 5Julius Nyerere, Speech to the Maryknoll Sisters (Maryknoll Overseas Extension Service, Maryknoll, N.Y., p. 6). 6From an account of the debate at the 1971 Bishops' Synod, quoted in Henriot, "The Concept of Social Sin," Sourcebook on Poverty, Development and Justice, Campaign for Human Develop-ment (U.S.C.C., Wash., D.C., 1973, p. 67). 7Synod, op. cit., p. 46. 386 / Review for Religious, Volume 34, 1975/3 private lives, but the values incorporated in the institutions in which we work. It is necessary, for instance, to examine the basis of our judgment of produc-tivity and efficiency, our decisions about choice of means. Do we give due ac-count to the idea that we are called to follow the path of carrying out the work of redemption "in poverty and under oppression?" Abject poverty, we are told over and over again, is destructive of the human spirit, is an evil which must be eradicated, cannot be the object of a choice, certainly not of a vow, because it is an evil. True enough. But is it possible that our sense of how evil it is is to some extent a reflection of how good we think wealth is? Does our reflection on Christ's statement that it is a moral impossibility for a rich man to enter the kingdom suggest to us that perhaps wealth, too, is destructive of the human spirit, is an evil which must be eradicated? There are many ways in which the full acceptance and real valuing of religious poverty demand not simply a spirit of occasional.self-denial, but a very radical transformation of the basic values inculcated in us from birth within our society, values involved in our attitudes towards material creation, toward the meaning of human life, toward our country's position in world relationships. Addressing Social Injustice Earlier in this article 1 said that contemporary consciousness of social in-justice seems integral to our understanding of religious poverty. To some ex-tent l have introduced this idea in discussing the matter of a critical examina-tion of our values, but let me focus more directly on this point. Poverty has always been an essential of religious life--but its motivation and expression have been modified by the needs of the times. The sinful ab-surdity of the economic situation of our times is not in the fact that there are people who are poor, but in the division described by Nyerere, in the fact that the enormous and unprecedented technological, economic and political power of our times is ordered not to alleviating the plight of the poor majority of men, but to the perpetuation and increase of the imbalance of that division. The bishops recognize this situation as a claim on the Church's expression of poverty. Although in general it is difficult to draw a line between what is needed for right use and what is demanded by prophetic witness, we must certainly keep firmly to this principle: our faith demands of us a certain sparingness in use, and the Church is obliged to ad-minister its own goods in such a way that the (~ospel is proclaimed to the poor . In societies enjoying a higher level of consumer spending, it must be asked whether our life style exemplifies that sparingness with regard to consumption which we preach to others as necessary in order that so many millions of hungry people throughout the world be fed.8 8Ibid., p. 45. A Note on Religious Poverty / 387 What is that sparingness? In general, at least, "those who are already rich are bound to accept a less material ~way of life, with less waste, in order to avoid the destruction of the heritage which they are obliged by absolute justice to share with all other members of the human race.''9 Many cautions are given in discussions of religious poverty to the effect that it should not be confused with economic poverty, that religious poverty in its expression is relative to the milieu in which the community lives and works, that religious poverty is distinct from the claims of justice. Such distinctions, however, can be overdrawn to the extent that religious poverty is moved to an abstraction that has little in common with the poverty of Christ. His Kenosis was accomplished in concrete terms of real identification with the poor and ac-tual confrontation with the powerful of his times. When he said, "Happy are you who are poor," and "Alas for you who are rich," one has the impression that he was not abstracting from the economic situation. More fundamentally, Fr. Arrupe's statement deserves serious con-sideration: But God is not only the God of the poor. He is, in a real sense, God who is poor. For the mystery of the Incarnation has established a special relationship between God and pover-ty whose meaning goes much deeper than mere compassion . God is allpowerful. God has riches beyond our ability to estimate. But he is also a God of justice, who demands that justice be done. l f, then, God, allpowerful and infinitely rich, identifies Himself with the poor, it must be because the cause of the poor is somehow identified with the cause of justice?° Sparingness, for example, is fundamental to religious poverty in part as an example to all men that possessions and use of luxuries are not all that essen-tial to the quality of human life--may, in fact, hinder a man in his real development. Today there is clearly added to this motivation in the Church's consciousness the demand of some sparingness in order that justice be served. It is clear, too, that this demand goes beyond the matter of purely personal or domestic religious life to take in as well the means used in our apostolic works. If there is a demand that our society's use of energy, for example, be reduced, that reduction is called for in all aspects of our life and work. It seems to me, in short, that a level of example and witness in this regard is integral to a realistic understanding of the contemporary value of religious poverty--a poverty that is true to the Church's sense of her call to poverty, a poverty characterized by a redemptive use of things, a use redemptive of the actual sinful use of things in our day. Identification with the Sociologically Poor The Church, following the example of Christ, recognizes a particular call to showing concern for the poor and the oppressed. This call is felt with special 91bid., p. 51. 1°Pedro Arrupe, S.J., Witnessing to Justice (Pontifical Commission, Justice and Peace, Vatican, 1972), p. 38. 3~11~ / Review for Religious, Volume 34, 1975/3 emphasis by religious, as the history of their efforts on behalf of the poor attests. The kind of assistance that is called for will vary in different periods and with different orders. In our times, there is particularly the note of concern that the structures which perpetuate and increase the division between rich and poor be changed. Even within the wealthiest country in the world, change of structures is necessary for the alleviation of widespread poverty: The paradox of poverty in the midst of plenty causes many to ask why some people re-main poor when so many of their fellow Americans have successfully joined the ranks of the affluent . It is often argued that the I~oor are to blame for their own circumstances and should be expected to lift themselves from poverty. This commission has concluded that these assertions are incorrect. Our economic and social structures virtually guarantee poverty for millions of Americans.1~ The call to concern for the poor and for working for structural changes that will ensure justice for the poor is a call to all Christians. For us who profess religious poverty, it is not only a call to have such concern and to work for such change, but to share Christ's identification with the poor. Discer.n-ment is necessary, harmfully simplistic approaches should be avoided--yet our life and mode of work should be such that our being accounted among the poor is clear. Whatever may be said of the relative norm of poverty with reference to the milieu in which a community lives and works, it should be clear that they are poor in that relative way. If it is a question for all Christians "whether belong-ing to the Church places people on a rich island within an ambient of pover-ty,''~ 2 it is preeminently a question for religious. We should share what we have, and it seems good, sometimes, that we do have in order to share. But we should be present to the poor as willing to share what little we have, not as well-to-do philanthropists sharing their excess. There is a lesson for us, though we might not wish to carry it to that extreme, in the example of St. Francis's unwillingness even to accept alms to be dis-tributed to the poor. There is, moreover, the very practical fact that it is most unlikely that we will appreciate the meaning of being truly poor, or be able really to see our society and its structures from the standpoint of the poor, if we ourselves do not in some real way share their experience. It is evident enough in our rec-tories and convents and schools that most of us share pretty completely the values and attitudes and experience and even prejudices of the affluent, not of the poor. It seems pertinent at this point to introduce a quotation from St. Ignatius Loyola which perhaps returns to the statement of my opening paragraph: ~tPoverty Amid Plenty, loc. cir. 12Synod, op. cit., p. 45. A Note on Religious Poverty Let me just say this; whoever loves poverty should be glad to be poor; glad to go hungry, to be badly clothed, to lie on a hard bed. For if someone loves poverty but avoids penury, following poverty only from afar, is that not to be comfortably poor? Surely that is to love the reputation rather than the reality of poverty; to love poverty in word but not in deed.t3 As 1 conclude this article, my sense of futility returns. If some of the honestly poor people of my acquaintance--in the slums of Milwaukee, in Belize, on the Sioux reservation where I now live--were ever to run into the sort of discussion I have written here, 1 suspect they would not find it so much the word of Christ as the confusion of one who is far from Him. 1 think it might cause some amusement, if not amazement, that a man with so much education and so many years of meditation on the Gospel can make such a complicated business out of the relatively simple question of how he can be poor. But this is written by one who lives in material security, even affluence, for others who live similarly, and so must inevitably reflect the confusion of those bound in that mesh. May that which is impossible to men, that which our own mental gyrations and personal anguish can never bring about, be accomplished by Him who can save; may He relieve us of the burden and constriction of our wealth, pull us through the eye of the needle, and introduce us to the simplicity and freedom of His Kingdom. t3Monumenta Ignatiana, Epp. l, 577. Mortification Brother Thomas E. Ruhf, C.P. Bro. Thomas E. Ruhf is.presently engaged in studies for the priesthood at St. John's University, where he was awarded a Master's Degree in Theology last year. He is a member of the Passionist Monastery; 178th St. and Wexford Terrace; Jamaica, NY 11432. The word "mortification" is seldom if ever heard these days, and, when it is, it strikes a strange and sour note because of its seeming lack of harmony with contemporary man's view of himself and his world. In a society ruled by the lords of consumerism, progressivism and utopianism, the concept of mor-tification is most assuredly an outcast. Mortification is viewed as no less than a perversion of life, since life's goal is seen to be the pursuit of happiness and self-fulfillment, which is attained in extracting from life all its treasures of pleasure and burying as much as possible its pains and sorrows. The mul-tiplication of wonders in science and technology is heralding the dawn of a new age when there will be plenty of pleasures and possessions for all, when disease and pains will be laid to rest forever, and when even death may fall victim to the march of man. To speak of death, suffering or any human limitation is to talk of problems to be solved and not perennial conditions to be fa~ed. Such a society has no use for mortification precisely because it is a radical, concrete and complete affirmation of these realities, precisely because it af-firms them as enduring conditions to be faced and embraced for their creative potentials. The problem with mortification is a problem with suffering and death, with their proper place in a full and authentic human existence. In spite of society's claims of present and future scientific and technological conquests, death, suffering and human limitations remain ever so real. Daily the media parades before our eyes the ~pectr'e.of human suf-fering- innocent children with bellies pregnant with starvation, the disfigured and bloodied corpses of victims of senseless terrorism and calculated wars, the 390 . Mortification / 39'1 sad streams of people with lives and homes ruined by the fury of natural dis-asters. At the same time the tales of polluted water and air, of shortages of oil and energy, of inflation and recession are bursting the bubble of the great American myth of the cornucopia of unending resources and limitless produc-tion. Yet modern society continues its masquerade of denial. This denial of the hard and enduring facts of death, suffering and human limitation is not without its costs, for modern man has fallen victim to a certain sense of cultural schizophrenia. It seems that the greater the claims made for man's omniscence and omnipotence, for his control over nature and life in the face of his obvious lack of it, the greater becomes his sense of personal impotence, of being victimized and fated by the forces of nature and life. As society as a whole becomes more integrated, mechanized and systematized, he as an in-dividual becomes more isolated, alienated and categorized. Sodiety's attempt to do away with all external forms of suffering and pain only serves to intensify and foster his internal suffering and pain. A Contemporary Understanding of the Problem of Suffering and Death If any concept of mortification is to be valid today, it must seek its basis in the new heightened awareness of pain and suffering not only as external world realities but also as internal personal realities. It must find its roots in a con-temporary understanding of suffering and death. Perhaps the most meaningful concept of suffering and death for today's world is the existentialist view. In such a view man is seen primarily as a being-unto- death. His very suffering and limitation become movements in con-sciousness toward the final limit of death, which brings man face to face with the fundamental questionableness of his own being without offering him any answer to it. This ultimate questionableness of life is faced by each man alone. Death represents the ultimate loneliness. All suffering, in being mine alone to bear, is essentially an experience of loneliness foreshadowing the ultimate Ioneliriess of death. Thus suffering and death give a character of existential loneliness to all life, a realization that no other finite reality can solve the basic questionableness involved in the finitude of my existence, that no finite reality can satisfy my radical desire to transcend this ultimate limit. This spectre of existential loneliness casts a long shadow of fear and anx-iety over a man's life. He can deal with this spectre in a number of ways. One way, which is most characteristic of contemporary man, is to avoid the whole question as long as possible. There is a retreat from the limits of his loneliness and death and a search for a sense of security in an immersion into th6 daily activities of pleasure and production. Indeed in America death is a taboo. The subject must never be raised, not even with a dying person. Death is always an unfortunate accident that happens to someone else. Likewise acknowledgement of a deep sense of loneliness seems awkward and inappropriate in a society.dedicated to the pursuit of pleasure and hap- 399 / Review for Religious, Volume 34, 1975/3 piness. Loneliness, a basic reality of life, like death, is viewed as a sickness which alienates people from each other and society and hence is an unfor-tunate development in life that must be avoided and spurned. But in fact "it is not loneliness which separates persons from others, but the terror of loneliness and the constant effort to escape it.''t If a man cannot face and affirm his ex-perience of existential loneliness as a condition of existence, he will not only be alienated from others but even from his very self. As Dr. Elisabeth K~ibler- Ross has observed in her study of terminally ill persons, nothing frustrates and alienates them more than their families' and friends' refusal to talk of suffer-ing and death. As a result Dr. K~ibler-Ross makes a plea in her book, On Death and Dying, for more people to face up to the reality of death for the sake of helping the dying and for their own sake in living real and full lives.2 Modes of Acceptance of Suffering and Death Assuredly the acceptance of suffering and death is necessary for a truly authentic and full life. However there are significantly different modes of acceptance that man has and can choose as his way of responding to these realities. Karl Rahner suggests that there are basically three postures of ac-cepting death? First of all, some see death as the stark and complete termination of all that they have found pleasureable in life. Death is a door op~ning out into dark oblivion, into the ultimate futility of all life and as such is a cause for frustra-tion and despair. Suffering is a grim foreshadowing and reminder of this ul-timate emptiness. Others embrace death with the full consciousness of their being, realizing that they have no answer to the enigma of its meaning, but yet remaining open to an answer to this ultimate questionableness of life from a source outside of themselves and time. It is a response of stoic resignation to fatedness and all suffering, leaving open the possibility that death could be a door to ultimate fulfillment as well as to ultimate annihilation. The third response goes beyond resignation, radically affirming death and all "little deaths" in suffering as doors to a life of ultimate fulfillment, as the necessary frontiers to be crossed on the way to the radical transformation of man's ex-istential situation by a gift from God. This response of acceptance is permeated by a sense of faith and hope in seeing in the very finitude of life its radical nature as free gift from the One v~ho is Infinite. This last response is of course the Christian response. We acknowledge in faith the efficacy of Christ's death and resurrection for the transformation of our own death into eternal life in God. Dying to ourselves becomes the only way to the fullness of life. Existential loneliness in suffering and death is the ~Clark E. Moustakas, Loneliness (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall Inc., 1961), p. 103. 2Elisabeth Kiibler-Ross, M.D., On Death and Dying (New York, N.Y.: Macmillian Co., 1969). p. 13. 3Karl Rahner, S.I., "The Passion and Asceticism," Theological Investigations (Baltimore, Md.: Helicon Press, 1967), v. 3, p. 92. Mortification / 393 very vehicle to authentic life since it is our only entrance into a participation in the Paschal Mystery which is the answer to the questionableness of all life. We believe that as an existential, ontological result of Christ's saving action all life can now be said to exist in a state of mortification, in a state of having already died with Christ that it may now live with him in a sharing in his resurrection. In this sense every life by way of baptism in Christ enters into a state of "ab-solute mortification."' Present Difficulty with Mortification No Christian has problems with accepting mortification as a state of life entered into in baptism, though we perhaps never consciously refer to life in Christ as mortified existence. The problem comes in the choosing of specific acts of mortification above and beyond the suffering and death inherent in the exigencies of life itself. These self-chosen acts of mortification, which have been termed "relative mortification," have for some time played a role in the tradition of Christian asceticism and been a prominent feature of religious life. But today it is a common assumption that relative mortification has no. place in authentic Christian living. In fact it has been condemned as a distortion and perversion of Christianity, and any mention of the subject evokes looks and words of scorn and disbelief. How can it be that such a long tradition of relative mortification has so suddenly been pushed aside and left to die?.llS it simply true that there is no value in practising it at all? To answer this question we must first identify and face the reasons for this rejection. There seem to be two fundamental reasons for this. First it stems from a reaction against the excessive and exclusively corporal nature of past practices of mortification. Secondly the rejection arises out of an affirmation that there is enough mortification inherent in trying to live a good Christian life of love. Certainly whenever the word "mortification" is spoken in Christian circles it immediately calls to mind a grim picture of severe corporal austerities aimed at prevention of or reparation for sin. Such practices of "attacking" the body do violence to our contemporary awareness of the sacrality of all material ex-istence. We react strongly against the Platonic dualistic view of life implicit in these practices which views the soul as imprisoned in the body and yearning for release from its evil propensities. Furthermore instead of releasing a person from his self-centeredness, these practices often enough focused concern on the self by creating an obsessive preoccupation with avoiding pleasure and con-solation in a fight to win salvation. The Christian call to turn outward from the self to Christ and his ~people in a spirit of suffering love is overshadowed by the quest for personal perfection in the conquest of temptation. Hence such prac-tices appear to have little connection with a valid Christian life. 'William J. Rewak, S.J., "Mortification," Review for Religious, May 1965, p. 374. 394 / Review for Religious, Volume 34, 1975/3 Inadequacy of Traditional Justifications for Mortification It certainly must be admitted that many past ascetical practices are quite justifiable on "worldly" terms alone apart from any connection with a Chris-tian view of life. Karl Rahner distinguishes three types of ascetical practices which developed independently of Christianity.5 The first type he terms moral asceticism, which uses corporal austerities as a means of self-discipline for the sake of attaining a balance of the various forces in man and thus enabling him to lead a life in harmony with the laws of his nature. Such asceticism seeks to conquer the "animality" in man so that his spirit may rule. This description would fit many of our past practices of mortification. Likewise "mystical asceticism," in using bodily self-denials as a preparation for an experience of religious enthusiasm and mystical insight, has nothing peculiarly Christian about it. The same can be said for "ritual asceticism" which also uses bodily austerities as a way to escape the profane sphere of life for the sake of contact with the transcendent. All these justifications for mortification deny the significance of Christ's Incarna;tion, deny the truth of the Word who is the flesh and blood revelation of God, who reveals the spiritual by means of th~ material. There is no prere-quisite of escape from material reality in order to find God. Contemporary Christianity has rejected past practices of mortification quite justifiably on the grounds that the reasons given for employing them had little to do with solid Christian belief. Indeed the decrees of dispensation of the Friday abstinence and of most of the Lenten fast and abstinence were viewed by many as a sort of"Emancipa-tion Proclamation" freeing Catholics from the slavery of past mortificational practices. In the ensuing exhiliration of freedom not only were the past prac-tices cast off but also the whole concept of relative mortification itself. In the name of freedom for a full human life, many could now repeat the words of James Carroll, "I have given up nothing but giving up for several Lents. I have denied myself self-denial.''6 In the same breath as was said "my work is my prayer," can be said "my life is my mortification." The Search for Enduring Values Yet with all this freedom from the past there seems to be a budding sense of frustration and emptiness. There is a growing awareness that in rejecting past practices we have neglected real values that were inherent in them though covered by distortions. A renewed emphasis on contemplation, solitude, and just plain "wasting time" is finding its way back into Christian literature. These concerns are arising not out of a sense of fear of the modern world and an attempt to hold onto the past but out of the faithfulness to one's own being and the call of need from others. There is a new movement beyond the 5Rahner, op. cit., pp. 60-66. 6James Carroll, "Mortification for Liberation," National Catholic Reporter. December 10, 197 I, p. 10. MortiJi'cation / 39~i smashing of past idolized practices to searching for the foundations of the en-during values and treasures of the Church. The present times demand that we be honest with ourselves. We must ad-mit that our work has not really become our prayer nor our living of life a full realization of the spirit of mortification. As Saint Paul so clearly stresses in the ninth chapter of his letter to the Corinthians, there is more to fighting the good fight and running the good race than the contests themselves. Any good athlete spends much time in preparation for the contest in rigorous discipline and training. Just because we find our exercises for the contest to be inade-quate it does not necessarily follow that all exercises are fruitless. What more appropriate time is there for re-examining and reassessing our own commit-ment to and training for the contests of life than now in this Holy Year of renewal and reconciliation with its special focus on personal, interior renewal? Necessity of Re-affirming the Value of Mortification From our discussion of the possible reactions to the experience of suffering and death, it is clear that total acceptance and creative affirmation of them in hope is not man's natural, spontaneous response. The mere acceptance of suf-fering and death as inevitable and a willingness to face it as it comes along is not enough in view of the Christian's radical call to affirm and give himself fully to these realities. If these "contests" are seen to hold out to every man the prize of the very meaning of all life, then they are not simply "contests" which we resign ourselves to entering, but "contests" to be trained and prepared for. A spontaneous response of faith and hope in the face of suffering and death springs from a person who has already radically affirmed these realities in the actions of his own life. The way a person affirms any values in his life is by means of the actions he freely chooses. It would seem that self-chosen acts of self-denial affect the depths of a person in a very special way that fate-imposed

Issue 31.3 of the Review for Religious, 1972. ; ASSOCIATE EDITOR Everett A. Diederich, S.J. QUESTIONS ANI) A N S\V E R S E 1) ITO R Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Correspondence with the editor, the associate editor, and the assistant editor, as well as books for review, should be sent to REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS; 612 Humboldt Build-ing; 539 North Grand Boulevard; St. Louis, Missouri 63103. Questions for answering should be sent to Joseph F. Gallen, SJ.; St. Joseph's Church; 321 Willings Alley; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19106. + + + REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Edited with ecclesiastical approval by faculty members of the School of l)ivinity of St. Louis University, 01e editorial offices beihg located at 612 tlumboldt Building; 539 North (;rand Boulevard: St. Louis, Missouri 63103. Owned by the Missouri Province Educalional In';titute. Published bimontbly and copyright © 1972 by REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. Printed in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri. Single copies: $1.25. SuBscription U.S.A. and Canada: $6.00 a year. $11.00 for two years; other countries: $7.00 a year, $13.00 for two years. Orders sbould indicate whether they are for new or renewal subscriptions and sbould be accompanied by check or money order payable to REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS in U.S,A. cur-rency only. Pay no money to persons claiming to represent REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. Change of address requests should include former addre.~s. Renewals and new subscriptions should be sent to REVIEW I:OR RELIGIOUS; P.O. Box 60 Duluth. Minnesota 55802. Manuscripts, editori-al correspondence, and books for review should be sent to REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS: 612 [lumboldt Building; 539 North (;rand Boule-yard; St. Louis, Missouri 63103. Questions for answering should be sent to the address of tile Questions and Answers editor. MAY 1972 VOLUME 31 NUMBER 3 BENEDICT ASHLEY, O.P. ¯ Retirement or V gil? [ Benedict Ashley, O.P., is Profess6r of Theology at The Institute of Religion and Human " Development; Texas Medical Center; P.O. Box 20569; Houston, Texas 77025.] Retirement and the Work Ethic To provide for the retirement of senior members has bdcome an urgent task for many religious communities. D~clining vocations, risfng medical costs, changes in traditional apostolates and in sources of income demand that we develop new, organized ways to care for those who have reached that last, often lengthy phase of life which we Americans call "retirement." The action of Pope Paul VI in requesting even cardinals and bishops to retire acknowledges that in times of rapid change older persons, for all their expe~'ience and "tested virtue," often lack the energy and flexibility to carry on the apostolate. However reasonable this trend may seem to those long dist~int from the "cut-off point," it is prQducing great anxiety, discontent, . and bitterness in many aging religious. This intensifies the polarization against which many communities now struggle. Recently an elderly but very much alive sister said to me: "What a paradox that our community is how so concerned to give younger sisters free choice¯ of apostolates, while forcing older sisters to retire willy-nilly. I was told to retire last year without any consultation or discussion of my preferences. My only choice, which was no choice at all, was to come to this retirement house. The young are demanding small interpersonal communities. I must live with over a hundred sisters, most of them sick, some completely senile, although my health is good, my mind active, and I like to live with young people, 'where the action is.' " Of course, some communities take great pains to discuss the situation carefully with members who must retire from present apostolates, to give them choices and training for a "second career," or at least maximum opportunities for "semi-activity." They realize that the problem of these religious is, after all, only part of the larger geriatric problem in the United States which will probably increase still further as our national birthrate continues to decline, and the average age of Americans begins to rise. However, I wonder if the very term "retirement" does not reflect the dehumani-zation of our technological society. It is borrowed from the practice of American business and starkly reflects the "work ethic" dominating our culture, against which the counter-culture is rightly protesting. This ethic evaluates human 'worth only in terms of production, organizational efficiency, capacity for marketable innovation. It values "doing and making," but ignores the values of "being," unless they can be translated into commodities. Even without the protests of the .counter-culture, we should know from the gospel that "man does not live by bread alone" (Mt 4:4) and that we have been told "do not be anxious for what you are to eat or wear, because unbelievers are always. running after these things" (Mt 6:31-32). The values of the work ethic are real and ¯ 326 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/3 are not repudiated by the gospel, but they are .~ternly subordinated to a very different appreciation of what really counts in life. Let us retire the term "retirement," and even "semi-activity." The notion of "a second career" is better, yet it too has a work ethic flavor. Moreover to talk about "second careers" to religious for whom it seems nothing remains of life but suffering, prayer, and gradual decline is to coin another of those horrible euphemisms with which we today in our society of affluence indecently hide the unacknowledged' miseries of neglected poverty and death. We are Christians who ought to have the courage to face the facts of old age with a realism warmed by Christian hope. Trying to wrestle with this fact of life theologically, I have found in the gospel a theme which seems to me very relevant, the notion of vigil. Christian Vigil The current liturgical reform began with the renewal of the Paschal Vigil, called by St. Augustine "the mother of all vigils," because it sums up the expectation of all ages of Christ's victory over death. Its meaning is beautifully stated in the General Instruction bn the Liturgy of the Hours issued by the Holy See in 1971 (nos. 70-2): [St.Augustine writes] "by keeping vigil, we observe that night when the Lord,arose, and by his own flesh began in us that life which knows neither sleep nor death. ; then as we sing together to the risen Lord a little while longer by keeping vigil, he will grant us to reign with him by living forever." Asin the Easter Vigil, the custom soon arose in different churches t6 begin various solemn feasts by keeping vigil, notably in the Birth of the Lord and Pentecost. The Fathers and spiritual writers frequently urged the faithful, especially those who live a contemplative life, to nocturnal prayer, which expresses and fosters our waiting for the Lord?s return: "At midnight someone shouted, 'The groom is here! Come out and greet him!' " (Matthew 25:6); "Keep watch! You do not know when the master of the house is coming; whether at dusk, at midnight, when the cock crows, or at early dawn. Do not let him come suddenly and catch you asleep" (Mark 13:35-36). To implement this idea the Church in its new calendar has not only given the Paschal Vigil the central place in the liturgical year and retained the ~vigils of the Birth of the Lord and of Pentecost, but recommends the use of "Bible vigils" (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, no. 35), and in the instruction just quoted encourages the use and development of the Office of Readings as a time of vigil, thus preserving the nocturns or night Office of the traditional Breviary. This last recommendation is not only for priests and nuns, but for the laity as well (Instruction, nos. 20-2). These liturgical reforms are rooted deeply in the New Testament. Jesus Himself prepared for the great moments of His life by keeping vigil. For forty days and nights (Mt 4:2) He prayed in the desert before beginning His ministry. Before extending it beyond Capernaum, He went to a "Ion.ely place" (Mk 1: 35) to pray till dawn. Before announcing His inevitable passion, He kept vigil with Peter, James, and John on the mount of transfiguration (Mk 9:1-8). On the eve of the passion He agonized in Gethsemane (Mk 14:32). In their turn the disciples and Mary kept vigil before Pentecost (Acts 1 : 14; 2:2). The newborn Christian community prayed for its leader Peter when he was in prison (Acts 12:5, 12), and before ordaining presbyters (4:23). Paul continued this custom on his missions (16:25). The significance of such vigils was indicated by Jesus Himself in many of His discourses and parables in which He urged his followers to "Watch, for you know Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/3 327 not the day nor the hour!" (Mt 25:13). If we look at the well-known work of Joachim Jeremias, The Parables of Jesus (rev. ed.; New York: Scribner's, 1963) we notice that he classifies the parables in ten groups: "1. Now is the Day of Salvation; 2. God's Mercy for Sinners; 3. The Great Assurance; 4. The Imminence of Catastrophe; 5. It May Be Too Late; 6. The Challenge of the Hour; 7. Realized Discipleship; 8. The Via Dolorosa and Exaltation of the Son of Man; 9. The Consummation; 10. Parabolic Actions." These very titles indicate how close all these themes are to the vigil concept, although groups 4, 5, and 6 are particularly pertinent. The parables constantly say: "Wake hp! Watch !" When we look at the Epistles we find that Peter and Paul and the others have the same pastoral advice. For example: Stay sober and alert. Your opponent the devil is prowling like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, solid in yo6r faith, realiz!ng that the brotherhood of believers is undergoing the same sufferings throughout the world. The God of all grace, who called you to his everlasting glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish those who have suffered a little while. Dominion be his throughout the ages. Amen (I Pt 5:8-10). Asregards specific times and moments, brothers, we do not need to write you; you know very well that the day of the Lord is coming like a thief in the night. Just when people are saying, "Peace and security," ruin will fall. You are not in the dark, brothers, that the day should catch you off guard, like a thief. No, all of you are children of light and of the day. We belong neither to darkness nor to night; therefore, let us not be asleep like the rest, but awake and sober! Sleepers sleep by night, and drunkards drink by night. We who live by day must be alert (1 Thes 5:1-8). The Theology of the Vigil To discover the the.ological meaning of these New Testament actions and teachings, we must begin with the obvious fact that a vigil is eschatological prayer. It is directed toward the future, toward Christ's victory over sin and death through Resurrection and Ascension, toward the coming of God's kingdom on earth through the mission of His Church, toward the universal transformation of the cosmos at Christ's Second Coming when all things will be summed up in Him in the glory of the Father (Phil 2:9-11 ; Col 1:15-20: Eph 1:18-23). A vigil is expectation in faith, hope, and yearning love directed to the future and eternal life. Its heart is joy, not the joy. of fulfillment, but the bitter-sweet joy of anticipation, a hunger and thirsting for the justice of God's reign. This is why a vigil humanly is a struggle to keep awake, to arouse ourselves from the oppression of drowsiness. The Apostles could not keep awake with Jesus in the Garden, because although "the spirit is willing, the .flesh is weak" (Mt 26:41). Luke says they slept because they were "exhausted with grief" (22:45). The weariness, discouragement, apathy, the numbing dread of waiting! Who has not waited in fear in a doctor's office? Waiting can be still more dreadful when we wait for some great joy, in growing doubt that it will ever come. During such painful times we all seek to escape the tension, to drug ourselves with some empty distraction or even sleep and forgetfulness. It is against this spiritual sleep that Jesus warns us. We must live in active hope, in wide-awake awareness, because in truth Jesus has already come. God is already present in our world if our eyes of faith are wide-open to sense His presence. The symbolism of "watching in the night" is simple and profound. This "night" is the world in the Johannine sense: "He was in the world, and through him the world was made, yet the world did not know who he was" (Jn 1 : 10). The world is humanity not in its earthliness or secularity, but in its hard-heartedness, self-centeredness, self-righteous pride and aggression which blind it to the present LOrd: 328 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/3 "Men loved darkness rather than the light, because their deeds were wicked" (Jn 3:19). It is in this night where God is present but man is absent from Him, in this shadow of death, that the Christian lives by faith and hope. Another element of the symbolism of the vigil is the silence, when the rush of activities, the vanity of human plans and boasted accomplishments, the flood of sights and sounds advertising expensive but delusive pleasures, conceal from us the reality of the void, the desert of human despair. Existentialism has revived for us this aspect of vigil, the search for authenticity. The Christian enters the desert of silence not to escape, but driven by the Holy Spirit to confront the Evil Spirit as Jesus was (Mk 1:12-3). Night has its peace and cessation from exterior work, but it is also the time of spiritual combat with angels, both evil and good. Tobiah struggled with an evil spirit and came out whole (Tobit 8); and Jacob with a good one, but was crippled (Gen 32:23-33). Night is man's encounter with the hidden levels of his personality and with the subtle cosmic influences that profoundly affect his life, yet which are covered over by his day-time activities. Watching, therefore, is not a mere passive waiting, but an active preparation, struggle, reflection, purgation, integration, simplification of life, requiring the use of the deepest human energies, it is an activity not at the periphery of human life where most of our "doing and making" take place, but in the central abyss of our being. Again, because it is eschatological, a vigil is also a time of judgment. Many of the Psalms speak of this nocturnal examination of conscience: 1 am wearied by sighing: every night I flood my bed with weeping. I drench my couch with my tears; My eyes are dimmed with sorrow. They have aged because of all my foes (Ps 6:7-8). I bless the Lord who counsels me; even in the night my heart exhorts me (16:7). i will remember you upon my couch, and through the night-watches I will meditate on you (63:7). By night my hands are stretched out with flagging; my soul refuses comfort. When l remember God, I moan; when i ponder, my spirit grows faint. You keep my eyes watchful: I am troubled and i cannot speak. I consider the days of old; the years long past I remember. In the night I meditate in my heart; [ ponder, and my spirit broods. "Will the Lord reject forever and nevermore be favorable?" (77:4-8). In a vigil we face ourselves in truth, we accept the punishment of remorse, we are freed from the burden of illusions. Even when our conscience does not reproach us, we come to understand that we are children of Adam, part of the inhuman race of men. Yet as Christians we do not come to judgment so much in fear as in petitiqn to be healed. Purgatory begins for us, a merciful cleansing through hope and longing, because a vigil is penitential, expiatory, redemptive. This is not because God exacts a payment for sin (it is only the unjust steward who thought God a hard master), but because He requires us to share in the work of repairing the damage we have done to others and to ourselves. "God's glory is man fully alive," as St. Irenaeus said, and the restoration of God's glory by penance is nothing other than the healing of man and of the broken relations between men by forgiveness. How does a vigil repair the human world? It does so first by healing the watcher himself, since in this purgatory he learns to forgive others and to lay down .the burden of his own follies. But a vigil is also communal. It is a time when together, at least in spirit, we pray for one another and share one another's burden of guilt and sorrow. Today, some people think prayer is only an excuse not to help others Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/3 329 through action, but even after we act we may find that our neighbor is still alienated from us by hidden barriers that nothing but prayer can ever pierce. Furthermore, a vigil is communal because it is a witness. Who has not been strengthened to know that another watches in prayer for him with a love that is ever awake? A vigil also always implies the coming dawn, the Resurrection, the rising Sun of Justice. At the heart of the vigil is the well fueled lamp of love, as Jesus indicated in the Parable of the Ten Virgins. He also asked: "When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?" (Lk 18:8). Matthew speaks of "charity" (24-12). The greatest human prdblem is to persevere in faithful love, a love that increases until the kingdom of God kindles like a consuming fire (Lk 12:49). This silently burning light in the night vigil is a fire stronger than the waters of death: "For stern as death is love, relentless as the grave in its devotion; its flames are a blazing fire" (Song of Songs8:6). The Paschal fire is the liturgical symbol of this "living flame of love," which John of the Cross and all the mystics tell us begins to burn in the dark night of the spirit. The Psychology of Later Life Recent developments in developmental ego-psychology, exemplified in the work of Erik Erikson, show us that the phases of human life all have or can have a positive meaning, including old age. It will suffice here to quote a passage from Erikson's Identity: Youth and Crisis (New York: Norton, 1968, pp. 139-40): In the aging person who has taken care of things and people and has adapted himself to the triumphs and disappointments of being, by necessity, the originator of others and the generator of things and ideas - only in him the fruit of the seven stages gradually ripens. I know no better word for it than integrity. Lacking a clear definition, I shall point to a few attributes of this stage of mind. It is the ego's accrued assurance of its proclivity for order and meaning - an emotional integration faithful to the image-bearers of the past and ready to take, and eventually to renounce, leadership in the present. It is the acceptance of one's one and only life cycle and of the people who have become significant to it as something that had to be and that, by necessity; permitted of no substitutions. It thus means a new and different love of one's parents, free of the wish that they should have been different, and an acceptance of the fact that one's life is one's own responsibility. It is a sense of comradeship with men and women of distant times and of different pursuits who have created orders and objects and sayings conveying human dignity and love. A meaningfulold age, then, preceding a possible terminal senility, serves the need for that integrated heritage which gives indispensable perspective to the life cycle. Strength here takes the form of that detached yet active concern with life bounded by death, which we call ~wisdom in its many connotations from ripened "wits" to accumulated knowledge, mature judgment, and inclusive understanding. Not that each man can evolve wisdom for himself. For most, a living tradition provides the essence of it. But the end of the cycle also evokes "ultimate concerns" for what chance man may have to transcend the limitations of his identity and his often tragic or bitterly tragicomic engagement in his one and only life cycle within the sequence of generations. Yet great philosophical and religious systems dealing with ultimate individuation seem to have remained responsibly related to the cultures and civilizations of their times. Seeking trans-cendence by renunciation, they yet remain ethically concerned with the "maintenance of the ¯ world." By the same token, a civilization can be measured by the meaning which it gives to the full cycle of life, for such meaning, or the lack of it, cannot fail to reach into the beginning of the next generation, and thus into the chances of others to meet ultimate questions with some clarity and strength. Erikson points out that this achievement of integrity implies that the person has the courage to retain his own individuality and life style even in the face of changing times: Forheknowsthat an individual life is the coincidence of but one life cycle with but one 330 Review for Religious, Volume 3 I, 1972/3 segment of history, and that for him all human integrity stands and fails with the one style of integrity of which he partakes (p. 140). He also points out that when old age is not used positively, it will end negatively in disgust and despair: Such a despair, is often hidden behind a show of disgust, a misanthropy, or chronic contemptuous displeasure with particular institutions and particular people - a disgust and a displeasure which, where not allied with the vision of a superior life, only signify the individual's contempt of himself (ibid.) From a Christian point of view, therefore, the period of vigil for the Lord's Coming is a precious gift. It is not merely for the aged, but is a feature of every Christian life. All of us, young and old, must have some vigil in our life, some time of reflection, purification, integration. It should begin early, so that old age will only be its culmination and intensification. It is not something separated from active life but is rather a harvest time in which the fruit of experience ~is reaped, assimilated, and made part of our total personality. The Paschal mystery means for us that although this world and its life must pass, yet nothing experienced here in faith will ever be lost, no genuine tie in love will ever be severed. In Christ our life will be summed up, "recapitulated," and transformed in the eternal life of the Trinity. Death is not a closing in of the horizon, but an opening on an ever wider vista - a narrow door that opens on an expanding landscape. The end of the film 2001: A Space Odyssey is one way of saying it. Therefore, the vigil time of life is not just "waiting to die," but is a process of integration in which we "get it all together," discovering in all that we have done and suffered an inner core of meaning. Moreover, we have the obligation of letting others who are in the midst or the beginning of life know there is meaning to what seems to them a mad scramble, a rat-race. The generation gap can never be closed in time, because the wisdom of experience cannot be expressed in the language of inexperience. Yet something can be communicated and must be communicated to the young, and that is hope. Only those seniors who have achieved peace, and who prove it by letting the young live their own lives, are able to give a truly credible sign of hope. The Apostolate of Vigil In view of this psychological and theological meaning of vigil and of later life as a time of vigil, it seems to me that we can frame a better practical understanding of the so-called "retirement problem." (1) In order to obliterate the "retirement" idea, I think we should institute both in name and fact a new apostolate in our communities, the Apostolate of Vigil. It is a genuine apostolate in the wider sense in which traditionally the contemplative life was considered the supreme apostolate, because contemplatives perform a special service of intercessary prayer, reparation, and witness to the transcendent, eschato-logical goals of the Christian life. Lately, active communities are recognizing this need by establishing "houses of prayer." It seems to me that the notion of "vigil" adds to the concept of "prayer" that "thrust into the future" which is so necessary to our time that suffers from "future shock" and "existential despair:" The work of this apostolate consists in several related elements: (a) Reflection. Erikson's emphasis on old age as a time of integration indicates that those in the apostolate of vigil must give themselves seriously to reflection. In a recent movie Kotch, Walter Matthau brilliantly portrays a retired business man who annoys everyone by his constant, apparently disconnected garrulity. Yet as we Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/3 331 listen to him, we see that he is still a mentally very active man, more alert ~han his rather stupid son and daughter-in-law. He is reflecting over his reading, his life, his successes and failures, and is distilling real wisdom from them. He looks at life with a tolerant yet discerning eye. He contemplates its beauty with delight and tries to express it in language that has its real poetry. But no one listens. On tlie other hand, another movie, 1 Never Sang for My Father, shows the tragedy of another elderly "successful" business man who cannot find the clue to the real meaning of his life, but endlessly moves in the circle o~ the old, bitter thoughts of his rejected youth. Some of our attempts at community dialogue have left the old silent, because we are always talking about the future. Perhaps we should try to have some times of discussion devoted to the needs of the senior members to talk about their past. (b) Prayer. This should not only be intercessory and reparative, as I have already indicated, but also a prayer of praise and thanksgiving. If we need time to "make a thanksgiving" after Holy Communion, don't we also need time to give thanks for the banquet of life? Undoubtedly older religious will want to continue the forms of prayer which have formed the basis of their lives, and, as Erikson says in the quotation above, this is a part of their personal integrity. At the same time, they may welcome the opportunity to deepen these accustomed forms of prayer if they are given opportunities for better theological.and liturgical instruction on the values which they contain. A prayer group made up of older priests, with which I am acquainted, is finding the new "Liturgy of the Hours" a delight. It retains the basic elements of the older "Divine Office" but in a form which makes recitation more meditative and leisurely. (c) Counsel. This is a difficult point which requires a good deal of study and experimentation. In traditional societies the elders were the counselors, yet today it is argued by Margaret Mead and others that the young really have more experience than their seniors. Furthermore, it is said that elderly counselors incline to an authoritarian moralism that is contrary to the non-directive methods of modern counseling. On the other hand it is certainly true that some older people have real assets as counselors. They have time to listen, a broad sympathy based on their own self-knowledge and the experience of human struggle, and a calm, hopeful attitude, sceptical of facile solutions, yet free of pani~ about the crises of life. There is no reason that such persons cannot still learn to improve their technique as.counselors if given some additional training and supervision, Their tendency to moralize or over-direct is more a result of their desire to help, than an incapacity to learn a more psychological approach. I suggest that while not all older people will make good counse.lors, many will if.given some additional training. (d) Suffering. The physical and mental decline of later life tends to become the focus of many wasted days and years, unless this suffering is understood as an element of Christian experience not merely to be endured but to be used creatively. The Cross is a means of integration and fulfillment, as it was for Jesus who said: "It is completed" (Jn 19:.30). To make this suffering a spiritual resource, however, requires spiritual guidance and support. In Gethsemane Jesus was strengthened by an angel (Lk 22:43). The flagging energies of the sick and aged make it difficult for them to exert themselves to prayer. They can relapse into a routine of gradual decline and apathy. Consequently, it is important to help them use the energies they have to grow personally. (e) Small Services. Today religious orders rightly seek to free themselves from wasting their energies on "trivialities." Nevertheless, we need to realize that nothing 332 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/3 humanizes our lives so much as the small personal services that make us feel loved and that free us from details for more creative work. In any religious community its life and its apostolate can be immensely aided by persons who have the time, the tact, the humility to render some of these small services either within the community circle or as a feature of particular external apostolates. For example, how much a really good receptionist contributes to the work of any organization! Jesus spoke of the "cup of cold water only" given in His name (Mt 10:42) and of the "widow'smite"(Mk 12:41-4) to indicate the dignity and beauty of such small services given in love. They exemplify the first beatitude of poverty of spirit. (f) Hope. The culminating task of the Apostolate of Vigil is the witness of genuine hope, free of "future shock," of gloom, of cynicism, or panic. We need only to think of the example given the Church and the world by the aged John XXlII to realize what a rainbow sign (Gen 9:11-7) this witness of hope can be, giving life and renewal to the whole community. (2) A second step we need to take is to make clear that this Apostolate of Vigil is not exclusively for the old, but an option for all religious at any age, as a permanent or temporary apostolate. There are young and middle-aged religious who will find that their charism is more contemplative than active, or that at least for certain periods of their life they need to '~be" rather than to "do or make." We should ¯ make clear also that age does not automatically qualify a person for this apostolate, or make it his or her single choice. Some senior religious will still find themselves more inclined to a "second career" or to "semi-activity" and should be given this option if it is at all a realistic choice. Finally, we should avoid identifying this apostolate with the problem of residence. It is true that the "villa" may be one center of such an apostolate, but some religious will prefer to carry it on in houses of prayer or active communities. (3) Since this apostolate requires special qualifications other than mere age, it also requires proper training, facilities, and evaluation, exactly as any other apostolate. When a religious is considering choosing it, he or she should discuss the matter with a qualified counselor. The community itself should have definite plans for developing, evaluating~ and revising this apostolate in the formation of which theological, liturgical, psychological, and medical expertise should be used. (4) Finally, proper recognition should be given to those who sincerely engage in this apostolate, so that they know and feel that they truly contribute to the community's life and work. One form of recognition is, of course, a clear financial arrangement by which it is apparent to all that persons in this apostolate are not a "burden" to the community but an asset. This is no mere legal fiction because: (a) This apostolate is a fundamental service to the Church and the world which every religious community has the obligation to provide in some form or other. (b) In actual fact a great part of the free gifts made to any religious community come because the laity look to the assistance of that community's prayer and penance. (c) Religious by their contributed services in their years of "active apostolate" have certainly invested enough in the community to deserve in justice the opportunity to engage in the Apostolate of Vigil if they choose. Some communities solve this problem by paying each local community of which the religious is a member a regular monthly salary as her contribution to its financial upkeep. An Obvious Objection An honest doubt about the idea I have outlined naturally arises. How can we speak of an apostolate for a really senile person who has lost memory, emotional Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/3 333 control, clarity of mind and purpose? What of those who really are "just waiting to die," living only on a vegetative, custodial level? I can only suggest two points for reflection: (1) Today certain psychologists and some young thinkers of the counter culture are raising sharp questions about the way our work ethic culture tends to define "mental incapacity" or "mental illness." They point out that in many cultures persons we label as "crazy" or "mentally defective" are considered "wise," "prophetic," or "sacred." Jesus spoke of the wisdom of the child, and St. Paul of the wisdom of those whom the world calls fools. St. Luke pictures those two ancient prophets, Simeon and Anna, who alone recognized the Messiah. I certainly would not subscribe to overromantic ideas about the wisdom of the senile, but I do not think that we should identify the value of human personality with the well-being of the brain. The senile person can still be capable of faith, hope, and charity. The process of spiritual purgation and integration which goes on in later life no doubt can reach its completion even when life has reached its ebb tide. (2) In any case our real problem is not the extremely senile patient for whom nothing remains but custodial care. We will give that care gladly and it raises no great puzzles. The real geriatric problems are the much larger number of religious who are still very much alive, perhaps with many years ahead of them. We must help them live these years as a vigil of hope, of effective prayer for the Lord's Coming and for the establishment of His kingdom on our earth. DAVID A. FLEMING, S.M. Formation and the Discovery of Identity [David A. Fleming, S.M., is a faculty member of Marianist Seholastieate; 2700 Cincinnati Avenue; San Antonio, Texas 78284.1 People in formation today tend to feel uncomfortably like bridges. At one end they cling to the solid but sometimes arid rock of a tradition, while at the other they try to find some footing in the shifting sands of new styles of life and experience. Meanwhile they often feel that people are walking all over them from both directions and fighting their battles on top of them, while they themselves look down at the gaping abyss beneath. Luckily, though, many of us like being bridges, despite the discomforts involved, and we feel that the attempt to reach across the gap is more than worth the effort. Our problem, our sense of battles and abysses, is, 1 think, related to a major cultural shift in the understanding and expression of religious values. This shift became an experiential reality for me not too long ago one evening when I attended two parties in religious communities, one - frequented by older members - celebrating the jubilee 9f a much respected member of my province, and the other a community party in a house of formation celebrating the end of a semester. It struck me very forcibly that what I was doing was observing the ways in which two distinct cultures celebrate. To attempt to summarize cultural differences is a risky undertaking. No one is ever satisfied by someone from the outside attempting to sum up basic commit-ments and ways of seeing. And, of course, none of us is ever or should ever be completely "outside"; our summaries are inevitably colored by our own commit-ments and viewpoints. But if we are to talk meaningfully of the situation in which the person involved in formation finds himself today, it is necessary at least to draw up a schematized and admittedly unnuanced outline of the very real contrasts that govern our situation. By culture I mean simply the sum-total of the social values, ways of thinking, means of expressing human relationships, and habits of life shared by a whole group of people (whether tribes in Africa, villages in France, or social groupings in America). At the two parties I recognized two contrasting ways of celebrating, two approaches to festivity. The older party was characterized by a happy convention-ality. People told the old jokes and sang the old songs, reminisced about the way things used to be, shared common memories about the persons and mores of a true but somewhat idealized past. The younger one was colored by creative expression (new skits, new games and ideas) and fantasy (making up new stories and new songs). At both parties, there was much sharing of laughter at things normally taken very seriously. The cultural differences are not restricted, of course, to behavior at parties. The two groups' means of expressing values are notably different. Both are preoccupied with fidelity, but the older group stresses fidelity to an established role, believing Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/3 335 that a man's true fulfillment and the greatest service he can give lie in being as faithfully and totally and interiorly as possible what he is called to be by the work assigned to him: a good teacher, pastor, cook, or whatever. For the younger group fidelity means, above all, a continuous search to discover and live out what is one's own unique contribution. True fulfillment for this younger group means the discovery of self, which will then lead to a service to society which may or may not correspond to any pre-established role. The older group stresses perseverance in holding to the role that is given, while the younger group stresses honesty with oneself, even though that honesty may not lead very quickly to stability. The older group sees forgetfulness of self and modesty as prime virtues for relating with others, while the younger group stresses openness, the willingness to let oneself be influenced by the thought and action of the other. The older group stresses the necessity for each individual to stick to what he thinks is right, no matter what social pressures he may be subjected to. The younger one feels that communion with the group is a prime value; although he too knows how to withstand social pressures, they prompt him more quickly to re-examine his position, rather than stiffen his resistance to corruption. The older group speaks much about preserving and enriching a tradition that comes out of the past, while the younger one is more oriented towards building a future that may or may not spring very obviously from the past. The experienced seek a carefully limited, realistic, but wholehearted commitment to the goals they have accepted. This approach seems narrow to the young; fascinated by a multiplicity of goods, they tend rather to become overcommitted to too many things, while at the same time being only partially committed to any one of them. The patterns of thought of the two groups are also quite diverse. For the older, truth is to be achieved above all by method, by a disciplined and patterned application of long-tested paradigms; for the young it is to be sought in dialectic, in conversation and interchange, more by group experience than by individual reflection. The older person wants someone to give him answers to his questions; the younger one simply looks for a person to share the process of discovery. The older man has been educated more in a rhetorical tradition that takes a position asa given and then finds all the supporting reasons and arguments; the younger man's education has increasingly stressed a heuristics that is concerned above all with the search for the position that is (existentially) true. For the older man, knowledge tends more to be a possession (the kind of knowledge denoted by the French verb (savoir), something that is dominated, assimilated, and put to profitable use. For the younger man it tends to be a mode of being-related (conna~tre), a personal or quasi-personal communion. The older man looks in his thinking for stability and attempts to stick to the essence of things; the younger man is taken up with the process and is unimpressed by thinking that relies on stable effsences. Discursive thinking and logic tend to be the natural realm of'the older man; symbol thinking, poetry, and art, that of the younger. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the ways of relating to people and forming friendships differ between the two groups. The way to an older man's heart is to work together with him at a common project perceived as meaningful. The way to a younger man's heart is to listen to him creatively, to share one's own experiences - a process of much dialogue and many hours of deep conversation. Obviously this outline of the two approaches is quite schematized, and most of us - old or young - are somewhere in-between. The purpose of this rather cavalier summary and contrast has been to point up that the two approaches exist (although 336 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/3 hardly ever in a "pure" state), that they are, in fact, very different - a difference such as has not often been experienced between any two successive generations in human history - and to intimate, by expressing the values of each in a positive way, that both approaches are very open to living the message of the gospel. It is evident that we have two contrasting ways of being faithful, and we who work in the formation of young religious find ourselves very much in a mediatorial, reconciliational role between them. Our role in this cultural situation is, I believe, best conceptualized today as being of service to individuals and communities in the discovery of an identity. Our most obvious task is to aid the indivMual in developing a social identity with the concrete group which he or she is in the process of joining. Because of the cultural crossroads where we find ourselves at this point in history, however, it is unrealistic to reduce the whole of our role to "socialization" within a given congregation. Neither the individual nor the life of the group can remain static, and a true commitment to the group can happen only as the individual finds within the group a true aid to releasing his own creative potential and an increasingly rich field for expressing that potential. A person can develop an identity with a group only on the basis of a strong personal identity, and. strong personal identity can be developed, paradoxic-ally, only in an interplay with a social group. The person working in formation must therefore deal with both poles of identity - the group and the personal. Hence a second, by no means subordinate, part of our role is to be of service to the young person who comes to us in the absorbing work of his own personal search for identity. Formation people, though they tend. to be "generalists" rather than specialists, should, if anything, be specialists in "human development." Although we should only begin working with young people who have already developed a fairly advanced degree of security, self-identity, and clear-headedness, their entry into religious life, at whatever age, is always part of a search for personal identity and identity within society, and we must be prepared to be of service in that extremely personal search. Given the state of constant evolution in which we more and more consciously find ourselves, the first aspect mentioned above, that of identification with or true membership in the order or congregation can no longer be conceived at any level as identification with a status quo. Commitment to religious life today means rather a commitment to God working in a concrete group of people who are pledged to grow and evolve together, to share the consequences of their lives and decisions. Membership means the willingness to keep growing together, to keep sharing consequences, and to let others within the group continue to influence our lives. Joining religious life is less a flight into a specific desert (for deserts can become rather comfortable, as full of fleshpots as any Egyptian oasis) than a going on pilgrimage together, a common movement toward the God who speaks in our lives and calls us forward through history. Religious life, if it is to give its most telling witness to mankind today, must become (as Schillebeeckx has put it) a '~sacrament of dialogue," a living sign, open and visible to men, of the fact that people can live together and share the search for God's concrete will for them in the present, and that this common search can become a fascinating, absorbing, and fulfilling life project. If we view religious life in this dynamic, search-centered way, it becomes increasingly evident that formation must involve a great deal of contact between the candidates and the experienced members. A decision to throw in one's lot with a given order or congregation can be made only on the basis of knowing and Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/3 337 experiencing the sacrament of dialogue as it really is. Isolated formation houses no longer fill the need, at least not for the totality of the period of basic formation. They were viable in a day when the problem of formation was simply that of taking on an accepted and rather standardized culture. They are good at providing the deeply spiritual motivation that is alone adequate to sustain a person in the challenges which the communal search for God demands. But they do not give an experience of the communal search to which the community as a whole is pledging itself. They rather give another experience - that of a group of peers struggling with commitment together - an experience which will happen anyway, with or without an isolated house of formation, and one that can too easily create a kind of sub-culture, spiritually and emotionally alienated from the group as a whole. They accentuate cultural differences, rather than helping all - young and old -go beyond them to a deeper unity. Identification with the group is complicated today by the problem that many of us are in fact probably better at being of service to personal growth than at helping develop social roles. We tend to have some competence in psychology, none at all in sociology. Yet as each individual grows personally, he becomes more conscious of his unique contributions and personal richness, and he usually discovers the fact that there are no ready-made social roles into which he can easily fit. Because of the rapid change in our society, many of the traditional service roles which religious have filled (teaching, nursing, pastoral work) are themselves in search of an identity, and many religious want to alter these service roles in significant ways. In this crucial area of both personal and community growth, it is above all important that as much of the whole community as possible be involved in developing and living with social roles. Our own personal identity, that of our younger members, and that of the order or congregation as a whole are inextricably entangled. They can either enrich or discourage one another. Rather than a pledge to adopt unquestioningly a given service'role, a commitment today means a pledge to share in mutual growth as we reexamine our traditional service roles. In turning to the question of our service in the area of each one's personal quest for identity, we will find it helpful first to consider the psychological characteristics of the typical young person with whom we have to deal today, his problems and prospects. The most striking strength of the typical candidate we meet today is his sensitivity. Impressionable, responsive to friendship, and anxious to give a service that is personally perceived, he is capable of developing a pers6nality that will be richly responsive to people. The weakness of our candidate is the typical weakness of a sensitive person. He is quite unsure of himself, uncertain of the best way to respond to the heavy pressures of the experience in which he becomes so deeply involved. He does not take all kinds of values, ways of acting and thinking, for granted. He has grown up in a scattered, fragmented world, and he has not yet had the time and the experience to build up a very firm personal stance - a coherent and well-articulated system of values, beliefs, and ways of acting. Because of his own insecurity and his sensitivity to influences, he tends to waver from position to position with what (for us) seems like astonishing rapidity. Growing up in a period when informational input has been reaching and surpassing overload capacity, our candidate has become aware of far more than we knew at his age, but he has simply not had the stabilizing and strengthening influence that we now enjoy nor even the stabilizing influence that we had at the same stage of our own growth. Hence he is very cautious about taking stands. He wants to continue to be "open" to experience, and he does not want to close too many doors too fast. He has come to 338 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/3 religious life because he is struggling for an identity that is out of the normal; he will not be satisfied with the ready-made roles which society presents so per-suasively to him. Hence he is, in his own peculiar way, cautious about making commitments, and he wavers through many possibilities before finally determining upon one. Our candidate's experience of the past twenty years has taught him that institutions and ideologies fall with great regularity, and that those who build their lives upon them do not survive. What he can perhaps trust is people. He is person-oriented, deeply conscious of his need for friends. He may find trust difficult; but once he has achieved it, he easily becomes dependent, and he is unashamed of finding strength in the support of his friends. He .is less concerned with building an institution, or an ideology than a friendship. He frequently seems to us to have an "affective" problem. His needs are enormous (or so it seems for those of us who have not lived through his cultural experience) in the area of personal friendship and support. He tends to think that the satisfaction of these needs will solve all his problems in life. He can easily be moved, even manipulated (and here we must be careful to respect his person), by motives of personal friendship, less easily by other motivations. In helping our candidate in his search for identity, we are often tempted to solve his problem for him, to shower on him the rich fruits of our own experience and expect him to respond with profound gratitude. Actually though, the nature of his problems (perhaps the nature of all human problems) is such that only he can solve them. Only he can discover and create an identity for himself. Our genuine help can be in sharing the process of discovery with him; in asking sensitive, helpful, but challenging questions; in sharing, but in a non-coercive way, something of our own search and some of its outcomes. In her fascinating little book Culture and Commitment, Margaret Mead has pointed out that the days of the "postfigurative culture" (the one in which the adults are supposed to have answered all questions and to provide a reproducible pattern for the young to imitate with exactitude) are gone. She believes that we are in a "cofigurative culture," one in which everyone, both young and old, determine the solutions to their problems and the answers to their questions by learning from their peers, with the danger of never being able to open up to an experience that is foreign to them. Our future lies, she believes, in a "prefigurative culture," one in which different age-groups and people with quite different experience can work together in the process of discovering new answers. Youth can contribute the special wisdom of its sensitivity, lack of complacency, and pertinent questioning; experience can enrich the dialogue by sharing, in a genuine search, some of the answers and guideposts it has met on its pilgrimage. Even though many of us still like to think we are quite young, we are on the side of "experience" when it comes to formation. The best that we can do for our candidate is engage in an intelligent, open, ongoing dialogue with him. One of the major problem arias that this dialogue will have to confront is that of authority, freedom, and independence. Because of our typical candidate's lack of security and wavering personal identity, he can become very dependent. He can mistakenly think that he has solved his identity problem by patterning his life after a respected elder. Thus he may be, in the judgment of many, a "model religious" for a time, until he discovers that what he was trying to be was not really himself. When the dependence has been considerable, especially when it has begun at an early stage of maturity and resulted in a rather far-reaching superego acceptance of Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/3 339 norms that are not internalized (an inauthentic identity plastered on from the outside), the young person, if he is healthy, will sooner or later rebel against the artificiality. More or less intensely and for a longer or shorter time, he will rej6ct much of his past experience, what he might call the "system" of religious life, the structures which characterize it, and possibly even some of the people, especially those with whom he has most closely identified. This rejection will be all the stronger if it is the first significa.nt one, if it has not already taken place in regard to home and parents, for it seems to be an almost inevitable part of growing up in the tensions of present-day society. In this area we need, therefore, to be especially careful. Most of us tend, like the generality of human beings, to be over-protective. We enjoy having someone a bit dependent on us. It is, in fact, a beautiful experience of spiritual fatherhood or motherhood, but it is not something which we, as celibate persons, can cling to. At this point a caution against "overcounseling" deserves special attention. Even though the ongoing dialogue is, I am convinced, of the essence of our task, it is sometimes possible to use counseling as a means of manipulating the young person's emotions, of forcing a growth for which he is not yet ready, of protecting him from learning by experience, and of re-enforcing the tendency toward dependence rather than helping him achieve freedom and self-actualization. Recognizing and accepting the psychodynamics of rejection enables us to maintain enough distance to be helpful rather than compound the problem. But this recognition should not lead us to discount the criticisms of the young person. The period of rejection may be a very special occasion for surfacing some real and deep-going problems, and it may point out some genuine weaknesses of our structures, our demands, and our means of formation. Creative listening and discernment of spirits at this critical juncture may be painful, but it may also help us see the )/bung person far more clearly and truly than ever before, and it may in turn reveal to us some of the deepest-penetrating dynamics of our own interaction. In working through this critical state, many young people come to the conviction that religious life is not what they want, that it does not correspond to the authentic identity which they. finally see themselves developing. They may often seem wrong, and we may sometimes realize better than they that their decision is simply part of the rejection process. At best we can keep it from becoming a particularly bitter or scarring part. Nevertheless, some of the most painful decisions we have to face come at this critical period. It is the strains and stresses of this period that especially urge the wisdom of taking candidates at an older, more mature period, since the strength of the rejection is more or less directly in proportion to the levels of inauthenticity and false docility that have to be uncovered and the depth with which the false super-ego identity has penetrated the person. But° we must ask ourselves whether our tendency to defer entrance is in each case a matter of prudence or pusillanimity. The dynamics of identity growth happen in late adolescence in a never-to-be-repeated fashion. The period can be so painful precisely because it is a time of so much growth. Many can develop a true personal i~lentity as religious if we can work sympathetically and understandingly with them through this difficult period. Once the person has passed this crisis, he usually begins to experience the need for building again, for discovery of means to live his religious commitment that correspond to his new found, more authentic self. For example, he will often reject prayer structures at one point only to find himself later, but more genuinely, seeking again to find true means to express his prayerful attachment to God, in 340 Review fog Religious, Volume 31, 1972/3 concert with the community. The end result can be very creative - but oniy, of course, if we know how to keep concerns and realities alive without stifling the individual's periods of docility, rejection, and new growth. Our best role, throughout the whole process, I am convinced, is to engage in an ongoing dialogue with the person, to serve as one who can sympathetically share the process, avoiding as much as possible the danger of becoming an object of too great dependence and thus the eventual target of rebellion. Our most useful help will be to aid the young person to handle his dependence, his rebellion, and his new, more authentic independence, to help him find his true place within life and especially within our congregation. We can facilitate the search; we cannot do the discovering for him. The lines between dependence, independence, helpful ques-tioning, and coercive probing are so delicate at this period and so different for each individual that we must face the fact that we will sometimes succeed and sometimes fail. That is part of the joy and suffering of our mission. Another major problem area that we must face in our ongoing dialogue with our candidates is that of psychosexual identity. Here I am of course thinking more than ever in a male context, and those who work with women must make whatever applications they find appropriate. The problem seems to be somewhat different for them. At any rate, our typical male candidate today is not very' sure of his masculinity or even of what masculinity means. Popular society gives him some images of the male hero which he is rather quick intellectually to reject, but which he cannot easily replace: the strong man, excelling in sports, never expressing powerful emotions, capable of handling his drink and his women. The young man today is caught between this image, which it is hard for him to avoid, and his value system, which calls into question most of this image and lays a heavy stress on the goodness of emotion and sensitivity, which makes him very conscious of his own needs and his own very active life in these areas. He is part of the so-called "generation without a father," for his relations with his father have probably been rather occasional and distant. He feels very much the lack of a strong masculine image, and he even doubts at times his own true virility. If this young man is to undertake a life project involving celibacy, he must be able to reassure himself that he can find friends to fill his affective needs. He is horrified by the prospect - one which he is quick to detect, accurately or not, about him - of the middle-aged religious who has no real friends. He can be willing to undertake celibacy only if he is able to experience it as a unique way of loving others. He feels that it is as great a sin to be celibate without love as it is to have sexual relations without love. Very conscious of the eros within himself, he has to grapple with ways of discovering, releasing, and expressing that eros that corres-pond to the identity which he is seeking as a religious. In simpler terms, he wants to learn how to love (as all young inert do), but if he i,s to be a religious, he must learn to love in such a way that his focus is sharing the Spirit - in such a way that the peace and joy and goodness of God is the focus of his interchange with people. He can be attracted by the ideal of a love that is selfless, but not by one that is isolated or theoretical; the selflessness he seeks, if he is capable of celibate love, is the self-emptying of moving together with other human beings beyond the self and towards the God who calls us on. Too often we older religious have biocked the unique experience of celibate love in our hearts. We may have been celibate, but we have perhaps not always been fully loving. Sometimes the experience of wanting to be possessive, protective, jealous, and competitive, to dominate another person instead of freeing him, may Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/3 341 be an almost inevitable part of learning to love and to find self in relation to God. The aim of the genuine celibate is to share the Spirit and not bind the persqn to ourselves. The usual challenge for the young person is learning to share the SPIRIT, rather than himself; the challenge for many of us is learning to SHARE that Spirit whom we find within ourselves but often tend to stifle. Only by finding his identity as a celibate person in the midst of genuine love and friendship can a young religious man today achieve a secure psychosexual identity. Much of our work consists of helping him through that painful process - not, again, by expecting him to repeat our own experience, but rather by sharing with him in as understanding a way as possible the progress of his search, Many other areas would have to be touched if our aim were to exhaust the questions that confront the young person in formation: discovery of a meaningful relationship with God in prayer and in service, growth in self-awareness and self-confidence, discovery of identity as a worker and a professional person, and so forth. But what has been said suffices to show how the person who works in formation today is in a very delicate situation, one that can be riddled with anxiety - the anxiety of not knowing exactly where we are going, having a sense of the fragility of human life and commitment, recognizing the precarious religious identity of many of our candidates and longing to protect it, but still having to deal creatively with each one's personal quest and realizing that only he, under the guidance of the Spirit, can fashion his own life. If I may conclude, in Pauline fashion, with a catalogue of the virtues to which we are called, I believe they include a buoyant, persevering zest for life; a willingness to live with some anxiety, to let things and people be as they are; and a creative acceptance that affirms all the good in each person and helps him but does not coerce him to channel it towards the growth of mature religious identity. Abov.e all we need to develop a capacity for creative listening - listening to people as they are, without passing judgment, yet giving them our honest insights and letting the call to growth in the kingdom sound through us. All of this demands what Paul characterizes again and again as "patience" and "magnanimity" - hypomone, the gift of persevering zest, of withstanding pr.essures with love and graciousness; and makrothymia, the "great big heart" that is able to let God and men touch it and fill it and call on it no matter what. There is probably no role in religious life today that calls more than ours for deeper prayer, more hope, and more faith in God's loving strength - for more "waiting on the Lord." Perhaps our motto should be taken from Isaiah: "Those who wait for the Lord renew their strength, run and do not grow weary, walk and never tire" (Is 40:30). THOMAS N. McCARTHY Entry Age for Church Vocations [Thomas N. McCarthy is Vice President for Student Affairs at La Salle College; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19141.] Optimum age for entry into Church vocations continues to be a controversial subject. During the 1960's many seminaries and religious institutes, yielding to both internal and external pressures, raised entrance age requirements from early to late adolescence, and during that decade many permitted the demise of high school juniorates. Pressures for further change persist. The thrust of the early 1970's appears to be toward a further delay of entry from ageseventeen or eighteen to twenty, twenty-one, or beyond and with this a growing trend to phase out college level minor seminaries and scholasticates. At the same time that delayed entry for younger candidates is being encouraged, the admission of older candidates, that is, those over thirty years of age, is being actively encouraged. The purpose of this paper is to provide some empirical information on the relationship of applicant age to entry/non-entry rates among those who present themselves as candidates to Church vocations during post high school years and to persistence/attrition rates among those who enter then. The figures reported here are taken from a larger study currently being completed in which 750 candidates to two institutes of teaching brothers, 360 candidates to an institute of religious priests, and 1100 candidates to four institutes of teaching sisters were followed up for periods ranging from three to thirteen years to find out who entered and who did not, who had persisted and who had withdrawn. The relationship of these outcomes to characteristics of the people at the time they became applicants was then analyzed. Some of the applicant characteristics studied were age, education', ability, personality, and interests. The results of this study provide some empirical grounds on which to base policies about when people should be admitted to Church vocations - information which is currently not available in the literature. There are, of course, many relevant factors, of which empirical evidence is one, in a policy decision of this sort. Some Influences on Postponing Entry Among reasons for the demise of early adolescent entry to Church vocations in the United States are support from Rome for the delay, changes in family life, psychological and sociological theory, evidence of very high drop-out rates among high school age entrants, and feelings of interpersonal deficiencies among the current generation of religious leaders. While Rome has declined to officially condemn early entry - indeed it continues to encourage 12-13-year-old entry in some countries - in 1969 the Sacred Congregation for Religious and for Secular Institutes issued a document,Instruction on the Renewal of Religious Formation, recommending the practice of postponing Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/3 343 entrance for a year or two after high school graduation. The document moved beyond the recommendation that seminaries and religious orders get out of high school age formation - the cause c61~bre of the sixties - to getting out of some college age formation work as well. The recommendation rests on the assumption that older entrants would be more mature and consequently better able to profit from spiritual training. It also rests on the related assumption that, being more mature, older entrants should be more stable vocationally. These assumptions have not been put to an empirical test for religious candidates. It is not known if being older would in fact be related to greater maturity nor is it known if being older would be associated with higher persistence. The purpose of this paper is to provide information for testing the latter assumption among post high school age candi-dates. On theoretical grounds "one would expect that post high school entry, that is, entering when about seventeen or eighteen years old, should be associated with more stable career choices than entering prior to that time. That expectation is based on changes in family life, typical career choice patterns in the United States, Erikson's theory of ego identity, and Super's career development theory. The question of achieving greater vocational stability by delaying entry to even later ages, however, remains an open one. The American family, often mother dominated during the thirties when fathers suffered crushing economic humiliation and during the first half of the forties when men were off to war, has come more under the influence of father in the past twenty-five years, Undoubtedly this is one of the reasons for the decline in vocations which began to occur in the mid to late sixties. There is ample evidence that mother is most frequently the primary inspiration and support of religious vocations. Fichter is quoted by Rooney (1970) as reporting evidence for the greater influence of priests than of mothers in priestly vocations. Later research, especially that of Potvin and Suziedelis (1969), however, clearly supports the primary role of mother. In all likelihood there is no essential disagreement between these findings. I suspect that maternal influence is probably the major predisposing factor in the development of priestly or religious interests and that the influence of a given priest or'religious is generally the precipitating factor associated with a specific choice of institute. Mothers generally are more religious in orientation than fathers are, and with declining maternal influence and a corresponding increase in paternal influence, I think it can be safely assumed that today's teenagers are not as subject to family p.ressures to enter church vocations as was formerly true. It can be assumed further that pressures of this sort are felt most greatly in early teen years, that is, before an independent sense of self is well developed, than in the late teen years when eg.o identity normally is firmer. Thus a strong maternal influence on Church vocation choices most likely would be associated with both early entry and high rates of entry, while waning maternal influence would be associated with later and declining entry rates. Furthermore, if the dynamics of husband-wife, parent-child relation-ships have indeed changed with father re-assuming greater ascendancy since the"mid " 1940's, one could also infer support for a psychoanalytical interpretation that children in their early teens today should feel less heavy maternal emotional demands than was true of youngsters in the past. Consequently today's youth should feel less need to escape the home and these demands. Also instrumental in supporting delay of entry until after high school is the general tendency in America today to put off professional career choices until 344 Review for Religious~ Volume 31, 1972/3 college. Typical career development patterns now c~ll for a tentative choice of broad field and entrance into training for it around age eighteen. This generally is foll6wed by a period of narrowing course and career selection from around age 20 which eventually culminates for those who successfully complete career training in actual job entry around age 22-25. The near universality of this pattern for professional careers appears to be having a persuasive influence on Church pers.onnel practices. Both advocates and adversaries of delayed entry accept the premise that there must be substantial differences between preparation for Church vocations and preparation for secular careers. Education for the Church requires both an academic and a personal formation side, whereas preparation for secular careers is almost always restricted to the former. Paradoxically, agreement about this has fed the controversy about optimum entry age, both sides using it to make their case. Advocates of early entry have argued that the seed of a vocation is typically implanted early, will not be properly cultivated and is unlikely to grow outside a religious house of formation, and that vocations will be reduced unless early admission is permitted. Adversaries have argued that a person in his early teens does not know his own mind and that he needs the broader experiences - especially heterosocial ones - of ordina~'y family and social life before he is mature enough to profit from the spiritual formation side of Church vocation preparation. The immense popularity of Erikson's theory of adolescent identity crisis has had a remarkable effect on the attitudes of Church authorities toward proper entry age. Erikson's views about the development of a sense of self-identity, more than the views of any other theoretician, have provided the rationalization for delaying entry until an individual has achieved sufficient psychological independence from the primary adults in his life to have an ego identity of his own. That independence is thought to occur generally around age eighteen rather than at the beginning of the teens when so many youngsters formerly were funneled into religious or clerical life. Two recent religious writers, Mitchell (1970) and Gerlach (1971), have argued the viewpoint that the nature of a Church vocation requires entrants to have resolved not only the teenage identity crisis but also to have achieved a successful resolution of the problem of how to be intimate with another, the next level in Erikson's developmental theory. This viewpoint is offered as a basis for a further delay of entry age to twenty or so. Other than the theory behind the position, I find little else to support it. To my knowledge there is no published empirical information comparing the eventual social adjustment and persistence of entrants at one age to entrants at another age. Nor am 1 aware of any evidence that learning how to be intimate outside of religious life generalizes to the special circumstances within the life. On the contrary, this strikes me like a girl telling an interested boy to go learn how to make love and then come back when he knows how. He'll probably go elsewhere and learn all right, but it is not likely that he'll return to her. Super's career development theory, thanks to the promulgation of it among Church leaders by people like Kinnane (1970), also has influenced the move toward post high school entry. Super has proposed that the specification of a career choice, that is, electing a given career and taking concrete steps to prepare for it, normally occurs between ages eighteen and twenty-one and follows a period of roughly four years (ages 14-18) during which a career preference is crystalized out of an individual's growing awareness of his own interests, values, abilities, and opportuni-ties. Following Super's reasoning, entering the preparatory stage of a career before Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/3 345 age eighteen would have, for most people, the effect of foreclosing other options before the individual knows himself and the world of careers well enough to make a sound choice. For Super the choice of career involves a way of implementing one's concept of oneself, and a person is not ready to do that until the self-concept is relatively clear. Drop-out rates have never been well publicized even in professional literature and as a result are hard to document, especially over long periods of time. An occasional master's dissertation (see Verstynen, 1948) and studies dealing with some other aspect of seminary life sometimes report this information. People involved in Church personnel administration also generate a reservoir of information, often more anecdotal than systematic, about attrition rates. By the middle 1960's these varied sources, admittedly not rigorously scientific, had provided some foundation for the belief that drop-out rates are inversely related to age at entry. Patterson (1942), for example, reported a drop-out rate of over 80% for those who entered one seminary after grade eight declining to just over 75% for those who entered after having had some high school. So far as I know, to date there has been no systematic attempt to establish relationships between age of candidature and entry/nonentry, persistence/attrition rates across different types of church voca-tions. Is age of candidacy related to entry/nonentry or persistence/attrition in the same way for brothers, priests, and sisters? Dissatisfaction with interpersonal aspects of their lives is evident among a large number of the current generation of priests and professed religious. This is one of the most common complaints to come out of several studies over the past five years (see Schneider and Hall, 1970; Louis, Bowles, and Grace, 1967). Many in Church vocations feel that interpersonal deficiencies could have been corrected had candidates been required to remain outside the walls for a longer period of time. While there is no direct evidence that this in fact would happen, the desire to have better interpersonal relationships has been strong enough to persuade many to this viewpoint. All of these factors appear to have contributed to the demise of entry before high school graduation and to support of the current trend to delay entry for another year or two after that. It is a curious comment on the times that during all the controversy over this matter of optimum age for entry very little research was carried out to assess the actual psychological impact of formation on individuals at different ages. Keefe's study (1965) is the only one I know of which compared individuals of the same age in seminary and non-seminary high schools to see if there was a differential effect on maturity associated with one type of school as opposed to the other. He concluded that neither group was more mature than the other. Other doctoral dissertations done at Fordham (Mastej, Sandra, Vaughan) have shown increasing signs of maladjustment during college years of formation, but the cross-section methodology used in those studies leaves open the question of whether the subjects themselves actually changed or whether the group average changed as a result of better adjusted people having dropped out. 1 think the weight of the evidence on theoretical grounds, social changes, and on what empirical information exists clearly justifies delay of entry until the comple-tion of high school. As to justifying delay beyond this, it seems to me that empirical evidence is currently lacking and that the implications of theoretical positions such as Erikson's developmental views are open to conjecture. At the same time, however, there does appear to be a growing trend among college 346 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/3 students to put off career decisions longer than was true in the recent past. Some Empirical Evidence In 1970 I did a follow-up study of approximately 2200 candidates I had examined for seven Church institutes during the years 1957-1967. Information about age at the time they applied for entry was available for 742 candidates to two provinces of the same institute of teaching brothers, 354 candidates to an order of religious priests, and 1089 candidates to four institutes of teaching sisters. Their age when they were examined for admission was then studied in relationship to their having entered or not and to their having persisted or not for those who entered. The examinations were conducted on the average 3-9 months before actual entry. On the average when they sought entry the candidates to the brothers were 17 years, 11 months, to the priesthood 19 years, 2 months, and to the sisters 18 years, 5 months (see Table 1). The half-year difference between candidates to the brothers and sisters, the eight month difference between candidates to the sisters and the priesthood, and the fourteen month difference between candidates to the brothers and priesthood were all statistically significant and could not be accounted for by chance. Thus each type of institute attracted candidates of somewhat different ages. Table 1. Mean ages in months of candidates, nonentrants, entrants, persisters, and withdrawers for seven institutes of brothers, priests, and sisters.* Brothers Standard (2 Provinces) N Mean Deviation t p Candidates 742 215.3 19.7 Non-Entrants 389 216.8 24.9 Entrants 353 212.9 15.9 2.56 .05 Persisters 151 214.0 18.1 With'drawers 202 212.2 14.0 1.01 ns. Priests Standard (1 Institute) N Mean Deviation t p Candidates 354 229.6 34.4 Non-Entrants 60 239.8 45.2 Entrants 294 227.5 31.3 2.00 .05 Persisters 98 227.8 29.1 Withdrawers 196 227.3 32.3 ,13 ns. Sisters Standard (4 Institutes) N Mean Deviation t p Candidates " 1089 221.2 24.4 Non-Entrants 222 228.8 32.5 Entrants 867 220.5 21.5 3.60 .01 Persisters 469 219.7 18.2 Withdrawers 398 221.4 24.8 1.13 ns. *Age refers to how old the person was when he was examined as a part of the application process. Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/3 347 Older candidates to all three types of institutes were less likely to enter than were younger candidates. As shown in Table 1 the differences between the average ages of entrants and nonentrants were statistically significant beyond chance expectancy in all three cases. For the brothers nonentrants were on the average four months older than entrants, for the seminary a full year older, and for the sisters eight months older. Clearly promise, at least from the viewpoint of entrance, was not associated with being older for these seven institutes during the eleven years from 1957 through 1967. It would not be correct to conclude from this that superiors had a tendency to deny admission to older candidates on the basis of age alone. The more usual situation was that being older tended to be associated with some other factors considered signs of poor promise: indecisiveness, family problems, psycho-sexual problems, and questionable motivation being common. Only eleven of the 2185 candidates were over thirty years old. The brothers had two such candidates and neither entered; the priests had five, of whom three entered; the sisters had four, of whom two entered. All of the other candidates were in their late teens or twenties. At the lower end of the continuum 78 of the brothers' candidates were sixteen in comparison to 6 seminary candidates and 27 candidates to the convents in that age group. The brothers had 2 candidates who were fifteen and the seminary 1. The sisters had none that young. All of these younger candidates have been lumped in the 17 and under category in Table 2. Table 2. Proportions of entrants, non-entrants, persisters, and withdrawers by age of candidates to seven institutes of brothers, priests, and sisters. Total Candi- Non- Institute Age dates Entrants Entrants Persisters Withdtawers N N % N % N %* %** N %* P 5 2 40 3 60 1 33 20 2 67 40 S Base Ratet (17%) (83%) (34%) (28%) (66%) (54%) S 4 R S Base Rater * Proportion of entrants (All figures ~e for age at 115 19 506 81 274 54 44 232 46 37 60 19 256 81 142 55 44 114 45 36 37 28 93 72 49 53 37 44 47 33 8 44 10 56 4 40 22 6 60 33 2 50 2 50 0 0 0 2 100 50 (20%) (80%) (54%) (43%). (46%) (36%) ** Proportion of candidates ~- Proportions without regard to age time the person was examined during the application process). B 2 2 100 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 E R Base Rate~ (52%) (48%) (42%) (20%) (58%) (27%) S 348 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/3 The largest single age group applying to all three types of institutes were seventeen years old: 94% of the brother candidates, 46% of the seminary candidates, and 55% of the sister candidates. This was followed by those in the eighteen and nineteen-year-old bracket who comprised 19%, 30%, and 29% of the candidates to the brothers, seminary, and sisters respectively. Five percent of the candidates to the brothers were between twenty and twenty-four, 19% of those applying to the seminary, and 12% to the convents. Very few candidates to any of the institutes were between twenty-five and twenty-nine (see Table 2 for all of these figures). The base rate figures in Table 2 indicate the overall proportions of nonentrants, entrants, persisters, and withdrawers without regard to age. If being a given age was a "good sign" for entry, the proportion of those entering from that age group should be above that of the base rate. For the brothers and priests the 17-year-olds had the best entry rates and for the sisters those in the 17-19 age brackets had the best entry rates. For the brothers all ages over 17 had entry rates lower than the base rate; for the priests those in the 20-24 and over 30 age groups had lower entry o rates; and for the sisters all those 20 and over had lower entry rates. Do these same patterns hold with regard to persistence and attrition for the seven institutes? The data are not nearly so clear on this point. The figures in Table 1 show no appreciable age differences between those remaining in and those who left. It is important to bear in mind that all figures are for the ages of persisters and withdrawers at the time they applied for entry, not at the time of the follow-up. Two base rate figures are given for persisters and withdrawers in Table 2. The first refers to the proportion of those who entered who eventually remained or left; the second refers to the proportion of total candidates wt~o remained or left. Brothers For the brothers 42% of the 353 entrants were still in when the follow-up was done. The best persistence record was for those few entrants (1 I) who were between 20-24 when they applied for entry. On the other hand, the best persistence record for all candidates was for those who were either 17 years old or between 25-29 when they sought entry. Only two persisters were in the latter age group, however, versus 122 in the l~-year-old group. Clearly, delaying entry for candidates to these institutes w~uld have resulted in a very heavy loss of people who are still persisting. This, of course, assumes that the interest of the 17-year-olds would not have been sustained while waiting for a later entry - an outcome which I think is highly likely, though not amenable to proof from these data, even with lots of tender loving care in extramural aspirancies. The normal training period for these brothers extends for six years. In general, though this was not true for everyone at the time of the follow-up in 1970, it can be assumed that those still persisting from among candidates who had applied during the years from 1957 through 1962 were finally professed. These men would have been in their respective institutes anywhere from eight to thirteen years. In absolute numbers far and away the greatest number of final professed came from among candidates who had applied at age 17. There were 63 professed from that age bracket versus 5 from those who had applied at age 16, 13 from the 18-19- year-old applicants, and 3 from the 20-24-year-olds. On the basis of the proportions of candidates within each age group who remained to be finally professed, again the highest proportion was found among the 17-year-olds, though the differences from one age group to another were Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/3 349 relatively small: 17% of the 16-yea.r-old candidates eventually were finally pro-fessed, 23% of the 17-year-olds, 15% of the 18-19-year-olds, and 20%of the 20-24- year-olds. The entrants in each age group who had taken final vows were distributed as follows: 45% of the 16-year-olds, 48% of the 17-year-olds, 37% of the 18-19-year-olds, and 60% of the 20-24-year-olds. With only 3 people in the latter category, one could hardly justify delaying entrance to that age unless one could also demonstrate their superiority over the 81 professed who had entered at the younger age. The differences between the persistence rates of candidates and the persistence rates of entrants suggest that pre-ad.mission screening improves persistence rates rather substantially at every age. Priests In the case of the priests the overall persistence rate for the 294 entrants was 34% in comparison to 28% for the 354 candidates. The best persistence record for entrants was achieved by those who had applied when they were between 20-24 followed by the 17-year-old applicants. The best persistence record for candidates was achieved by 17-year-olds followed by those 20-24. There were fairly sizeable numbers of persisters in all the age brackets from 17 through 24 but substantially greater numbers who withdrew. Thus it would be very difficult to generalize about an optimum age for entering this seminary aside from being under age 25. At the time of the follow-up 19 of 118 candidates who had applied during the years 1961 and 1962 had been in the seminary eight or nine years. On the average they had been 19 years, 9 months when they sought entry. Of the 19 a total of 10 were ordained. The youngest candidate among the ordained had been 18 when he applied. The majority (6 of the 10) had been between 20-24; 1 was 27; 2 were 19. There is a strong suggestion from these few figures that for this seminary being in one's early twenties was a better sign of promise for eventual ordination than being younger. It needs to be pointed out, however, that older candidates had less education to complete when they entered and were thus more likely to have been ordained within the eight-to nine-year span covered by this study than were younger entrants. When the follow-up was done 9 non-ordained of the 19 persisters over this time span had been 18 or younger on becoming candidates: 1 was 16; 5 were 17; and 3 were 18. Accordingly, one might still be reluctant to deny admission to 17-year-olds. Looked at another way and assuming the 6 remaining 16 and 17-year-old persisters all accept ordination, that would result in an expected ordination rate of 13% for the 46 candidates in that age bracket during the years 1961-62 versus an actual ordination rate of 26% for the 23 candidates who were between 20-24. The comparable ordination rates for entrants in these age brackets would be 15% versus 37%, respectively. For candidates 18-19 years old, 3 already were ordained and assuming ordination of the remaining 3, their ordination rate against the total candidates in that age bracket would be. 14% versus 18% for entrants in that age group. Though the numbers involved are very small to draw firm generalizations, the ordination rates, both actual and assumed, give rather clear support to the view that candidates in their early twenties show greater promise than do those in their late teens. Sisters Fifty-four percent of the 867 who entered the four convents were still in as of 1970 in comparison to 43% of the total 1089 candidates. The persistence rates of 350 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/3 all entrants under 25 years old differed very little from one another: 54% of the 17-year-old entrants were still in, 55%of the 18-19-year-olds, and 53%of the 20~24- year-olds. Entrants over age 25, a very small number (10), were less likely to persist (40%) than the others. Using the total pool of candidates as a reference point the best persistence risks came from those who were between 17 and 19 (44%) when they applied. The poorest risks were those over 30 (0%), followed by those between 25 and 29 (22%), and 20-24 (37%). A separate analysis was done of the 209 candidates who had applied to three of the convents sometime between 1958 and 1962 and who were still in as of 1970. The fourth convent did not begin psychological evaluations until 1963 and was excluded for that reason. Thus for the other three institutes those persisting had been in their respective convent for eight to twelve years and normally would have been finally professed by that time. For these people essentially the same persistence rates were found for all ages between 17 and 24. Of the 17-year-old entrants 53% were professed compared to 54% of the 18-19-year-olds, and 56% of the 20-24-year-olds. Using candidates as the base for comparisons, 47% of the 17-year-olds were professed, 47% of the 18-19-year-olds, and 42% of the 20-24-year olds. In absolute numbers far and away the greatest number of professed (I 13) applied when they were 17 followed by 67 18-19-year-olds, 23 20-24-year~olds, 3 25-29-year-olds, and 3 16-year-olds. No candidate over thirty remained in.Sixteen-year- old candidates were a rarity. There were only four and all applied to one convent. Three of the four were eventually professed. What can one make of the figures for the convents? With about one-half of the 17- year-old candidates having remained in the convent at least eight to twelve years, it would be hard to support the contentii3n that they are a less stable group than older candidates and thus should be delayed from entering for another year, two years, or more. Profession rates for 18-19-year-old entrants are no better than theirs and after that age the persistence rates drop off. Unless one could assume holding the interest of 17-19-year-olds during a period of delay, a large drop in absolute numbers of those who eventually take final vows can be predicted and probably without much change in overall persistence rates given the same amount of screening done in the past. Summary Observations An increase in the number of nonentrants among candidates to Church vocations is one likely consequence of postponing entry beyond high school graduation. Age in itself would not be the reason for this increase. However, age-related factors such as career indecisiveness, social and sexual adjustment, and similar factors probably would be. A second consequence very likely would be a sharp decline in the number of candidates making application. This already is evident for institutes which have adopted a policy of postponed entrance for a year or more after high school graduation. The brothers, in particular, would be affected by this. The two brothers institutes in this study do not conduct colleges whereas the institute of priests and the four institutes of sisters each conduct at least one college and in some cases :two or more. 1 do not know if this was a contributing factor to brothers attracting the youngest candidates of all three types of institutes and having had relatively small numbers of candidates in their early twenties, but 1 suspect that was the case. In addition, for the brothers almost three times the proportion of candidates in their early twenties failed to enter than was true for the seminary and convents. I take Review for Refigious, Volume 31, 1972/3 351 this to mean that applicant proximity to the age group with which the Church institute works may be a significant factor both in becoming a candidate and in entering. Persistence was related to ag~ differently for the three types of institutes. Considering only those who had remained in for periods ranging from eight to thirteen years, for the brothers 17-year-old entrants had the best persistence records and in absolute numbers constituted by far the largest group of persisters compared to other ages; for entrants to the priesthood being in the early twenties was associated with a persistence rate twice that for 17-year-olds and approximately twice that for 18-19-year-olds as well; for the sisters essentially the same persistence rates were found for all ages between 17 and 24. The absolute number of persisters was much higher for 17-year-olds, however, than for any other age group. These figures indicate that it is unwise to generalize about optimum' age for entry without taking into consideration the type of institute. Given the same set of circumstances for the future that prevailed in these institutes through 1970 - an admittedly questionable assumption - one would have to predict that postponing entry to age 20 for the brothers could shortly put those institutes out of business. For the seminary reported on here to do that could result in a reduction of up to 50% of those who remain in to be eventually ordained, though I would estimate~ the more likely reduction would be on the order of 20-25%. For the convents to postpone entry to age 20 one would predict a very sharp drop in total number of entrants but without appreciably improving persistence rates of those eventually admitted. The net effect would be a substantial drop in new professed. All of this obviously assumes a simpler relationship between age and persistence than fits the facts, but the estimates have some empirical foundation. I think the more important question than simple persistence is whether one can identify among post high school candidates those who are mature enough to hold promise for an effective ministry. On the side of negative characteristics, there is firm evidence that candidates with poor motivation and poor prognosis due to family problems can be identified with a high degree of success (Weisgerber, 1969). The very sharp differences for the brothers in persistence rates for entrants from the different age groups in comparison to candidates from the different age groups probably reflects the results of effective screening. The brothers admitted only about 50% of their candidates. Similar differences in persistence rates were not found between entrants and candidates to the seminary which had not screened nearly so rigorously. Some institutes prefer to admit candidates without putting strong emphasis on the psychological evaluation. This typically results in higher entry rates and lower persistence rates, an outcome which indirectly suggests that signs of promise among candidates can be identified with some accuracy by pre-admission evaluation. So, too, does the much higher long-term persistence rate for the brothers than for the seminary, the former institutes having been more selective than the latter. The research project of which this report is a part is also concerned with specifying psychological attributes which distinguish successful 17-year-old candi-dates from nonsuccessful ones, success defined in terms of interpersonal relation-ships and job competence after final profession. Preliminary results suggest this can be done to some extent for a given institute but that the findings are not generalizable even between two similar institutes, for example, between two institutes of brothers engaged in the same work. This, too, would argue against 352 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/3 making specific entry age recommendations for all Church vocations and would argue instead for institutes establishing entry age policies based on studies of their own candidates. REFERENCES Gerlach, J. Form. ation: Some Reflections and Convictions. Review for Religious, Vol. 30, No. 5, September, 1971. Keefe, J. Maturity io the High School Seminary: An Empirical Approach. The Catholic Psychological Record, 1969, 6, 1, ,I 5-29. Kinnane, J. F., Career Development for Priests and Religious. Washington, D.C.: C.A.R.A. 1970. Lewis, A., Bowles, W. and Grace, R. Attitude Study Among Priests and Religious in New Orleans Archdiocese. Project ~560, May, 1967 Unpublished paper. Mitchell, K. R. Priestly Celibacy from a Psychological Perspective. The Journal of Pastoral Care, Vol. 24, No. 4, December, 1970. Patterson, H. A Study of Student Mortality at St. Anthony's Seminary and Suggestions for Improving the Situation. Master's Dissertation, Catholic University of America, | 942. Potvin, R. H. and Suziedelis, A. Seminarians of the Sixties. Washington! C.A.R.A. 1969. Rooney, J. J. Psychological Research on the American Priesthood: A Review of the~ Literature in E. C. Kennedy and V. J. Hecker, The Loyola Psychological Study of the Ministry and Life of the American Priests (Washington: National Conference of Catholic Bishops, 1971). Sacred Congregation of Religious and for Secular Institutes. Instruction on the Renewal of Religious Formation. Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1969. Schneider, B. and Hall, D. T. The Role of Assignment Characteristics in the Career Experiences of Diocesan Priests. in W. E. Bartlett (ed.) Evolving Religious Careers, Washington, D.C.: C.A.R.A. 1970. Verstynen, R. J. A Study of Perseverance in Relation to Vocations to the Priesthood. Master's Dissertation, Catholic University of America, 1948. Weisgerber, C. A. Psychological Assessment of Candidates for a Religious Order. Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1969. JOHN R. SHEETS, S.J. Soundings on the Present State of Religious Life [John R. Sheets, S.J., is professor of theology at Marquette University; 1131 West Wisconsin Avenue; Milwaukee, Wisconsir~ 53233.] Anyone who attempts to assess the present state of religious life in America today is in a position similar to that of a weatherman who might try to give a neat presentation of the weather across the country. It defies any neat categories. In one part it is calm, in another stormy. In one, it is warm; in another, below zero. High in the atmosphere there are currents of air which no one picks up without the proper instruments, while close to the earth there are other currents which everyone can feel. Changing the comparison, we would like to present some "soundings" concerning the present condition of religious life in America. "Soundings" is a safe word for what we would like to do. Taking soundings of the ocean floor, for example, is always a combination of accurate analysis plus some educated guesswork. At the same time, the nature of sounding what lies beneath the surface respects the fact that the picture can change very suddenly because of the constant movement of the currents. There are two assumptions underlying all that is said below. They are quite obvious, but it is necessary to mention them in order to put the rest of" the remarks in their proper context. The first assumption is this: There are certain fundamental components involved in all change which must interact harmoniously if there is to be growth and development. These components of change are mainly concerned with permanence and variability, sameness and newness, unity and diversity, continuity and discon-tinuity, conservation and innovation. When these components are mutally suppor-tive, there is progressive growth. When they fail to mesh and are at odds, the result is frustration, stagnation, fragmentation, and disintegration. The second assumption concerns the vital synthesis of these components. They are held together only through vision and values which are shared. The components are only mutually supportive if they are held together from above through faith enriched by love. Where faith is lost, these components lose their synthesizing center. They tend to break off and live a life of their own when the center is gone. On the other hand, where they are rooted in a common faith, then, while there may be stress and strain, there will inevitably be growth. We would like to make our soundings of religious life on the basis of these two assumptions. It seems that our soundings pick up an antagonism between these components of change as well as approaches to synthesis. We would like to hazard the opinion that this antagonism comes largely from an overreaction to what we 354 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/3 can vaguely call a "classical" view of religious life. This is the first point we would like to make. In the second place, we would like to comment on the fact that in many instances the synthesis is lost because the vision and values that were shared are no longer shared. In the third place, we want to call attention to the phenomenon of fresh synthesis that is taking place in many religious personally as well as in their congregations. Overreaction to the "Classical" Mentality We said above that growth depends on the harmonious interaction of the various components of change and that frustration occurs where these begin to be antagonistic to each other instead of supportive. One of the main sources of this antagonism today comes from an overreaction to the past. Today one often hears our own age of rapid change contrasted with a "classical" world view. This term is a hard one to nail down adequately. Among other things it connotes a mentality which is static, uniform, traditional, symmetrical. No period and no person in history ever verified this description perfectly. It is for the most part a mental construct. Nevertheless, in comparison with our present age, it does serve as a useful category. Our own age takes its orientation not only from the various forces that are at work, but also from the fact that these forces are fed by undertows of reaction toward the past. This is not an unusual phenomenon. Other periods of history have been marked largely by the way in which they reacted .to the past. The period of Romanticism, for example,took its shape and force largely as a reaction to the Enlightenment. The same process takes place in individuals as well as in groups. A person who has been brought up in a home that is overrestrictive can turn his initial taste of freedom into a spree of irresponsibility. It seems that many problems in religious life today come not simply from a legitimate reaction but from an overreaction to what can be vaguely called a "classical" form of religious life. Reaction in itself is not necessarily harmful. It can in fact provide impetus to move a person or a group forward. When it becomes an overreaction, however, it moves a person or a group into a position of imbalance. Overreaction can act like a blind force pushing a person or a group into a position beyond the point where they would normally go if they had full control of the situation. Where there is overreaction, reason does not lead. It is only called upon to legitimate the position a person has been forced into by overreaction. Similarly, overreaction is not the product of freedom and choice but of a passion generated by antagonism against a previous state of things. Reaction, as was said, can be an incentive to move beyond the point where one finds himself. Reaction can be the realm of the Spirit. Overreaction, on the other hand, is the realm of the demonic. Reaction can be the activity of the prophet. Overreaction is characteristic of the fanatic. Reaction is power under control. Overreaction is power without control. We can ascribe three main characteristics to the "classical" mentality. They are (1) anonymity, (2) structure, (3) subordination of the individual to the community. In lining up these characteristics we repeat the caution that they are largely a mental construct we put on the past. While they are verified, they are never found in an unmixed form. At the same time we want to avoid the idea that we are condemning the "classical" mentality. It is like pointing out a particular style of architecture that characterized a certain period in history. It is no reflection on the Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/3 355 genuinity of religious dedication in the past. Our contemporary "architecture" will become "classical" to the generations that follow us. The Reaction against Anonymity One of the reactions to what we called the classical mentality is the reaction against "being a nobody." It is a reaction against a certain kind of anonymity that was part of religious life. Perhaps anonymity is not the right word. In any case, the religious was not to call attention to himself as an individual. He was in a sense to " be a symbolic presence, where what he stood for shone through the individual characteristics. For this reason, particularly with religious women, the religious garb itself served an important function, not only in its positive value as sign, but also in what could be called a negative sense. Individual characteristics were "blacked out," very often to the point where only the face was visible. Whenever religious women today reminisce about the kind of clothes they used to wear, they usually do so with a mixture of humor, wonder, and relief, somewhat in the same way that children react to the old pictures in an album. However, when one realizes the thinking behind that manner of dress, it is not all that ridiculous. The dress was in some way to reduce what was purely individual in order to manifest the personal. Individual characteristics were suppressed to make room for what was beyond the individual. We are not calling for a return to those particular modes of dress. It is important, however, to understand the rationale behind them. The same thinking was behind the custom of changing one's name. When a religious gave up his family name and assumed a new name, this change was symbolic of a new mode of existence. This anonymity was a kind of a general condition in which religious, especially religious women, worked and lived. It monitored one's whole life. One's home, background, family, were kept hidden like a precious secret. We can all remember (except the ~,ery youngest of us) when one of the greatest childhood thrills was to discover the color of sister's hair, or to find out her real name. The cloister itself was a graphic symbol of this hiddenness. Today there is a strong reaction against any factor which is associated with anonymity. As HammarskjiSld observes in his diary, "Our final wish is to have scribbled off the wall our 'Kilroy was here.' " We all want to be recognized, not to be a nobody, but to be a somebody, and to have what we do acknowledged by others as our own work. Though we boast about our being able to go it alone, wo are very dependent on the recognition given us by others. No one can deny the value in such a reaction where it makes someone a more genuine person. Often, however, it results in making someone more of an individual, but less of a person. The difference between the individual and the personal is the difference in the color of one's eyes and the light in his eyes, or the shape of one's body and the genuineness of one's love. What is individual in us is (to use St. Paul's expression) the earthenware vessel in which we carry the personal. Where the individual is cultivated at the expense of the personal, we find something like those tiny Japanese trees which are very beautiful but unfruitful. While each of us has the temptation to sacrifice the person on the altar of the individual in us, the overreaction to the anonymity of the past has in many cases brought about a cult of individualism rather than a deepening of the personal. There is a difference between the liberation of the person and the liberation of what is individual in us. Often what passes for liberation of the personal.:in us is simply a disguised form of individualism. 356 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/3 Another aspect of this reaction against the anonymity of the past is evident in the strong movement to have a say in what is happening. In the past, religious, especially religious women, were to be seen, not heard. They never had a share in the decision-making in the parish, diocese, or Church. They were always obediently "there." Decisions from Rome, the Sacred Congregation of Religious, or the chancery office were accepted with unquestioning obedience, at least as far as execution was concerned. There was a certain mystique to the whole idea of authority in the Church. An interesting reaction has taken place, which in many instances has assumed the proportions of an overreaction. If in the past there was a mystique about authority, today there is a de-mystification of authority to the point where the very ¯ foundations of ecclesial authority are denied. Ecclesiastical authority, especially if it is of the unAmerican type, is relegated to something like baroque architecture, which is a relic of the past. In a very brief span of ten years, many religious, as individuals and as groups, have come of age, and issued their declaration of independence, often in the words dictated to them by some other authority. Chesterton's remark, though written decades ago, is apropos. He said: "Thousands of women rose up and said, 'We shall not be dictated to!' Then they sat down to be stenographers." It is unfortunate that an overreaction to a "classical" mode of exercising authority has led many to reject or to question the authority of the Church itself in matters touching their religious life. When this happens, another authority comes in to take the place of the one rejected. Nature abhors a vacuum. An authority vacuum is soon filled with another authority. Often the situation is like that described in the gospel, where seven devils enter who are worst than the first. In something of a similar vein, religious are feeling their "political oats." There is also a reaction to anonymity here. They are beginning to realize that they can and should have a voice in the affairs of the Church and society. Much of this is on the positive side of the ledger. There is a danger, however, that some may lose sight of the fact that a religious group does not exist primarily to exercise political pressures through the use of political tactics. Their political influence in fact is mainly exercised through witness to the gospel values in a manner which ve.ry often is incompatible with the strategies involved in politics. The Reaction against Structure We have commented on the imbalance that comes from an overreaction against a kind of "classical" arlonymity which we associate with religious life of the past. This same kind of a phenonmenon occurs in reaction to "structure." It is hard to pin down exactly what is contained in the word "structure?' Many use it in different ways. In any case, it seems to be loaded with many of the connotations we described as being part of the "classical" mentality. It conjures up spectres of impersonalism, inflexibility, regulation, and stereotype. In the past, at least in the case of many religious, practically every detail of their lives was regulated, the way they dressed, the order of the day, their manner of dealing with externs, their correspondence, and so forth. It is understandable that there should be a reaction to this type of regulation. But, as in the case with the reaction against anonymity, which has become the cult of the individual, here also the overreaction against structure has often turned into adolescent immaturity. There is almost an allergy to any type of regulation at all. Even language itself has to be purged of words that suggest anything like regulation. The word "rule" has Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/3 357 gone into the limbo of forbidden words and has been replace.d with safe words like "guidelines," "directives." As an overreaction to the regulation of everything, many are spastic about the regulation of anything. In many cases even the revised constitutions, the product of much work, prayer, study, discussion, are very careful to be "safe" in their terminology. Words that have any connotation of structure are carefully avoided. Very often these constitutions are written on the tide of overreaction and are careful to play down any idea of subordination of self to anything like structure. Yet it is a matter of common sense that structure is one of the components of growth that we spoke of earlier. It is like the branches of a tree through which the life flows to produce the fruit. Of course, structure without life is dead, and life without structure is aimless. Along with this reaction to overregulation, there is also the reaction to oversupervision. Some religious consider their duty is done if they "check in" occasionally to let superiors know what is happening. In many cases, superiors themselves have abdicated any real role of authority. They see their role only as serving as a kind of check point to keep the traffic running smoothly. These remarks should not be construed as hankering after the days of yore, where every detail in a person's life was regulated, and being an authority was identified with giving orders. They serve to point out a fact, however. Overreaction to that kind of a life has often resulted in a caricature not simply of religious life, but of any kind of life, which needs a certain structure and regulation if there is to be concerted work for a goal. The Reaction to Institution Along with the reaction against anonymity and structure, there is the reaction against institution. While this word is related to structure, when we use it here we are thinking of the corporate nature of the religious group. It takes into consideration the relationship of the part to the whole, and the whole to the part. We see the same phenomenon here that we have commented on above. There is a profound malaise with everything connoted" by the word "institutional." Once again, as a reaction against certain features of our institutional life, this movement can be very healthy. However, when it becomes an overreaction, the components of change begin to clash instead of supporting each other. One aspect of the reaction to "institution" is the movement to small commu-nities. It is an attempt to "de-institutionalize" one's life. It is too early to assess the results of this. In some cases, it has resulted in a more genuine community life, both within the small community, and in the relationship of the small community to all of the other communities. In other instances, the s~ into individuals who share the same rooms without sh~ As part of this reaction against institution, there i., vision of one's apostolate to one's personal career. apostolate of many religious communities has lost tl~ has been reduced for all practical purposes to a group own flight plans. The apostolates that have suffered areas, where hospitals and schools have closed and r facing an uncertain future, because they have no !~ whether religious will still be interested in such work. Now I feel I must tread where even angels fear religious garb. A few years ago (though it seems like a concerned with modifying the religious garb. Now it nail communities degenerate ing anything else. the tendency to narrow the is a great tragedy that the community dimension and individuals turning in their the most are those in rural aany others find themselves uarantee from year to year walk. It is the matter of ',entury) the discussions were a matter in many cases of 358 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/3 adoption of a mode of dress which in no way disti.nguishes a person as a religious. This is a very touchy subject. Though the question of clothing is trivial in itself when compared with values like faith and charity, it assumes in practice an importance out of all proportion to the fact that it is something extrinsic, while the other values are intrinsic. This phenomenon should already give us a hint concerning the nature of clothing. Clothes are never merely extrinsic. They are like the face. They mirror forth the person behind the face. We have been speaking of the reaction against anonymity, structure, and institution, where an overreaction results in individualism instead of personalism, fragmentation instead of integration, careerism instead of group apostolate. It seems that the question of clothing is of particular importance because it becomes as it were the symbol of the reaction against all of these classical features, not just against one of them. On the other hand, is it not possible that it has become an anti-symbol, where it symbolizes individualism, fragmentation, and careerism? We hope that, even though this is such a sensitive subject, most of us are beyond the stage where rational discussion is swallowed up in emotional reactions. We seem to have forgotten that the social sciences have given us much insight into the matter of clothes. All studies of human clothing point out the basic fact that clothes are not just things. They are part of the body-person, t Leaning on the research of the social sciences, we would like to comment on two aspects of clothing: what we wear gives visible shape to our inner attitude, and in turn what we wear shapes the attitudes. In both cases, this comes from the fact that clothes have a symbolic nature. Our inner attitudes are expressed in the way we speak, act, and dress. This is the law of our being. Human clothing is not just a protection against the elements. It forms an important link in that interlocking network of symbols in which we communicate with one another. Clothes are a function of meaning even more than words. They do in fact provide the light in which people interpret our words. We all recall the story of the Turkish astronomer in The Little Prince. No learned society accepted the report of his discovery of the new asteroid until he changed from Turkish clothes into European costume. Clothing, therefore, is never neutral. While this is true for every human being, it seems that it is especially true. for women. Clothes are not blank cartridges. When Judith prepared to meet Holofernes, she knew what every woman knows. Clothes are a manifestation of inner intentionality. The medium is the message. There are three levels of our existence, each of which is manifested by the way we dress. On the first level, clothes manifest our inner attitudes. On the second level, they manifest something more superficial, a job that we have, as we see in the uniform of a policeman, a soldier, a nurse. On the third and most profound level, they symbolize our meaning. A wedding dress, for example, is more than a symbol of an inner attitude, more than a uniform someone wears to get married. It symbolizes the meaning of a person's life, which from this point on is to be a life-with-another. The same is true of the vestments worn by the priest when he is celebrating. They symbolize more than a mentality. They are not a uniform used for worship. They serve to draw the worshippers into a new mode of existence. The symbolic aspect of clothing is obvious. There is another aspect of clothing, I see for example in Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences the entries under "Dress," "Fashion," and so forth; see also: J. C. Flugel, The Psychblogy of Clothes (New York, 1950), and Mary Shaw Ryan, Clothing: A Study in Human Behavior (New York, 1966). Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/3 however, which we do not think about as often. Clotl as the saying goes, "clothes make the man." In a ge man more really than man makes the clothes. All psychologists, and for that matter anyone w aware that the most sure way to change a person's v the symbols which surround his life. A person's changing his ideas alone. The change comes fr( meaningful sense symbols which gradually change sudden a person finds himself thinking in a different way a person dresses affects the way he thinks. self-image; they create it. Clothes are like reflectors. are, but they also act as reflectors in which we see of what we see. It is of great importance for religious to avail the~ matter of clothing provided by the social scientists. 0 that clothes are a way of speaking. The question to be To what extent should what I wear speak to others' inner character, or my job, or my meaning? Similarb psychological effect that clothes have on our thinking" Let us sum up our remarks for this first part. We r~ growth depend on the harmonious interworking of t many cases we saw th, at these components, insteac ended up in antagonistic positions. This can be trace overreaction to what is called a classical mentality. Ma from reaction, but where reaction gets out of bound: frustrate progress. We pointed out three areas in whi have been particularly strong: against anonymity, : nature of religious life which we globally describ~ commented on the fact that attitudes toward, religi influenced by the same type of reaction. The Loss of Shared Values and Shared Vision We mentioned above that the components of c! synthesis through shared faith and shared values. Whe works and lives at cross purposes. They are like rowe trying to row in his own direction. There is no doubt that the atmosphere of seculari~ and hearts of many religious. This is a process of h that are distinctively Christian are leveled to a vague, h betterment. Those values of the gospel which are rationalistic mind and sinful nature are de-scandaliz~ categories of relevance. Those gospel values which res Such are the scandal of the cross, the virtues of h~ renuntiation, repentance, and penance. In some cases secularization has not only de-Christ: even infected the ideas that some religious have about To all appearances some religious seem to have lost the Sometimes the gospel values crystalized in the tra chastity, poverty, and obedience, are lost in the perf~ vows is "updated" into some more meaningful an~ 359 es not only manifest the man; luine sense, clothes make the no knows human nature, are ,hole personality is to change character is not changed by ,m the pressure exerted by the concepts, until all of a way than he did before. The They not only express his ['hey not only reflect what we urselves and assume the shape tselves of the insights into the ne cannot avoid the basic fact answered by everyone is this: ' Should clothes manifest my ,, we have to be aware of the entioned that all progress and ~e components of growth. In of supporting one another, at least in great part, to an ny positive features can come ~ it delivers ultimatums which .~h this overreaction see.ms to ;tructure, and the corporate d ds institution. Finally we ~us garb are to "some extent ~ange are kept in a healthy a these are lost, a community rs in a boat, each of whom is ation has infected the mind~ arizontalization where values umanistic concern for human a perennial scandal to the d and adapted to the bland st adaptation are abandoned. ~nility, docility, abnegation, anized the gospel, but it has God, Christ, and the Church.

Issue 29.5 of the Review for Religious, 1970. ; EDITOR R. F. Smith, S.J. ASSOCIATE EDITOR Everett A. Diederich, S.J. ASSISTANT EDITOR John L. Treloar, S.J. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS EDITOR Joseph F. Gailen, S.J. Correspondence with the editor, the associate editors, and the assistant editor, as well as books for review, should be sent to R~vxEw FOR l~mcxous; 6t2 Humboldt Building; 539 North Grand Boulevard; Saint Louis, Missouri 63to3. Questions for amwering should be sent to Joseph F. Gallen, S.J.; St. Joseph's Church; 32i Willings Alley; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania tgx06. + + + REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Edited with ecclesiastical approval by faculty members of the School of Divinity of Saint Louis University, the editorial offices being located at 612 Humboldt Building; 539 North Grand Boulevard; Saint Louis, Missouri 63103. Owned by the Missouri Province Edu-cational Institute. Published bimonthly and copyright ~) 1970 by REVIEW FOR R~LlCIOU. at 428 East Preston Street; Baltimore, MaC/- land 21202. Printed in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at Baltimore, Maryland and at addiuonal mailing offices. Single copies: $1.00. Subscription U.S.A. and Canada: $5.00 a year, $9.00 for two yeats; other countries: $5.50 a year, $10.00 for two years. Orders should indicate whether they are for new or renewal subscriptions and should be ¯ accompanied by check or money order paya-ble tO RZVXEW FOR RELIGIOUS in U.S.A. currency only. Pay no money to persons claiming to represent REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. Change of address requests should include former address. Renewals and new subscriptions, where ex¢ora. partied by a remittance, should be sent to R£vI~w FOR RELIGIOUS; P. O. ~OX 671; Baltimore, Maryland 21203. Changes of address, busine~ correspondence, and orders not a¢¢ompanid by a remittance should be sent to REvll~W l~Ol~ RELIGIOUS ; 428 East Preston Street; Baltimort, Maryland 21202. Manuscripts, editorial cor-respondence, and books for review should be sent to REVIEW ~OR RF.LIOIOUS; 612 Humboldt Building ; 539 North Grand Boulevard: Saint Louis, Missouri 63103. Questions for answering should be sent to the address of the Questions and Answers editor. SEPTEMBER 1970 VOLUME 29 NUMBER 5 ,!111; JOHN W. O'MALLEY, S.J. History, the Reformation, and Religious Renewal: Pluralistic Present and New Past Even the most cautious historian would probably be willing to subscribe to the sweeping generalization that Roman Catholicism has changed more radically in the past four years than it had in the previous four hundred. A sense of uprooting and upheaval is inevitable under such circumstances, and we should not be surprised that the resulting tension has been felt most acutely in religious communities. These communities presumably" are the places of keenest religious sensibilities and, at least until recently, the places where the traditions of the past were professedly cultivated. But the changes have often shattered these traditions and have inter-rupted the sense of continuity with the 'past. The conse-quent confusion has forced religious to turn, sometimes somewhat desperately, to any quarter which promises rescue. Somewhat paradoxically, religious even turn to history, in the hope that the long narrative of the Church's pilgrimage will throw light on the present crisis. Often the specific focus of their interest is that other era of history well known .for its religious tension and tt~rmoil, the age of the Reformation. This focus is at least in part due also to the !fact that the theology and spirituality of the Reformation era had been protracted in the Church to the very eve of Vatican II. In studying the sixteenth century many religious were to some extent ~tudying themselves. The present author, as a practicing historian of the Reformation, has frequently been asked by religious in 4- ¯ Fr. John W. O'Malley, S.J., is as-sociate professor in the department of history; University of Detroit; Detroit, Michigan 48221; . VOLUME 29, ~.970 ÷ ÷ ÷ 1. W. O'Malley, $.J. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 636 the past several years to answer the following question: Is not the present upheaval in the Church very similar to .the upheaval of the Reformation era? The following pages will attempt to answer that question and to use it as a focus to explore the unprecedented nature of the aggiornamento we are experiencing today. It is to be hoped that such an exploration will be helpful to reli-gious in trying to understand their present situation in history and in describing to them the drastic creativity which is required of them in the renewal of their own communities. "Is not the present upheaval in the Church very simi-lar ~o the upheaval of the Reformation era?" The ques-tion begs for an affarmative answer, and such an answer is indeed suggested by many obvious similarities between the sixteenth century and the twentieth century. Both centuries,, for example, experienced a challenge to papal authority; both centuries tried to revise the forms of religious life, saw large numbers of men and women leaving religious life, and so forth. However, in spite of the many similarities and in spite of the measure of consolation which an affirmative answer might bestow, the fundamental reply to the question has to be a re-sounding negative. The present upheaval is radically different from the upheaval of the sixteenth century. It is important for us to see just how it is radically different, for only then can we cope with the practical repercus-sions which such a difference has on our own lives. In order to explore this topic we must first expose two assumptions which are the basis of the discussion which is to follow. These assumptions are simple and familiar to us all, but they bear repetition because they are so fundamental. First of all, behind every action there is an idea. Ideas are power. They are dynamic in character and even the most abstract of them tends eventually to issue in action and to influence conduct. Therefore, to study an idea is to study the energetics of social change. Secondly, behind every idea there is a culture, a fabric of thought and feeling of which any given idea is a partial expression and reflection. The idea may even have been created by the culture in question, for ideas are not eternal. They are born at some particular time and in some particular place. Or if the idea was merely inherited fxom an older culture, it is modified and changed by the new culture as the new culture accepts it as its own. In the study of the history of ideas, sensitivity to the total cultural context is an absolute prerequisite for discerning an idea's birth, de-velopment, and even total transformation, in the course of its history. The idea towards which we shall direct our attention is the idea of Christian reform :or renewal. As an idea it has its own history, which is a reflection and expression of the various cultures where it was and is a vital force. This history until recently was not much investigated by historians, but it is now receiving more adequate atten-tion. We shall try to trace this history very briefly, with special emphasis on the Reformation era, in the con-viction that such an endeavor will be enlightening and helpful for us in our present crisis. In particular, we shall contrast the cultural framework which undergirded the idea of reform in the age ,of the Reformation with that which undergirds aggiornamento today. Recent studies on the origin and early development of the idea of reform in Scripture and the fathers of the Church have shown that in those early'centuTies reform meant the transformation of the individual Christian into God's image and likeness. It had not as yet occurred to Christians in any very c6herent fashion that the Church as an institution--or rather that institutions in the Church--might be subject to reform and revision. The idea of institutional reform surfaced for the first time during the so-called Gregorian Reform or Investi-ture Controversy of the eleventh century. During this period the functions and allegiances of the episcopacy were at the center of the bitter contest between pope and emperor, and it was the papacy which wanted to change the status quo by returning to what it felt was an older and sounder tradition before bishops had become sub-servient instruments of royal and imperial policy. With the Gregorian Reform the idea was inserted into the Western ecclesiastical tradition that the Church it-self was subject to reform. The impact of this idea upon later history is incalculable. From the eleventh century forward the idea would never again be absent from the story of the Church; and at some times, as in the early sixteenth and the mid-twentieth centuries, it would come to dominate and profoundly disturb that story. By the early years of the sixteentll century we can honestly say that a reform hysteria had set in. Reform had become the common preoccupation, almost obsession, of the age. What is to be said about [ireform in the sixteenth century? Perhaps the first thihg which strikes our at-tention is the almost limitles~ variety of reform ideas and reform programs. We see stretched before us a chaotic panorama in which it is hard to find order, progression, or consistency. The figure of Luther, of course, dominates the scene, and he to some degree influenced, at least by way of reaction, all reforms in the century: But we are really hard pressed to find a very obvious intellectual affinity between him and a refbrmer like Michael Servetus, who denied the Trinity and ÷ ÷ VOLUME: 29,' 1970 6:~7 I. w. O,M,a~y, S.I. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 638 who taught that the corruption of Christ's doctrine, which began with the Apostles and which was furthered by the fathers and scholastics, was brought to inglorious constimmation by contemporary ~eformers like Luther. And what direct relationship was there between an Anabaptist quietist like Conrad Grebel and an Ana-baptist visionary like John of Leyden, who made polyg-amy obligatory at Mfinster and maintained himself there in voluptuous, polygamous opulence? Even within Catholicism a great gap separates Gasparo Contarini, the conciliatory Venetian nobleman and friend of St. Ignatius, from the fierce and rigid Gian Pietro Carafa, at .whose election to the papal throne even Ignatius blanched. The more we learn about the sixteenth cen-tury the more clearly we see how complex and variegated it was. Generalization seems impossible. And the at-tempt to compare it with the twentieth century seems even more impossible, for we are all keenly aware of the variety and even contradiction which characterizes contemporary ideas of reform and aggiornamento. We have set ourselves an impossible task. ¯ On the other hand, if what we said earlier about cul-tural patterns is true, all of these reform phenomena should be able to be studied as manifestations of a common culture. There should be somewhere, if we dig deeply enough, elements manifestative of a common intellectual and emotional experience. These elements, though distinguishable from one another, also com-penetrate one another, so that in speaking of one of them we to some extent are also speaking of the others, since all are facets of the same cultural reality. We are justified, therefore, in our undertaking, especially if we keep clearly in mind how precarious it is and how subject to exception is almost every generalization. In our comparison of the sixteenth with the twentieth century we shall concentrate on two elements or phe-nomena which are particularly significant for out topic and particularly revelatory of the character of the two cultures. The first of these phenomena we shall designate as the cultural parochialism of the sixteenth century and the cultural pluralism of the twentieth. The cul-ture of the sixteenth century was a parochial culture. The great controversies of that century were carried on within what we now see to be the narrow confines of the Western intellectual tradition. One reason why the sixteenth century was an exciting century in which to live was that it initiated through its voyages of dis-covery the new age of world consciodsness which we experience today. But only the faintest glimmers of. this world consciousness had penetrated to Europe by 1517. It is true. that in the Italian Renaissance, which to some extent was contemporaneous with the Reforma-tion, there was a greater awareness of cultural diversity. Moreover, there was an attempt to come to terms with it. Both Nicholas of Cusa and Marsilio Ficino speak of the splendor which comes to religion from the diversity of rite and ritual which God permits throughout the world. But such tolerance and breadth of vision was not characteristic of the European intellectual scene as a whole. Indeed, even where these virtues were. operative they eventually tended to be snuffed out by the harsh polemics of the religious controversies. The very dictum "Scripture alone," which we associate with the Protes-tant reformers, is symptomatic of what was happen-ing. No matter what is to be said of this dictum as an expression of theological principle, from the cultural point of view it suggests narrowness and constriction of vision. The Catholic formula, "Scripture and tradi-tion," is broader and suggests an urbane and mature consciousness of complexity, but it, too, implies more restriction than the ideas of Cusa and Ficino. The re-formers--- Protestant and Catholic--railed against what they felt were the paganizing tendencies' of the Renais-sance, and we often echo their judgments even today. But much of this so-called paganizing can be more be-nignly and more accurately .interpreted as a serious at-tempt to broaden the cultural base of Christianity. The cultural parochialism of which we have been speaking was made possible and even fostered by the slow and inadequate means of communication which the sixteenth century had at its disposal. More im-portant, these slow and inadequate means made it possible for sects to develop and for governments to impose a particular and rigid religious style on whole populations. In other words, it was still possible to ex-clude those factors which would tend to develop re-ligious and cultural pluralism or to operate for a more broadly based unity. German Lutheranism, Dutch Calvinism, Spanish Catholicism could continue to perdure as distinct and seemingly relentless cultural .phenomena only because they were protected from fac-ing the challenge of cultural and religious diversity. We today have no such protection, and we cannot construct barriers to keep out what we find offensive and disturbing. In the modern world pluralism is the very air we breathe, and it is one of the most signifi-cant factors influencing us and marking us off from all men who have ever preceded us on this globe. Modern means of communication have introduced the otherwise-minded into our very homes, and we have no instrument to muffle them. We must come to terms with diversity. ÷ :÷ VOLUME 29, 1970 639 4. I. w. o'Mo~, s.1. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 640 Our: Christianity, therefore, and our style of renewal must come to terms with it. Ecumenism, for instance, is not simply an accidental adoi:nment to our religious and intellectual style. It is not simply a good idea that we concocted and then tried to thrust down the throat of an unwilling Church. We perhaps cannot describe it as inevitable, but we cer-tainly can describe it as symptomatic of the culture in which we live and urgently required by it if we genuinely believe in truth and honesty. Our experience of pluralism has forced us all to admit the possibility of different, complementary, con-trasting, and at times almost contradictory insights into the same data. It has forced us to realize that each of these, insights may have some validity and that no set of categories can capture any reality in all its splendor and multiplicity. This realization, has not made us gkeptics, but it has made us cautious in our judgments and aware of how relative our insights might be. Our experience of pluralism has thrust upon us a new epistemology. In the sixtbenth century the assumption which under-lay religious discussion was that truth was one and that orthodoxy was clear--clear either from Scripture or from the teaching of the Church. Cultural parochialism fostered this assumption. It allowed beliefs to perdure untested by confrontation with different beliefs. The epistemology of the sixteenth century, parochial and rigid with the academic rigidity of the scholastic de-bates, made little allowance for the possibility of plural-ism of insight. It insisted upon the exclusive validity of a single insight, with a consequent insistence upon the exclusive validity of particular categories and concepts. Truth in such a system is not multifaceted and ever some-what beyond our grasp, but monolithic and subject to our despotic contro!. It is de jure intolerant. Its particular formulations are so many weapons for use in battle ¯ against other equally parochial formulations. Polemic, therefore, is its appropriate literary style. The theology of the sixteenth century is quite cor-rectly described as polemical and controversialist theol-ogy. We perhaps fail to realize how appropriate such a style of theology was to the cultural experience and epistemological presuppositions of that century. To an intolerant truth corresponds an intolerant literary form. No other form would be honest. The only possible explanation for a person's refusal to accept the true and orthodox insight must be moral perversity. Hence, orthodoxy and virtue, heterodoxy and vice were the two sets of inseparable twins. Significantly enough, the characteristic literary form of the Italian Renaissance was the dialogue, the form which implies an awareness of diversity and a willing-ness to live with it. It was an awareness too delicate to be able to contain the religous resentments which ex-ploded in 1517. But it is not too delicate today. Dialogue is the literary form required by our epistemology, which has been conditioned by our experience of cultural pluralism. Dialogue and rapprochement are not arbi-trary creations of the ecumenist. They are necessary corollaries to being intellectually honest in the latter half of the twentieth century. Our style of renewal, therefore, cannot be apodictic, autocratic, intolerant, or suffused with old-time single-minded zeal. Our culture--that is to say, WE, as prod-ucts and creators of that culture--require something else. Our style is radically different. It is groping and tentative. It is experimental and participati~ve. It is even somewhat double-minded, for it realizes that even re-ligious reform must keep an eye on secular realities precisely as potential for religious values. The second phenomenon manifestative of the cul-tural divergence of the sixteenth century from the twentieth century is perhaps more important: the sense of history operative in the two centuries. Here, es-pecially, we must beware of giving the impression that each individual in the sixteenth or twentieth century thinks about his past in precisely the same way. In the sixteenth century, in fact, historical thought ranged from the subtle understandings of persons like Fran-cesco Guicciardini and Desiderius Erasmus to the crudest forms of apocalyptic. However, we can say that, by and large, sixteenth-century thinkers discerned some consistent and coherent pattern in the historical process, and they saw this process as directly under the divine influence. They usually arrived at their formulations of such a pattern by a very arbitrary fusion of historical fact with metahistorical speculation which they drew from Antiquity and the Middle Ages. The result was often a hodge-podge of myth, metaphysics, and unsub-stantiated historical data. From this was constructed a pattern of expansion or decline or cycle or cataclysm or culmination which was presented to the reader as God's design. Thus the author was able to rise above history's mystery and to protect himself from history's terror. There was one very important consequence of this approach to history: it tended in some fashion to absolutize the past. The religious thinkers of the six-teenth century all tended to see past events, especially religious events, as issuing from God's hand and as under His direct influence. They were not particularly Renewa/ VOLUME 29, 1970 641 ~. W. O'Mall~, S.~. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 642 concerned with the singular, contingent, concrete hu-man causes which produced particular phenomena. They were concerned rather to see them as products of di-vine providence, as r~eflections of the divinity, as neces-sary elements in a predetermined pattern. They thus tended to endow them with an absolute value which defied reconciliation with the contingent historical cir-cumstances under which they had come into being. The contrast of this style of historical thinking with our own is dramatic. We all have acquired to a greater or lesser degree some measure of historical conscious-ness ~s defined in terms of modern historical method and hermeneutics. What this means is that we approach the past as a human phenomenon which is to be under-stood in terms of human thought and feeling. Each person, event, doctrine, and document of the past is the product of contingent causes and subject to modification by the culture in which it exists. Everything in the human past is culturally conditioned, which is just another way of saying that it is culturally limited. Such awareness of cultural conditioning distinguishes modern historical consciousness from that which pre-ceded it, and it is an awareness which has been growing ever more acute since the nineteenth century. The text of Luke's Gospel could have been produced only by first-century Judaic-Hellenistic Christianity. Fifteenth-century humanism would have created a completely different text, different in concept as well as in language. Awareness of such cultural differentiation helps make Scripture scholars today much more keenly conscious of how Scripture is the word of man than they are of how it is the word of God. Until quite recently the very opposite was the case. What modern historical consciousness enables us to understand more clearly than it was eve~ understood before, therefore, is that every person, event, doctrine, and document of the past is the product of very specific and unrepeatable contingencies. By refusing to consider them as products of providence or as inevitable links in an ineluctable chain, it deprives them of all absolute character. It demythologizes them. It "de-providential-izes" them. It relativizes them. The importance of such relativization is clear when we consider the alternative. If a reality of the past is not culturally relative, it is culturally absolute. It is sacred and humanly unconditioned. There is no possibility of a critical review of it which would release the present from its authoritative grasp. For one reason or another an individual might.reject a particular institution or set of values as not representing the authentic tradition of the past. But. there is no way to reject the past as such. There is no way to get rid of history. The two styles of historical thinking which we have just been describing radically condition the idea of re-form. If we were to describe in a word the funda-mental assumption which underlay the idea of reform in the sixteenth century, it would be that reform was to be effected by a return to the more authentic religion of a bygone era. Somewhere in the past there was a Golden Age untarnished by the smutty hand of man, an age when doctrine was pure, morals were upright, and institutions were holy. It was this doctrine, these morals, and these institutions which reform was to restore or continue. According to this style of thinking Christ somehow or other became the sanctifier and sanctioner of some existing or pre-existing order, and that order was thus imbued with transcendent and inviolable validity. For centuries many Christians thought that such an order was the Roman Empire, and that is why the myth of the Empire's providential mission and its duration to the end of the world perdured many centuries after the Empire ceased to be an effective reality. According to this style of thinking all the presumptions favor obedi-ence and conformity. Protest and dissent can only rarely, if ever, be justified. There is no way to see Christ as contradicting the present and rejecting the past. Such a style of thinking is foreign to our own. Even though as Christians we attribute a transcendent mean-ing to the person of Jesus and therefore attribute a special primacy to those documents which resulted from the most immediate contact with him, we cannot see the first Christian generation as a Golden Age. Scoiologi-cally speaking, it was the charismatic generation. His-torically speaking, it was a generation like all others-- human, contingent, imperfect, relative. The formula-tions of Christian doctrine in the great early councils must be subjected to the same radical criticism. We do not easily find in them a harvest of eternal and immu-table truth. Intellectually, therefore, we repudiate the sixteenth-century's historical style. Emotionally, however, we find a certain satisfaction in it of which it is difficult to divest ourselves. What satisfies us in this style is its fufidamental premise that somewhere in the past there is an answer to our questions and a solution to our prob-lems. If we could only get back to the ':true mind" of somebody or other, how easy it then would be to im-plement our reform. How easy it then would be to save ourselves from the risk of having to answer our own VOL:UME" 29, 1970 643 ~. W. O'Mallt'y, REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ¯ 6,t4 questions and solve our own problems. This is the emotional consolation which such a style of historical thinking provides. We neatly fit ourselves, for instance, into a preconceived pattern of homogeneous develop-ment, and then we dip into the Golden Past to discover how to behave as the pattern unfolds itself. We are secure. We have been saved from history's terror. No such salvation, however, is open to us of the twentieth century. Modern historical consciousness has relativized and demythologized the past, thus liberat-ing us from it. But we are liberated only to find our-selves on our own. The past has no answers for us, and we face the future without a ready-made master-plan. It is this fact which makes our style of renewal radically different from every reform which has ever preceded it. We are painfully conscious that if we are to have a master-plan we must create it ourselves. In spite of certain superficial similarities, therefore, the problems of the sixteenth-century Reformation are not those of twentieth-century aggiornamento. Underly-ing these two reforms are two radically different cul-. tural experiences, which have radically transformed the idea of reform. Our twentieth-century idea of reform has been conditioned by our experience of religious and intellectual pluralism, and this has transformed it from pronouncement to conversation. Our idea of reform has also been conditioned by our modern historical consciousness, and this has divested us of the consola-tion of a past which answers our questions and tells us what to do. The implications of the foregoing reflections for re-newal within religious communities should be obvious. First of all, our problems will not be solved from on high by some sort of autocratic decree. Before any reasonable decision is reached on any major question a certain amount of open discussion and communal dis-cernment is an absolute prerequisite. The exercise of "obedience" is thus so drastically changed that we can well wonder if the word, with all its connotations, is really an adequate expression of what we now mean. In any case, participation and tolerance of diversity of viewpoint are now such pervasive realities of the cul-ture in which we live that there will be no viable + solutions to any problems without taking them into ac- + ¯ count. ÷ Secondly, although we do want to get back to the "true mind" of our founders, we must realize that we are in a very different cultural context than the founders were. We have to be bold in interpreting their "mind," and we must realize that even they do not answer our questions in our terms. Keligious renewal today, for the first time in the history o[ the Church, is more con-scious o~ its break with the authentic past than it is of its continuity with it. This may not be a very consoling realization, but it is one which we must constantly be aware o~ as we try to face the ~uture. Indeed, we face a new future because to a large extent we have created ~or ourselves a new past. j. DOUGLAS McCONNELL Good Stewardship Is Management and Planning J. Douglas Mc- Connell is a mem-ber of the Stanford Research Imfitute; Menlo Park, Cali-fornia 94025. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Thank God for the courage and wisdom of the fathers of the Second Vatican Councill Their decree, Perfectae caritatis, charging all institutions and orders to under-take renewal, may have provided a means that will en-able the talents of both men and women religious to be developed more fully and utilized more effectively in serving the People of God. It may also be the means by which some (not all) orders will survive in the years ahead. There is no need here to discuss the declining numbers of[ novices, the increasing numbers not taking final vows or opting for exclaustration, the growing costs of retirement, and the trend in age distributions. These are symptoms, not causes, and their disappearance rests entirely on how the orders adapt themselves to this, the latter third of the twentieth century. Historically, the least practiced parable within the Catholic Church has to have been the parable of the talents, and this is particularly true insofar as orders of religious women have been concerned. They have truly been hand-maidens of the Church; they have occupied subservient roles and have been encouraged to remain in secondary roles--interpreting kindly the motives and action of others, shunning criticism, and avoiding evaluation of another's fitness for her work or position--yet they possess tremendous capabilities. For the better part of a decade Stanford Research In-stitute (SRI) has undertaken research projects in the area of corporate planning, and for many more years in the field of management. In that time, working with members of the Fortune 500 and numbers of relatively small businesses, SRI has developed a philosophy or a set of principles that underlies the physical tasks in the planning process and exercise of management functions. In the last three years we have been privileged to work with the following orders in assessing their present and future status: Sisters of the Holy Cross, Notre Dame, Indiana; the Sisters of Charity of Mount St. Joseph, Cincinati; and the Sisters of Charity of Mount St. Vincent, New York. The 'philosophy of corporate planning has proved to be as effective for religious orders as for corporations. We do not have "the answer," and we are the first to admit that our approach evolves a little with every study and improves; but we do have a system that is logical, comprehensive, participative, timely, and oriented toward results. The system SRI follows is outlined here because we believe it offers sound means of planning for. the future, of implementing change without chaos, and of exercising true collegiality and subsidiarity. A number of sisters have even called it "the key to survival." What Is Planning? All of us plan to some extent whenever we think ahead to select a course of action. But this is a weak way of defining planning. SRI prefers to define effective planning as a network of decisions that direct the intent, guide the preparation for change, and program action designed to produce specific results. Note that the emphasis is on goal-directed action. Ob-jectives can be determined and achieved if properly planned for. The network of decisions recognizes the in-terrelationships between internal and external factors and that earlier decisions may greatly influence later ones. On more than one occasion I have heard of a diocese "giving" a high school to an order. The deci-sion to accept, in at least two instances, has meant a considerable drain on the human and financial re-sources of the orders concerned and effectively com-mitted them to that apostolate for many years, irrespec-tive of the priorities of the sisters in the congregations. Throughout our private and corporate lives we make decisions under conditions of uncertainty; and we trust, with varying degrees of probability, that the outcomes will be as anticipated. The formal process of planning described briefly here does not guarantee success, how-ever that may be defined, but it considerably enhances the probability. SRI does not talk about short and long range planning as separate functions. Planning is the function that ex-tends into the future as far as is considered desirable. If a college operated by an order requires 50 percent of its faculty to be religious (so it can provide Christian wit- 4. 4- + Stewardship VOLUME 2% 1970 647 ]. D~ .McConnell REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS '648 ness and remain economically viable), the retirement pattern for the next six or seven years determines what type of graduate fellowships should be offered for both the coming academic year and the several that. follow. The awarding of fellowships in its turn requires that other decisions be made.This year's budget and deci-sions should be determined on the basis of their con-tribution to the long range objectives of the institution or order, and not be de facto determiners of the direc-tion the organization takes. The Genius Founder Our research studies and project work concerned with the nature of organizations, corporate development, and successful management have indicated that, in almost every case, successful organizations of all kinds have been the brainchild of a single person or, in rare instances, of two in partnership. Names such as Vincent de Paul, St. Ignatius Loyola, Elizabeth Seton, Catherine McAuley, St. Francis Xavier Cabrini, Baden Powell, General Booth, Henry Ford, Alfred Sloan-Charles Kettering, Gen-eral Wood, Hewlett-Packard, the Pilkinton Brothers, Andrew Carnegie, and H. J. Heinz come readily to mind. By analyzing the attributes and state of mind of the "genius founder" of the business enterprise, SRI devel-oped a framework of tasks designed to re-create the mental processes of the genius entrepreneur within the management team of the corporation. Let me explain further. As we see it, the success of the "genius founder" is in large measure caused by his un-swerving dedication to setting high goals and .to reach-ing for them. He has vision on which he bases his own objectives and sets his own goals. And he does this not simply on the basis of last year's results plus some growth factor or what has always been done, but on the basis of his own perception of his own capabilities and the drive to satisfy his own needs. These attributes of vision and ~ommitment in goal setting are most impor-tant. Other distinguishing attributes of our "genius founders" appear to us to be: oA willingness to assume risk oA sense of inquisitiveness or unceasing curiosity ~Insight into relationships between concepts, objec-tives, needs, and needs satisfaction; the ability to see implications or utility ~Ability to make sound value judgments as to what is central and peripheral to attaining his objectives ~Creativity, be it in the area of product, technology, or a new marketing approach oFeasibility judgment based on foresight, experience, and a problem-solving ability oAbility to marshall the resources needed to accom-plish his objectives and goals oAdministrative ability to organize the resources to accomplish his goals and satisfy his inner needs. Organized Entrepreneurship To translate the "genius founder" or "genius entre-preneur" concept to the complex organization, SRI de-veloped a methodological framework that we call "or-ganized entrepreneurship." This framework provides a process of planning that meets the criteria of compre-hensiveness, logic (including provision for retraceable logic), participation by the corporate membership, time-liness, generation of rapid understanding based on a common frame of reference, and an orientation toward results, that is, the decisions reached can be acted on and managed. Through a series of tasks it also repro-duces corporately the distinguishing attributes of the entrepreneur. Let us now briefly go through the planning steps with their various tasks to show you how they fit together in a logical pattern. Step 1: Determination of Corporate Objectives Many institutes and orders have approached the question of who they are and what they want to achieve in overly simplistic terms. Too often purpose is expressed only in broad conceptual statements such as "the glorification of the Lord," "mercy," and "charity" and in terms such as "care for the homeless, the sick, and the aged," and "Christian education." Motherhood statements of a broad nature serve a unifying purpose but tend to let the members of a congregation under-take any work whether it really fits the primary purposes of the order or not. What a congregation is and what it is about are com-plex issues, and definitional statements formulated must take into account the expectations of the several stake-holder groups, the corporate skills and resources, and environmental change. One implication of this is that objectives have to be reviewed periodically. The end result is a family of objectives or, as people like Grangerx and Boyd and Levy2 have termed it, a hierarchy of objectives. a Charles H. Granger, "The Hierarchy of Objectives," Harvard Business Review, May-June 1964, pp. 63-74. ~ Harper W. Boyd and Sidney J. Levy, "What Kind o£ Corporate Objectives?" Journal o] Marketing, October 1966, pp. 53-8. Stewaraship VOLUME 29, 1970 64:9 ÷ ÷ ÷ ]. D. McConnell REVIEW FOR'RELIGIOUS 650 When defining the broad purpose of an organization, one has to recognize the sometimes conflicting interests of the stakeholders, that is, the members, the diocese(s),. the suppliers, and the customers (parishes, students, pa-tients, and the like) and yet resolve the conflict. Be-neath this broad umbrella a hierarchy of objectives is formulated for each stakeholder group, apostolate area, and the generalate of the congregation. As one goes through the hierarchy, the objectives become more specific in their direction, their distance, and the rate at which they can be achieved. The specification of objec-tives also facilitates the development of key criteria for evaluating performance and, sociologically, it recognizes the reality of the situation. The refusal of many clergy to accept Pope Paul's ruling on birth control was really a move to realign those matters considered to be within the realm of individual conscience, those .considered to be within the realm of the clergy, and those considered to obe essential to the faith and therefore within the realm of the Holy See. The present thrust to clean up the environment is an expression of the expectations of the-community stakeholders whose objectives have not been accorded rightful emphasis in the past by a society that has acceded too often to the claims of industry. To develop this hierarchy of objectives it is necessary to undertake a series of analyses. Stakeholder .4 nalysis The typical stakeholders in a congregation of religious are the members, .the diocese(s), functional or apostolate groups, customers, suppliers, financial institutions, and the community within which it operates. For each stakeholder group the governing board at-tempts to answer the following broad questions: oWhat does this group want from the congregation? oWhat expectations does this group have for the con-gregation? ~To what extent are these expectations being met? ~To what extent can the congregation meet them, recognizing .that it is impossible to do everything? Expectations will relate to such items as number and quality of services provided, fees charged, availability, citizqnship, jobs provided, behavior, ethics, and morality. The analyses should take into account the present balance and reconciliation of stakeholder interests, rec-ognizing conflicting interest and expectations as well as attempting to assess what is changing that will affect future expectations. A realistic stakeholder analysis within most dioceses would reveal the extent to which the expectations of local parish priests are being met at the expense of sacrificing the interests of the other stakeholders--the students, the parents, and lthe teachers (lay and religious) staffing the schools. An~ interesting commercial example is the Unilever Company in Africa, which made realistxc stakeholder analyses and surwved the nationalistic fervor of transition fromI colonies to countries by becoming a manufacturer rather than a trader, an economic developer of local resources rather than an extractor, and a partner rather tha~n an oppo-nent. Today, Unilever has a stronger position than ever in African markets. Special studies are almost mandatory because the senior corporate managementI group can hardly be expected to know the basic underlying factors determlmng expectations and perceptions of the stake-holder groups. The provisional stakeholder analysis for ~any commu-nity would include such factors as the percentage of families directly employed by the ~nstxtut,e; the con-gregation's contribution to and percentage of local taxes, if any; the number of members in religiohs teaching, social, civic, and political jobs (full and pa~t time); the annual contributions by the congregation Ito area or-ganizations; sponsorship of local groups; pol~itical action (lobbying, testifying regardxng leg~slatxon) at all levels; and local community attitudes toward the institutions of the congregation. In overseas operations it should also include studies of such factors as ~he political climate, stability of government, acceptan~ce, cultural variables, and attitudes toward overseas-based congrega-tions. Customer analysis will vary by type of apostolate. An orphanage would have different criteria froth those of a college or a retreat center, for example. Nevertheless, all analyses should include estimates for each class of serv-ice, the total potential "customers," the actual numbers served, the "market" share by value and volume, and an evaluation of quality of service as perceivec.lI by custom-ers. As is readily apparent, data on stakeholtler expecta-tions have to be gathered from a wide variety of sources: internally within the congregation, from independent appraisers, and from those actually served. Determining Corporate Potential The final component of this first task of ~tetermining corporate objectives is the establishment of a level of ~ . aspiration in the form of the corporate potentxal. Henry Ford estimated his potential as prowd~ng e~,ery Ameri-can family with an automobile. William Hesketh Lever wanted to make cleanliness commonplace in an era when Queen Victoria took a bath "once a week, whether she ÷ ÷ ÷ VOLUME 29, 1970 651 4. 4. 4. ~. D. McConnell REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS needed it or not." Our genius entrepreneurs have al-ways reached high, and this has been true of religious like Saint Vincent de Paul or Martin Luther King. The SRI approach is to treat potential as an expres-sion of the governing board's attitude to the congrega-tion's future. Potential can be expressed both in Ford's and Lever's conceptual terminology and also in more pragmatic terms such as the amount of patient care pro-vided, number of students educated, social work case loads, financial soundness, professional hours contrib-uted, and average Sunday morning attendance at Mass. Corporate potential is based on all key-planning issues derived from studying the social and economic outlook, the apostolate areas in which the company is interested, the opportunities for more effective resource utilization, the likely effects of important stakeholder expectations, and a congregation's own conclusions about its level of ambition and strength of commitment. As we see it, the determination of potential stimu-late~, motivates, and enables speculation about its attain-ability. Projected results are not predictions in the com-monly accepted sense but are simply estimates of what could happen when the assumptions made turn out to be valid. The concept aims at stimulating the setting of ambitious congregational and apostolic goals. The result of this phase of the planning process is the setting of a hierarchy of corporate objectives, including a set of ambitious yet realistic human resources and financial objectives. For an order of women religious today to expect to maintain a membership of 1,500 highly qualified professionals by recruiting 50 to 60 novices a year is totally unrealistic. Sound corporate ob-jectiv. es, together with a clear concept of what religious life is all about, should enable a congregation, however, to arrest and then reverse the currently familiar down-ward trend. Step 2: The Assembling o[ In[ormation The assembling of information consists of four main tasks: An in-depth evaluation of what is being done now, an analysis of the skills and resources of the con-gregation, an evaluation of environmental change, and an appraisal of planning issues. The goals and objectives of the congregation and its apostolate areas are explicated to obtain sets of criteria for the evaluations that have to .be undertaken. Once the criteria are established, it is relatively simple (1) to de-ten- nine what information is needed and the data sources necessary for an objective in-depth analysis and evaluation, (2) to develop instruments to collect data not already in existence, and (3) to put all these to-gether. Analysis of the skills and resources of the organization requires three studies: one of government, one of human resources, and one of financial resources. SKI suggests the development of a computerized personnel inventory. This enables detailed analysis and projections to be un-dertaken, as well as aiding in matching skills and in-terests to apostolic needs. Studies of environmental change can and should be obtained from a number of sources. They may be as broad as Kahn and Wiener's ,Economics to the Year 2018/' .~ or as specialized as a local city planning com-mission's forecasts of school population. Most congrega-tions are largely unaware of the amount of information on environmental change that is available just for the asking. In planning the future staffing for elementary schools in a diocese, one order learned that a school would disappear completely within fi~e years because the city planned a freeway through the area, which would mean the razing of almost all homes in the parish. The trends in the age distxibution of an area may indicate the development of different needs in future health care (less obstetric and more geriatric and cardiac care, for instance) and types of social services offered. Undertaking environmental analysis is one thing; ensuring its acceptance and use by management is an-other. One large sophisticated American company un-dertook a test market study in Japan to see if a market existed for a type of convenience snack food. The cor-porate management were ethnocentric about this prod-uct to the point that they refused to believe unfavora-ble test market results the first and second times around and insisted the study be replicated a third time. Busi-ness has no monopoly on this form of myopia, and much of the Church's attitudes toward parochial education appears analogous. The final task in the assembling of information, the appraisal of planning issues, is undertaken by the planning group. Following house or apostolate briefings, planning issues are solicited from those judged to have "management perspective"; to contact all members of the congregation has been our rule to date. Each mem-ber submits as many issues as he desires on a standard-ized form. In the first planning cycle the issues tend to be highly oriented to the present, but experience shows that in subsequent cycles the time horizon expands con-siderably. Typically, the submitted issues identify the 8 Herman Kahn and Arthur J. Wiener, Economics to the Fear 2018 (New York: Macmillan. 1967). 4- 4- St~ardship VOLUME 29, 1970 1. D. Mc~onne// REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 654 ~functionM point of impact on the institution or con-gregation, the nature of the impact, whatever supporting evidence exists, and suggested ranges of possible action. Issues are then grouped into families of issues that have common causes, that yield to a common solution, or that can be assigned to a single responsible person. You may ask: "Why solicit planning issues from mem-bers as a major basic input to the planning process?" The underlying assumptions are that people will do only what they see is of interest and importance to them and that each individual's perception is his reality. Members of a congregation cannot be expected to devote time and energy to matters they do not consider relevant to them as religious. The system also provides government with an excel-lent upwards channel of communication and, by per-mitting every member to participate and contribute ac-tively, enhances the probabilities of acceptance of the plan and a commitment to achieve it. This participative philosophy is touched on again later in this article. Step 3: Development of Planning Actions The major superior and the members of the governing board then read through each family of planning issues, screening out those where action has already been taken or is imminent, or where incorrect perception is in-volved. In these cases executive action is indicated. Each family of issues is then reviewed in the light of the corporate objectives, special studies' highlights, the analysis of resources, and the "real" message indicated by the issues. The members of the governing group then take each family of issues and identify the kind of action it suggests, what is at stake in terms of costs and benefits, the costs (both out of pocket and opportunity) of taking action, the degree of urgency, the first and second order implications of the kind of action sug-gested, and the management personnel who should at-tend to it. These individual efforts in translating issues to responses are then reviewed by the whole of the ex-ecutive group whose discussions strive to combine re-lated actions into broader, more fundamental actions and to identify important actions still missing. Use of a task force to assist in this process may be helpful. Suggested actions emerging from this review should then be tested by whatever means deemed appropriate. Feasible actions are then grouped by three or more levels of priority. Step 4: Preparation of the Provisional Plan In this s~ep of the planning process the proposals for action are translated into specific action assignments that, when completed in detail, provide the goals, action, and controls portion of the provisional plan. This provi-sional plan corresponds with the marshaling ability of our "genius entrepreneur." We suggest the use of a specific form that, when ap-proved by the assignment group and accepted by the action assignee, represents an authorization to proceed and a cohtract to perform the specified action in the terms stated. One important set of Form 3s, as we call them, relate to the continuance of present operations and thus ensure that all aspects of the congregation's activities form part of the plan. Before final approval the Form 3s flows through the finance and planning offices, where calculations of total costs and benefits are made for each priority level and are compared with total resources available. This pro-vides the governing board with a means to decide how many and which tasks can be undertaken within the planning period. The actions, tasks, or projects selected are then built into estimates of benefits and costs to see the effects on congregational performance and where the plan will posit the congregation with respect to its current per-formance, intermediate goals, and movement toward at-tainment of the longer range objectives. At this point the planning group updates the special studies' highlights; assembles the draft statements on corporate objectives and key assumptions; and produces summaries of the action programs in terms of timing, pro forma financial statements (operating statement, balance sheet, cash flow), and resource requirements (manpower, equipment, facilities, and capital)--broken down by organizational units, priorities, and whether they are current or developmental operations. The natural advocate of each action proposed then describes it and leads discussion within the governing board to double-check the plan in terms of the realism of goals, schedules, and cost/benefit estimates, of agreed-on performance standards (that is, the rules of the game), of interdependence among organizational units, of effects of unrealistic goals on the rest of the congregation, and of whether each action proposed is justified in terms of the congregation's objectives. This may sound like a detailed process that takes a lot of central government's time, and it does. But it ensures that: oThe government group understands all aspects of the proposed plan. oWithin the context of the emerging corporate pur-pose and strategy there is a review of program con-÷ ÷ ÷ VOLUME 29, 1970 655 ÷ ÷ ÷ ]. D. M~mme~ REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 656 tent, a rank ordering of programs, and anallocation of resources in accordance with priorities. oAn appraisal of various program combinations oc-curs, highlighting the relative emphasis on continu-ing present activities and developing new ones, the magnitude of effort required to reach each poten-tial, and the timing and sequence of interrelated programs. oAfter final decisions and allocations are made, the provisional plan is put in final form and presented by the major superior to the board for approval, and then approved programs are channeled to ac-tion assignees. The first year o£ the plan is the congregation's budget. The congregation is now at the point of managing by plan, which parallels the "genius entrepreneur" charac-teristic of administrative ability. It has succeeded in rep-licating the characteristics of the "genius entrepreneur" in a corporate framework. In subsequent periods the congregation recycles through the planning process, and the family of plans is updated and reissued. The first year of the plan as up-dated becomes the operating budget and the final year of the plan is extended. Here perhaps a word of warning is in order. Remember that lead time is an absolute necessity. It takes three to five years before major moves have a real impact on a corporation, and SRI believes that the same will hold true for congregations of religious. Maior in-depth evaluations are probably required only about every five years. In the interim period the special studies, updating of stakeholder analyses, and solicitation of planning issues from members are all that is likely to be required. Conclusion Our experience has been that the organized entre-preneurship model works. In the five years (this is the sixth) that SRI has been conducting executive seminars in business planning, more than 600 executives from over 300 companies representing every continent of the globe have participated. Many corporations, such as Coca-Cola, Owens-Corning Fiberglas, Lockheed, Merck, and Cyanamid, have been using one or more variations of the model with considerable success. The model de-scribed here is the adaptation that has been developed for congregations of religious despite the difficulties of measuring benefits and some kinds of costs when non-financial criteria are applicable. It is too early to say to what degree the orders SRI has assisted with planning have benefited, but there is every reason to believe that they are adapting with the times and will continue to be dynamic forces in the Church and wider society in the years ahead. Highly idealistic, yet realistic, spiritual and temporal goals and objectives have been determined. Honest objective evaluations have been undertaken, recommendations have been made, plans for their implementation have been drawn up, and these are being put into effect. Government has been democratized and strengthened. Management sys-tems have been introduced. And all of this has been done by directly involving some 250 members of each order in task forces and less directly involving all mem-bers through solicitation of information, opinions, at-titudes, and issues important to them. The final plan is theirs and they are committed to it. This motivation alone enhances the probabilities of success. In addition, the management skills of these congregations have been added to greatly. The sense of community has been en-hanced by the reaffirmation of congregational goals and objectives, the open realization of the pluralism inherent in any large group of people, and the translation from concept to action of both subsidiarity and collegiality. Another vital factor that enhances the probabilities of the orders strengthening themselves as a result of the introduction of modern management techniques and planning as part of their renewal is the quality of .their leadership. It takes strong, forward-looking leaders to see the benefits from and to commit their members to a major planning project such as this and then see that it reaches fruition. Good management is good stewardship of resources to attain goals and objectives and to provide the greatest benefits for all stakeholders with the resources available. One essential component of good management is plan-ning. ÷ ÷ ÷ S~ardshi~ VOLUME 29, 1970 657 LOUIS G. MILLER, C.Ss.R. The Social Responsibility of Religious Louis G. Miller, (~,Ss.R., is on the staff of Liguori Publication in Li-guori, Mo. 65057. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 658 It is in the temper of our times that religious who take the vow of poverty are under close scrutiny. The youthful generation has a sharp eye for phoniness, and they are quick to draw attention to the gap that seems to exist between professing a vow of poverty and the actual living of a poor life. The matter concerns the individual religious and it also concerns the religious order or congregation as a whole. The following reflections have to do with one aspect of the problem which, in my opinion, religious communities have, generally speaking, neglected in the past. I mean the responsibility of devoting some part of the community funds to investment in projects designed to help relieve the most pressing social problem of our time: the widening gulf between the haves and the have nots in our society. Before developing my theme, let me state that I am well aware of the self-sacrificing work being done by religious in their parishes and in teaching and nursing programs for the poor and deprived. When a parish staffed by members of a religious order goes through the inevitable cycle and changes from middle-class to low-income parishioners, the people stationed there pitch in, ordinarily, and try to adapt to the new situation that is thrust upon them with energetic zeal. What we are concerned with in this article is social consciousness on the provincial level. In the ordinary course of development, a province will accumulate funds, and it will seek ways to invest these funds. The interest from these investments goes to the support of educational institutions and missionary projects. There are two ways of doing this. A religious community can invest its funds under the single motivating principle that the investments be safe and that they bring the highest possible return. This is the course followed by many a conscientious bursar or procurator, and in the past, few questioned it. Another way of going about .the matter of investing funds would be to look for ways and means of applying them to the alleviation of the pressing social crisis of our time. No one can be unaware that such a crisis exists. It finds expression in the widening gulf between rich and poor, the increasing bitterness in the racial confrontation, and the alienation between generations that seems to result from the other factors. In Vatican II's Decree on the Appropriate Renewal of Religious Life there is a very apt expression of community responsibility in this regard. After noting that "poverty voluntarily embraced in imitation of Christ provides a witness which is highly esteemed, especially today," the Decree goes on to say: Depending on the circumstances of their location, communi-ties as such should aim at giving a kind of corporate witness to their own poverty. Let them willingly contribute something from their own resources to the other needs otr the Church, and to the support of the poor, whom religious should love with the tenderness of Christ (Number 13). As we well know, the young appear to find it.difficult to put their faith and trust in any kind of "establish-ment" today. They only too readily suppose that an institution of its very nature is so hamstrung by long-standing traditions that it cannot move in the direction of new and imaginative ventures. Over and above the tremendous work being done by religious in, for example, inner city projects; over and above occasional cash donations to worthy causes, I believe we need something in the nature of a symbolic gesture on the level of capital fund investment. I believe this would serve as a large factor in winning the confidence of young people that we are indeed willing to back up our words with our deeds, and that as an institution we can take a forward step. The heart of the social crisis today, most authorities agree, is the housing problem. The United States Commission on Civil Rights calls this the "most ubiquitous and deeply rooted civil rights problem in America." The Koerner Report agrees and makes it clear that its dimensions are so great that if a solution is not found within a few years, the resultant pressures could produce riots far more terrible than those our country experienced two or three years ago. The plain fact of the matter is that while each year 1.5 million new family homes are built in the United States, nearly all of them are on a de facto segregated basis. Since World War II the FHA and VA have financed $120,000,000 in new housing. According to a ÷ ÷ Social l~sponsibitity VOL~bl~ 2% k970 .I. + L. G. MC.iSllse.Rr,. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 6~0 survey made two years ago by the American Friends' Service Commission, less than two percent of this housing has been available, kealistically available, to non-whites. Each year we get larger white belts in our suburbs and more compressed black cores in our cities. The black core is continually compressed inward upon itself. Recently in St. Louis representatives of the president's Commission on Civil Rights, under the chairmanship of Father Theodore Hesburgh, after long hearings on the situation there, issued a depressing report that, although legally integrated housing is in force, de facto segregation in the great majority of suburbs is still very much the order of the day. He was quoted as saying: "Everybody we interviewed admitted that we have a grave problem; but nobody knows what to do about it." I propose that we direct some of our provincial invest-ments, perhaps a tithe of 10 percent, to the alleviation of this de facto discrimination in housing. In doing so, we would not of course be pioneers among church groups. There are available for study a number of interesting examples of what can be done and has been done. In Akron, Ohio, there is a nonprofit interfaith organization, organized in 1964, called INPOST, spon-sored by local Episcopal, Lutheran, Methodist, and Presbyterian churches. INPOST has directed several million dollars of investment into a complex of 108 units of low-cost housing, 72 units of high-rise housing, and 28 town houses. It is hoped that this complex will become a model for similar developments across the country. The diocese of Peoria for the next three years will advance $35,000 annually toward urban renewal and poverty programs in their area, with special emphasis on housing projects. We have noticed in the news recently that the Chicago Jesuit province recently made available $100,000 to be used as bond money to try to keep black families from being evicted from their homes. These are families with no equity in their homes even years after purchase at inflated prices, and legally able to be evicted on missing one payment. The Franciscan Sisters of Wheaton, Illinois, have announced an $8,000,000 plan to build and operate as nonprofit sponsors a residential complex for senior citizens and middle-income families in that area. The diocese of Detroit has been a leader in approving at least one $74,000 loan as seed money for testing the feasibility of having houses prefabricated by the hard-core unem-ployed for erection in the inner city. There is a national organization,, with headquarters in Washington, D. C., called SOHI, or "Sponsors of Open House Investment." Congressman Donald M. Frazer is its chairman, and numbered in its long list of sponsors is a host of distinguished Americans of all creeds and a variety of professional competences. It seeks to promote investment by individuals or by non-profit institutions of about 10 percent of their available investment capital in housing that is open to all. The organization does not itself invest. But it alerts indi-viduals and nonprofit groups to investment opportuni-ties in equal housing. It seeks to bring together investors of good will and housing professionals who are com-mitted to open occupancy. It operates on the principle that if a person cannot do anything himself to help solve the housing problem, his funds, if he has money to invest, can be an eloquent voice to help in the terrible silence of the decent in facing up to the housing problem that exists in our Country today. Under the slogan "National Neighbors" it seeks to build bridges of understanding between people, whatever their race or color. The Headquarters of SOHI is located at 1914 Connecticut Ave., N. W., Washington, D. C. 20009. Objection to these proposals can be made, of course, on the grounds that there is a smaller interest rate on such investments, and they are not as safe as blue chip stocks. Also, the objector might continue, the religious community needs all the money it can scrape together in these difficult times to support the various projects already in operation. But I submit that this does not absolve us from our social responsibility. If things are tough for us, they are much tougher for a great many people in the have-not group. They are a lot tougher even for people who have the money, but who can't buy a home in a decent neighborhood because their skin is black. If the social problem in our country is not met and dealt with, the most gilt edged investments will not be of much use or solace in the turmoil and violence that may follow. ÷ ÷ ÷ so~d VOLUME 29, 1970 661 SISTER M. RITA FLAHERTY, R.S.M. Psychological Needs of CeBbates and Others ÷ ÷ ÷ Sister Rita is chairman of the Department of Psy-chology; C~rlow College; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 662 Today when the value of celibacy--to which so many thousands of priests and religious are committed--is being questioned, it seems important that every facet of the problem be examined. The questioning seems to be the result of: (1) Vatican II's emphasis on the true value of marriage as a way of life that can lead to the highest sanctity and spiritual fulfillment, (9) the research of Biblical schoIars which raises questions about the time, place, circumstances, and even authenticity of those words of Christ which were formerly quoted in defense of celibacy, (3) the difficulty of practicing celi-bacy in a culture that places a high premium on sexual pleasure, and (4) the emotional difficulties that can arise as a result of deprivation of this important physical and psychological need. While all aspects of this problem deserve close study, it is with the last aspect that this paper will be concerned. In spite of all these problems and new discoveries, there are many religious and priests who cannot ignore what they believe is the prompting of the Spirit to live a celibate life. These people who choose to live in the unmarried state are entitled, it would seem, to have this freedom and also to have any help from psychologists or others who can aid them in solving some of the problems that may arise as a result of that choice. Although this study is directed toward the needs of celibates, actually much of the material is applicable to both married and unmarried alike. Basic psychological needs are to a great extent universal, differing only in emphasis and means of satisfaction from one cultural group to another. In studying the behavior of humans, psychologists in general would conclude that all behavior is motivated, that is, it arises from some need within man. Behavior, as defined by psychologists, is an attempt to provide satisfaction for a need. What is a need? What happens when a need is experienced? A need is a state o[ tension or disequilib-rium that results from some lack within the person. When this need is felt, it causes the person to become tense and restless; it activates him to perform some action in order to relieve the need--to get rid of the tension and to achieve a state of ~atisfaction or equilib-rium. A man who is watching a television 'show may not be conscious of his need for food, but he does become restless while watching and jumps up at the commercial and goes to the refrigerator to find something to eat. This behavior is directed towards a goal that will relieve the tension from hunger. Hunger is classified as a physical need, along with thirst, need for sleep, for oxygen, for elimination, for sex, and for many other activities that help to maintain a state of physical satisfaction. Each of these physical needs is tied in with a biological system within the body which in most cases depends on satisfaction of the physical need for survival. One cannot imagine a man being deprived of oxygen for more than eight minutes or deprived of water for more than a week or of food for much more than a month, without dying. Therefore when the person becomes aware of the lack of oxygen, water, or food he becomes agitated and rest-less and gradually filled with tension until he finds a suitable object to satisfy his need. And so it is with all the other physical needs, .including sex, except that the need for sex seems to be the only one which is not necessary for the individual's preservation of life--it is, however, very important in the preservation of the race. For this reason celibates need not worry about endangering their lives, but they must expect a certain amount of frustration and tension resulting from the deprivation of this basic physiological drive which in man is also part of his whole personality. However, physical needs comprise only one of three categories that may be termed human needs. One must also consider psychological and spiritual needs in studying human behavior. Although many psychologists discuss a large variety of psychological needs the five most com-monly mentioned include: affection, security, achieve-ment, independence, and status. Since these needs are more subtle and do not usually lead to loss of life, people are often unaware of the tension created by them. Yet the tension can become very strong and even lead in some individuals to a complete disorganization of personality which could be termed a kind of psy-chological "death." ÷ ÷ Sister Rita REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS TiLe need for affection implies the need to give and receive love. This is very important throughout life, but seems most important during infancy and early childhood, in studies done by Ribble, Spitz and others young infants deprived of mothering, that is, fondling, petting, and other signs of affection have in some cases gradually wasted away in a disease called maras-mus. Older children and adults may not die from lack of affection but they may develop some severe person-ality deviations. The second psychological need mentioned is that of security which Karen Homey defines as the need to feel safe from the dangers of a hostile and threatening world. Physical security is not the important element here as was demonstrated by the children who ex-perienced the terrors of the London bombings during the Second World War. It was found after the war that those who were separated from their parents and sent to places of safety in the country showed more psychological disturbance and insecurity than those who lived through the raids in the city of London while staying with their parents. Evidently the presence of people who love you makes one feel more secure than any amount of physical safety in the presence of strangers. As adults, we experience insecurity when we fear that no one loves us or that those people who are present in a situation we perceive as threatening do not really know us or understand us. The next psychological need is achievement or the feeling that one has accomplished something worthwhile. The individual must be convinced himself of his achievement. Another person telling him that his work is good is not sufficient if he himself is dissatisfied with the outcome. Therefore when one reaches a personal goal, a feeling of real achievement can be experienced-- but often p~ople who are deprived of affection or feel insecure cannot feel a satisfying experience of achieve-ment. The anxiety that is generated by deprivation of these other psychological needs may either paralyze their efforts so they cannot achieve, or if they do achieve, the results are rendered personally unsatis-fying. Once a person can achieve, however, he usually wants to become independent. The need for independ-ence involves the ability to make decisions and take responsibility for one's own actions. During adolescence this need gets very strong and continues throughout life. One can never be considered a mature adult until he has achieved an independence of "though.t, decision, and action. Finally the need for status or a feeling of self-worth must be considered as probably the most improtant psychological need found in humans. The need for status includes the desire to be a worthwhile person-- to be a good person. Everyone has this very basic need to see himself as a person who is worthwhile. Anyone who views himself as bad, inferior, or inadequ.ate does not satisfy his need for status. More Americans are visiting clinical psychologists today because they "hate" themselves, than for any other reason. If this need for self-worth is not fulfilled the person cannot be really happy. A final category of human needs is not usually men-tioned in psychology books but should be noted here, that is, spiritual needs. These include a need to believe, love, and worship an absolute Being--someone outside of man who is infinitely good and powerful. Spiritual needs also include the need to "live for others," to go out to others, to have a meaning for one's life. Depriva-tion of needs in the spiritual area are less perceptible, that is, many people can seemingly go for years without showing tension over these needs. However, because these needs are most subtle does not mean they do not exist or that they are less important. Since psychology is a relatively new science it is understandable that very little investigation has been conducted in this intimate but obscure area of man's personality. Victor Frankl and other psychotherapists are writing more often these days about existential neurosis, which is a frustration and anxiety caused by a lack of purpose in one's life. Those individuals who see no purpose in life or reason for living may very often be suffering from a deprivation of spiritual needs. Now in considering the problems brought on by these needs one must remember that they can be operating on a conscious or an unconscious level. A man may be aware that he is hungry and go in search of food, or sometimes he may be unaware that the frus-tration, tension, and even depression he experiences could be eased by eating a good meal and perhaps getting a good night's sleep. So, while most physical needs are consciously felt, sometimes needs for food, sex, sleep, and so forth may be causing tension for which we cannot account. The psychological needs are much more likely to operate on an unconscious level, perhaps because many people would be loathe to admit their needs for affection, approval, status, and so forth. It is possible for a person to be aware that he needs to be loved or esteemed by others, but it is more likely that he would repress this, thereby causing the need to operate on the unconscious level. Finally, spiritual needs are most likely to be 4- 4- 4- Need~ o] Celibates VOLUME 29, 1970 665 Sister Rita REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 666 repressed and many people go through life not realizing that they have a human need for God--a need to depend on an all-powerful Being for love and help. One might ask how a discussion of these needs js involved in the problems of celibates. It is the thesis of this paper that many celibates can stand the frustration involved in a deprivation of the sex need if other needs are adequately met. For religious it is likely that the physical and spiritual needs are satisfied more often than the psychological ones. Because of faulty training in the areas of friendship, detachment, and obedience a number of celibates ex-perience extreme frustration in areas of at~ection, security, and independence. Because of a fear of engendering pride or a false concept of humility many religious practices have also deprived individuals of a feeling of self-worth. Rarely in the past was praise given for work well-done, and it is the unusual person who can satisfy his need for self-esteem unless he sees others regarding him as a good person. In the past some celibates ma~ have been able to maintain some feeling of worth and goodness based solely on the assumption that celibacy was a "higher" form of life than marriage. Now, postconcilar writers are emphasizing that all states of life can lead to sanctity and that all Christians are called to lead a life of perfection. By thus equalizing the various states, the only prop that some celibates had for a feeling of self-worth (admittedly it was a poor onel) has been pulled away from them. Also in the past the People of God tended to look to those leading a celibate life as somehow being better than non-celibate Christians. Now there is a tendency in Catholic books, articles, and newspapers to question the value of celibacy. This questioning accompanied some-times with a kind of ridicule and cynicism may even-tually cause some celibates to become skeptical about the celibate commitment they have made. Those religious and priests who are abandoning the state of celibacy and seeking dispensations to marry are not necessarily suffering primarily from the deprivation of the sex need. It may be that a person who feels lonely, unloved, and unappreciated may seek in the marriage state the companionship, love, and appreciation that could legitimately have been given him in a loving Christian community. On the other hand, it must be admitted that some celibates may feel it necessary to invest their love in one person of the opposite sex, and thus realize that marriage is the only solution for them. In a recent study cited in the International Herald Tribune (March 10, 1970) the results of a Harvard study conducted by James Gill, S.J., showed that in the case of the 2500 priests leaving the United States priest-hood each year, celibacy does not seem to be the major causal factor. Father Gill indicates that he finds that the priests who are leaving and marrying are very often depressed. The priest dropout was most often a man who found himself taken for granted in a crowded system that sometimes denies the human need for approval. This discovery has caused some of the Church's most dedicated and talented priests to become sad, lonely, disillusioned, and resentful. As one examines these findings of Gill, one is reminded of a similar syndrome that psychiatrists have found in many young business executives--men who find themselves caught up in a structure filled with activity but which leaves the individual disillusioned with a system that deperson-alizes him. It is likely, then, that the American culture is a big factor in the working structui~e of the Church in the United States and that the same conditions that operate in the society to dehumanize the individual are also operating in the Church structure. In a personality analysis, Gill found that many of the priest dropouts were task-oriented men, who were raised by their parents in such a way that the achieve-ment of goals, particularly difficult ones, appealed strongly to them. They tended to go about their work in a compulsive, perfectionistic way, not seeking or enjoying pleasure from it, but aiming unconsciously at the recognition and approval they would gain from those they served. Father Gill goes on to show that when this recognition and approval are not experienced, the priest is in deep emotional trouble. It takes between five and fifteen years for a priest like this to experience the disillusion-ment that will eventually lead to some kind of a crisis. The priest then begins to feel that he is being taken for granted, that nobody seems to care how hard he has worked. Usually priests like this have so consistently performed in a better than average manner that bishops and religious superiors simply expect that they will do a good job. Since applause and approval come less frequently with the passing years the priest gradually feels more and more dissatisfied with himself, with his role in the church, and with his requirement of celibacy, At this point in his life, he becomes an easy prey to emotional involvement with the first sensitive woman who comes into his life. It is evident from Gill's study and those of others that celibacy or deprivation of the sex need is not necessarily the principal problem. Many priests and VOLUME 29, '1970 religious who leave to marry are probably seeking satis-faction for basic psychological needs that could legiti-mately and rightly have been satisfied in a celibate community, or a group of Christians Who practice charity by looking out for the needs of their fellow-man. Celibates must be capable of interacting on a deep personal level with at least a few people. Through. these friendships they will be able to love and appreciate themselves, which in turn enables them to love others. ~In the past, authority figures were looked to for approval and recognition which would lead to some psychological satisfaction and a feeling of self-worth in the celibate. In the light of the findings cited above, it would seem advisable to educate all members of the celibate community (and eventually all the People of God) to a clear understanding of these emotional needs. Only in this way will it be possible for the celibate to receive from some of his peers th~ affection, approval, and sense of self-worth which is so necessary if he is to sustain the frustrations of living in a celibate en-vironment. New ideas about love, friendship, and obedience must be given to all sectors of the community, young and old alike, if the celibate is to survive psychologically. Also the value of the celibate life must be rediscovered, not as a "higher" kind of life, but as a life that can lead to a rich, happy existence as one spends it living for others and thereby living for God. ÷ ÷ ÷ Sister Rita REVIEW FOR" REI;IGIOUS 668 THOMAS A. KROSNICKI, S.V.DI The Early.Practice of Communion in the Hand Travel in the United States and Europe has reen-forced my impression that the practice of Communion reception in the hand has already become quite com-mon. Understandably, the reaction that it causes is quite varied. On the one hand, it is labeled another liberal innovation; on the other, it is seen as the. result of an honest endeavor to make the reception of the Eucharist an authentic sign. In any case, and this is the purpose of the present article, we should realize that this practice, now officially permitted in. Belgium, France, Germany, and Switzerland, is not an. unprec-edented development in the liturgy of the Church.1 Synoptic Considerations The Synoptic accounts record the institution narra-tive as taking place in the setting of a meal which was almost certainly the Passover meal.~ The bread that Jesus used at the Lord's Supper would have been the unleavened bread (matzoth) of the Jewish Passover rite. It is interesting to note, however, that by the time the evangelists set about to record the institution event, they simply used the Greek word "artos," or leavened bread. This is understandable since it is generally accepted by Scripture scholars that the words of institution in the Gospels present the tradition concerning the Lord's Sup-per as preserved in the very celebration of the Eucharist in the early Christian communities. It seems, therefore, that when the Eucharist was celebrated outside the Thomas A. Kros-nicld is a member of Collegio del Verbo Divino; Ca-sella ~.Postale" 5080; Rome, Italy. VOLUME 2% 1970 See "Taking Communion," Worship, v. 43 (1969), p. ~440. Mt 26:26; Mk 14:22-3; Lk 22:19. 669 ÷ T. A. Kromicki, $.V.D. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Passover week, leavened bread was commonly used by the early Church) We should also note in this context the word used to describe the distribution of the eucharistized bread. Jesus simply gave it to those who were present. "Take and eat," Jesus said to his apostles. The verb used is the Greek Xa~/3~vo~ which is a generic verb indicating the simple act of taking (with the hand) as is seen from the use of the same verb in Luke 22:19 where Jesus "took the leavened bread." (K~d Xo~v &prov). Frbm these considerations, though no direct proof is established, two points can be asserted. In the Apostolic Church the Eucharist was leavened bread and was dis-tributed in the ordinary manner of giving. A few selected texts ~om the writings of the Church fathers will clearly demonstrate that hand reception of the Eucharist was practiced in the first centuries. Tertullian to Cyril of Jerusalem We would not expect to find in the writings of the fathers an exact account of the mode of Communion reception that was common at their time. There was no reason for them to explain such practices. The most that one can find in searching through their works are oc-casional references to the practice. These indications point to hand reception. The oldest witness we have that the faithful received the Eucharist outside of the solemn liturgy and, in fact, in their homes, is Tertullian (d. 220). At the same time he is an implicit witness for the early practice of hand communion: A whole day the zeal of faith will direct its pleading to this quarter: bewailing that a Christian should come .from idols into the Church; should come from an adversary workshop into the house of God; should raise to God the Father hands which are the mothers of idols; should pray to God with the hands which, out of doors, are prayed to in opposition to God; should apply to the Lord's body those hands which confer bodies on demons. Nor is this sufficient. Grant that it be a small matter, if from other hands they received what they contaminate; but even those very hands deliver to others what they have con-taminated. Idol-artificers are chosen even into the ecclesiastical order. Oh wickednessl Once did the Jews lay hands on Christ; these mangle His body daily. Oh hands to be cut offl Now let the saying, 'If thy hand make thee to do evil, amputate it,' (Mt. 18.8) see to it whether it were uttered by way of similitude (merely). What hands more to be amputated than those in which scandal is done to the Lord's body? * ~ Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Bible (New York: 1963), pp. 697- 702; Joseph M. Powers, Eucharistic Theology (London: 1968), pp. 60-1. ~ Tertullian, On Idolatry (PL, v. 1, col. 744C-745A; trans.: Ante- Nicene Fathers, v. 11 [Edinburgh: 1869], p. 149). In Tertullian's To His Wife which discusses the dangers incurred by a Christian wife even with a "tolerant" pagan husband, we read: Do you think to escape notice when you make the Sign of the Cross on your bed or on your body? Or when you blow away, with a puff of your breath, some unclean thing? Or when you get up, as you do even at night, to say your prayers? In all this will it not seem that you observe some magical ritual? Will not your husband know what it is you take in secret before eating any other food? If he recognizes it as bread, will he not believe it to be what it is rumored to be? Even if he has not heard these rumors, will he be so ingenuous as to accept the explana-tion which you give, without protest, without wondering whether it is really bread and not some magic charm?" The Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus of Rome (d. 235) goes into even more detail when giving prudential advice about home (and understandably hand) reception of the Eucharist: Every believer, before tasting other food, is to take care to receive the Eucharist. For if he receives it with faith, even if afterwards he is given something poisonous, it will not be able to do him harm. Everyone is to take care that no unbeliever, no mouse or other animal eats of the Eucharist, and that no particle of the Eucharist falls on the ground or is lost. For it is the Body of the Lord that the faithful eat and it is not to be treated care-lessly. o Cyprian's (d. 258) exhortation to the martyrs en-courages them to arm their right hands with the sword of the Spirit because it is the hand which "receives the Body of the Lord": And let us arm with the sword of the Spirit the right hand that it may bravely reject the deadly sacrifices that the hand which, mindful of the Eucharist, receives the Body of the Lord, may embrace Him afterwards to receive from the Lord the reward of the heavenly crown.~ When the same author speaks of the lapsed Christians, he says: On his back and wounded, he threatens those who stand and are sound, and because he does not immediately receive the Lord's Body in his sullied hands or drink of the Lord's blood with a polluted mouth, he rages sacrilegiously against the priests? ~ Tertullian, To His Wife (PL, v. 1, col. 1408AB; trans.: Ancient Christian Writers, v. 13 [Westminster: 1951], p. 30). ' 6 Hippolytus, Apostolic Tradition, cc. 36-7 (Bernard Botte, ed., La Tradition apostolique de saint Hippolyte [Miinster: 1963], pp. 82-5; trans.: Lucien Deiss, Early Sources o] the Liturgy [Staten Island: 1967], p. 68). ~ Cyprian, Letter 56 (PL, v. 4, col. 367AB; trans.: The Fathers o] the Church [hereafter = FC], v. 51 [Washington: 1964], p. 170 where the letter appears as Letter 58). 8 Cyprian, The Lapsed (PL, v. 4, col. 498B; trans.: FC, v. 36 [1958], pp. 76-7). ÷ ÷ ÷ 2". A. KrosM¢~, $.V~D. REVIEW FOR RELI@IOUS Moreover, Cyprian gives us two accounts of persons who were not worthy to receive the Eucharist in their hands. He writes: And when a certain woman tried with unclean hands to open her box in which was the holy Body of the Lord, there-upon she was deterred by rising fire from daring to touch it. And another man who, himself defiled, after celebration of the sacrifice dared to take a part with the rest, was unable to eat or handle the holy Body of the Lord, and found when he opened his hands that he was carrying a cinder.D Hand Communion reception was certainly practiced in the time of persecution as we know from Cyprian, but Basil (d. 379) is our best witness to this fact: Now, to receive the Communion daily, thus to partake of the holy Body of Christ, is an excellent and advantageous practice; for Christ Himself says clearly: 'He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has life everlasting.' Who doubts that to share continually in the life is nothing else than to have a manifold life? We ourselves, of course, receive Communion four times a week, on Sundays, Wednesdays, Fridays,. and Saturdays; also on other days, if there is a commemoration of some saint. As to the question concerning a person being compelled to receive Communion by his own hand in times of persecution, when there is no priest or minister present, it is superfluous to show that the act is in no way offensive, since long-continued custom has confirmed this practice because of circumstances themselves. In fact, all the monks in the solitudes, where there is no priest, preserve Communion in their house and receive it .from their own hands. In Alexandria and in Egypt, each person, even of those belonging to the laity, has Communion in his own home, and, when he wishes, he receives with his own hands. For, when the priest has once and for all com-pleted the sacrifice and has given Communion, he who has once received it as a whole, when he partakes of it daily, ought reasonably to believe that he is partaking and receiving from him who has given it. Even in the Church the priest gives the particle, and the recipient holds it completely in his power and so brings it into his mouth with his own hand. Accordingly, it is virtually the same whether he receives one particle from the priest or many particles at one time?° There is reference here to more than hand commun-ion. Since no priest or deacon was present, in this case the persons communicated themselves. This was not, however, limited to times of persecution, as Basil points out. Cyril of Jerusalem (d. 386) gives us the clearest ac-count of the manner of hand communion common at his time. In his Mystagogic Catecheses addressed to his D Cyprian, The Lapsed (PL, v. 4, col. 500B-501A; trans.: FC, v. 36 [1958], pp. 79-80). Cyprian notes the practice of taking the Eucharist home and the reception of communion outside of the liturgical celebration. The Eucharist was in this ease reserved in some sort of a box. ~ Basil, Letter 93 (PG, v. 32, col. 484B-485B; trans.: FC, v. 13 [1951], pp. 208--9). catechumens we read: When you approach, do not go stretching out your open hands or having your fingers spread out, but make the left hand into a throne for the right which shall receive the King, and then cup your open hand and take the Body of Christ, reciting the Amen. Then sanctify with all care your eyes by touching the Sacred Body, and receive It. But be careful that no particles fall, for what you lose would be to you as if you had lost some of your members. Tell me, if anybody had given you gold dust, would you not hold fast to it with all care, and watch lest some of it fall /and be lost to you? Must you not then' be even more careful with that which is more precious than gold or diamonds, so that no particles are lost? u Augustine and the Early Middle Ages As we see from the above excerpts, the method of Communion reception up to the time o[ Augustine at least, indicates the practice of hand reception. With Augustine (d. 430) two innovations become apparent for the first time. The men are told to wash their hands; the women are instructed to receive the Eucharist on a white cloth, commonly called the "dominicale]" laid over their hands.1~ In Sermon 229 he writes: All the men, when intending to approach the alt~r, wash their hands, and all the women bring with them clean linen cloths upon which to receive, the body of Christ, thus they should have a clean body and pure heart so that they may re-ceive the sacrament of Christ with a good conscience.~ The same practice is mentioned in the Sermons of Caesarius of Arles.14 The first witness that this author was able to find, giving an explicit example of mouth reception of the Eucharist, was Gregory the Great (d. 604). The case in question is the reception of the Eucharist by an invalid from the hand of Pope Agapitus (535-536): While he [Agapitus] was passing through Greece, an invalid who could neither speak nor stand up was brought to him to be cured. While the weeping relatives set him down before the man of God he asked them with great concern whether they truly believed it possible for the man to be cured. They an-swered that their confident hope in his cure was based on the ~a Cyril of Jerusalem, Mystagogic Catecheses (PG, v. 33, col. l124B- 1125A; trans.: Joseph A. Jungmann, The Mass o[ the Roman Rite [London: 1959], pp. 508-9). ~ In 578 the Council of Auxerre stated the same in Canons 36 and 42 (Mansi, v. 9, p. 915). Canon ~6: "A woman is not to receive com-munion on the bare hand." Canon 42: "That every woman when communicating should have her 'dominicale.' If she does not have it, she should not communicate until the following Sunday." ~Augustine, Sermon 229 (PL, v. 39, col. 2168A). The sermon is probably by St. Maximus of Turin (Sth century). x~ Caesarius of Aries, Sermon 227 (Corpus Christianorum, v. 14, pp. 899-900; trans.: Andr~ Hamman, The Mass: Ancient Liturgies and Patristic Texts [Staten Island: 1967], pp. 242-3). ÷ ÷ ÷ Communion VOLUME 29~ 1970 673 4. 4. T. A. Krosnicki, $.V.D. REVIEW FOR ~ELIGIOUS power of God and the authority of Peter. Agapitus turned im-mediately to prayer, and so began the celebration of Mass, offering the holy Sacrifice to almighty God. As he left the altar after the Mass, he took the lame man by the hand and, in the presence of a large crowd of onlookers, raised him from the ground till he stood erect. When he placed the Lord's Body in his mouth, the tongue which had so long been speechless was loosed.= It would be difficult to conclude from this one example that this was the common practice of the time, for it is known that on occasion the Eucharist was applied to parts of the body as a form of sanctification of the senses or as a cure.an Agapitus might have preferred in this incident to place the Eucharist on the tongue of the invalid since, as Gregory relates, the man Was mute. Gregory also notes: "When he placed the Lord's Body in his mouth, the tongue which had for so long been speechless was loosed." In the eighth century writings of Bede (d. 735) we come across another example of hand reception of communion. Describing the death of a brother, he writes in his Ecclesiastical History: When they had lain down there, and had been conversing happily and pleasantly for some time with those that were in the house before, and it was now past midnight, he asked them, whether they had the Eucharist within? They answered, 'What need of the Eucharist? For you are not yet appointed to die, since you talk so merrily with us, as if you were in good health.' 'Nevertheless,' said he, 'bring me the Eucharist.' Having re-ceived It into his hand, he asked whether they were all in charity with him, and had no complaint against him, nor any quarrel or grudge. They answered, that they were all in perfect charity with him, and free from all anger; and in their turn they asked him to be of the same mind towards them?' Periods'of Transition The transition from the reception of the Eucharist in the hand to that of the mouth as we know it today, seems to have begun at the end of the, eighth century and is allied to the change from leavened to unleavened bread. Alcuin of York (d. 804), the learned friend and counselor of Charles the Great, seems to have been the first to indicate the use of unleavened bread,is But even then, it is unclear whether he intended to state that the bread should be unleavened or merely indicates its usage. He does, however, clearly show that unleavened ~ Gregory the Great, Dialogue 3 (PL, v. 77, col. 224B; trans.: FC, v. 39, pp. 116-117. la Plus PARSCn, The Liturgy o[ the Mass (London: 1957), p. 23. 1T Bede, Ecclesiastical History of England IV, 24 (PL, v. 95, col. 214C-215A; trans.: A. M. Sellar, Bede's Ecclesiastical History o[ England [London: 1912], pp. 280-1). ~ R. Woolley, The Bread o/the Eucharist (London: 1913), p. 18. bread was used. Along with this change to unleavened bread came the introduction of the small round wafers which no longer required breaking or chewing.19 It seems that this fact influenced the change to mouth reception of the Eucharist as well. The use of the un-leavened bread with its capability of being more easily preserved became a matter of greater convenience. The Councils of Toledo and Chelsea show that there must have been some common irreverefices on the part of the clergy when using ordinary bread for the Eucharist. The best way to obviate such disrespect was to require a special bread, other than the everyday domestic type, for the celebration of the Eucharist3° Another reason for the change to unleavened bread was to forestall any confusion between the Eucharist and the common bread of the household. The change to mouth reception became a matter not only of practicality but also as the result of the misun-derstanding of the sacrality of the individual Christian. Due to the thinking of the times, the Christian was no longer considered worthy to touch the Body of the Lord with his hands.~1 With exaggerated sentiments of humility and unworthiness, the faithful received the Eucharist on their tongues. The eucharistic practice had also been influenced by the overemphasis on the divinity of Christ to the almost exclusion of his humanity. The mortal, sinful man dare not touch with his hands the all-holy, powerful God. All of this led to the point where by the ninth century hand Communion was no longer the practice. The Council of Rouen (878) explicitly condemns hand Communion reception on the part of the lalty.~ The tenth Ordo romanus, dating from the ninth century, describes mouth reception of communion not only for the laity but even for the subdeacon. Priests and deacons, after kissing the bishop, should receive the body of Christ from him in their hands, and communicate themselves at the left side of the altar. Subdeacons, however, after kissing the hand of the bishop, receive the body of Christ from him in the mouth.~ The eighth and the ninth centuries were then the 19James Megivern, Concomitance and Communion (Fribourg: 1963), p. 29. ~0 WOOLt.EY, The Bread, p. 21. ~a See K. Bihlmeyer and H. Tiichle, Kirchengeschichte, v. 2 (Pader-born: 1958), p. 120: "In this period [the Middle Ages] in order to avoid irreverences as much as possible, in place of bread to be broken, small wafers ('hostia,' 'oblata') were introduced. For the same reason the holy food was no longer placed in the hand of the faithful but directly into the mouth." m Council of Rouen (Mansi, v. 10, pp. 1199-1200). ~Andrieu, Les Ordines romani du Haut M~yen Age, v. 2 (Lou-vain: 1948) p. 361. ÷ ÷ ÷ Communion VOLUME 2% 1970 675 periods of transition from the hand to the mouth recep-tion of the Eucharist. For a time both methods must have been in use. Once again, we find ourselves in a similar period of transition. The mouth form of recep-tion is still the more common practice but no one can deny that the practice of hand reception is becoming even more common especially among smaller groups and at Masses celebrated for special occasions. From this brief and admittedly sketchy glance at his-tory, it can be readily seen that hand Communion is not really an innovation for .it seems to have been the ordinary manner of reception of the Eucharist for al-most eight hundred years. + ÷ ÷ T. A. Krosnlcki, S.V.D. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS EDWARD J. FARRELL Penance: Return of the Heart The theological literature on penance has been en-riched by writers of the stature of Karl Rahner, Bernard H~iring, and Charles Curran; and we have, as a result, an enlarged understanding of its significance for our own day. I do not propose to speak so much of theology as of experiences and to invite you to reflect with me and to think into the mystery of penance. I speak to you as an expert to my fellow experts, as an authority among fellow authorities, because each one of us is an authority on penance. We have long lived it and we cannot have lived so long and celebrated the mystery so frequently without in some way becoming experts, authorities, or at least persons with much experience. Living itself is an experience of penance. One thing is certain; penance is alive, and anything alive changes. One of our deepest hopes is that we cim change, be-cause penance is concerned with change--not the kind of change which we sometimes call spontaneous, which we can so easily speak of in words, but a change in a much deeper level of being and action. The sacrament of penance, or penance itself which we are experiencing today, has an aura of Spring about it. There are certain seasons, certain times, certain patterns to the Christian life even as there were in Christ's life; and we follow those patterns. Christ was buried. He arose. And the truths of Christ will not be unlike Himself. There are forgotten truths in our faith, in our life experiences which have been laid aside and buried. We can become so familiar with particular realities that we forget the language. Even our relationship with Christ can be diminished. But there is always a resur-rection, always a rising. They are like bulbs which lie bur.led and forgotten in winter's chill grip, but still are there, waiting, until, mysteriously, Spring comes and we discover them. There is an expectancy about Spring. ÷ ÷ ÷ i~.dwa~d J. Fartell is a stuff membe~ o~ 8a~ed ~ea~ 8emi-n~ y; 2701 Chicago Boulevard; Detroit; Mi~igan 48206. VOLUME 29, 1970 ÷ 4. l~. ]. Farrel~ REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 678 There is an expectancy about penance. It is a new dis-covery for each of us, something which we have not wholly experienced before and it is important that we understand the why of thii. Penance is ancient, yet ever new. There is a "today" even though we have had a "yesterday." There is in us always a newness and an aliveness. When we were young, when we were very small, we saw things in a particular way. Then we grew, grew up, de.veloped in many areas. There is, however, a certain stabilization that takes place; and if our growth did not in some way level out, we would be sixty, eighty, perhaps one hundred feet tall. Imagine the problems of the environment thenl In our early years we thought that when our physical growth had leveled off and stabilized that our growth was finished. Yet it had only begun. When we grew to a certain size perhaps we returned to the school where we once attended kindergarten and the first primary grades. The old neighborhood looked almost quaint. It looked so small because we had grown so large. This physical growth is a true growth; yet it is after we have achieved it that the real growth takes place, the growth of mind and heart and soul, by which we are led into and beyond the senses, into the arts, literature, history, philosophy, and faith. Even in our day of specialization, as one follows ever more deeply his specialization it becomes in some strange, little un-derstood way, narrower and narrower until at a mys-terious moment it opens into a wholly new horizon. At such a moment one is made aware that this universe is too vast for the mind to grasp. It is, then, in this experience that man slowly and painfully becomes little. It is then that he begins to acquire real knowledge, real humility, that he moves toward maturity. I think that we are on the edge of this kind of growth. No longer do we need the pride and arrogance of adolescence. This humility, or perhaps humiliation, has touched all of us. We become aware of an unsureness, the unsureness of maturity; we begin at last to know that we do not know and perhaps will never know all that we so much desire to know. A pro-found transformation, a growth, an evolution now takes place in us. Now we begin to discover truths which we really had never known, yet were there awaiting our discovery, our awakening to their being. We never knew them at all, we never saw them; they were there but we did not see them. We have heard about these ideas, con-cepts, truths, perhaps even talked about them. Now, however, in this new experience we have no word, no thought, no concept, perhaps not even a theology. Now we become much more people of experienced awareness and all must be initialed with our initial and be ours in our unique w~y; otherwise, we belong to no one, nor do the truths belong to us. We begin to know ourselves in a new context of spiritual knowledge. I think this experience is true especially of the mysteries of Christ, the mystery of the Church-~which is essentially mystery--the mystery of penance, the mystery of celi-bacy; and the mystery of human action, the mystery of your act and of my act. When we do something, it is irreversible. We never can step back and undo it. .There is an act which we call a promise and that act nails down the future. It is an absurdity because who can speak for his future; and yet a promise is possible and is perhaps the most significant act a person makes; for we know, even as we make the act, that it is unpredictable; even beyond that, any act has an ano-nymity in its effect. We do not know what effect it will have, how long it will endure, what changes it will create. Humanly speaking, the past, the future, even the present are so much not in our grasp. Yet in all of our acts the mystery of Christ speaks to each one of these realities. He speaks to tile events of the past, reversing what we have done in the act of forgiveness and of penance, in the act of promise in the future which is involved in the penance, the metanoia, the change that we are seeking. The Gospel very simply summarizes Christ's begin-ning: "The time is fulfilled, the kingdom is at hand. Repent, believe in the gospel." How ancient those words are and how new; yet who has heard them? Who has heard them and put them to life? This says something about the mystery of Christ to us and the mystery of His Church which can never be separated from Him. To think of the Church without Christ is to miss the mystery of both. So we move in this deep awareness into the inwardness of Christian mystery, into a knowing, into, finally, a .meaning of penance. And penance, what is it? It is a hunger, a hunger for change; it is a hunger for newness, a hunger for life, for growth; it is a hunger for wholeness and holiness; it is a hunger for experience. Most of all, I think, it is a hunger for being with and to and for. It is a relation-ship that is being sought. It is a togetherness. It is profoundly significant that the command of Christ was: "Repent." Why did He not begin with Eucharist? Is the Eucharist not enough? Was it enough for Christ? He began with: "Repent"; He concluded with Eucha-rist. It is interesting to recall the briefly recorded con-versations of Christ with His Disciples. One day our ÷ ÷ ÷ VOLUME 29, 1970 6'79 ÷ ÷ ÷ ~. ]. Farrell REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 680 Lord asked them: "Who do you say I am?" They are always interesting, both the questions of Christ and the commands of Christ, because they are so personal, be-cause they are asked directly of us throughout the whole of our life, and because these are the call He gives to us. He asked: "Who do you say I am?" To answer for the whole group, one volunteered--Peter, and he called back who he was. At the end of our Lord's mission, after the resurrection, He spoke to Peter again but this time He spoke his name: "Simon Peter, do you love me?"--not once, not twice, but three times. By name, He called him out by namel "Simon Peter, do you love me?" and as a consequence of Peter's answer, He gave another command. He said: "Feed, feed my sheep"- strengthen your brethren. Long ago you all made profession and how many times have you made confession since? What is the re-lationship between profession--confession? You cannot find it in the dictionary, but I think there is a very necessary correlation between profession and confes-sion. Peter's profession of faith and Peter's confession of love--this is what penance is all about. Really, sin is a very secondary thing.'Sin is unimportant to Christ. Penance is about a change, a change in our capacity to love. You made your final profession in words and we are all moving toward our final confession. Each one of us has his own history of penance. Just imagine trying to go over your confessions the last year or five years or ten years; imagine forty years of confessions, and how many confessions have yet to be made? Confession: we know the confessions of Jeremiah in the Old Testament, about the mirabilia Dei, the wonder-ful things of God; the confessions of St. Augustine have disappointed many a reader who was looking for true confessions and there is so little there---eating a few pears, an illegitimate child. Really all he is talking about is the first extraordinary discovery and the ongoing discovery of the love of God for him and the power it effected in him. This is why we can speak of his con-fessions. Penance is first of all a confession, a song of praise to God. How unfortunate we are. We so often have said and perhaps still do say: "I cannot find any-thing to confess." Well, even if we did, it would be merely a partial confession because the first thing about penance is to find something, to find the love that one has received, to sing about it, to confess it. Penance is first of all an act of prayer and of worship, of thanks-giving, a recognition, a discovering of the wonderful love of God for us. But that is only part of it because it is only in the strength of this love that there can be sin. If one has not yet tasted or seen or felt something of the love of God, then he cannot sin because sin is cor-relative to love, and there cannot be any sin except in the context of love because sin does not exist except in the non-response to love. Penance is a discovery of what love is and what it is to love. A sister once commented: "In our community there are so many, almost everyone, who are ready to forgive. There is so much forgiveness but there is no one who can confess her need for forgiveness." It is so easy to forgive. Did anyone ever confront you with the words: "I forgive you"? Have you ever been forgiven by another person, a second or third or fourth or twentieth time. The words, "I forgive," do not make any difference. You can come to me and tell me you are sorry and I can say I am sorry, too--about the book you lost or about the car that got dented, but that does not change. You can tell me you are sorry about the way you got angry and what you called me, and I can say, "I forgive you," but what happens when we say that word? Can we forgive? When we say, "I forgive," we are not talking about the action of God, we are not talking about the grace of Christ or the word of the Church; we are saying: "I am trying not to respond to you as you deserve." That is what we ordinarily mean, and implicitly, there is a warning, "Do not let it happen again," because when it does happen again, we remind them: "How many times?" Forgiveness? There are not many of us who are capable of forgiveness. There is no one of us who is capable of forgiveness in the sense that God forgives and Christ forgives, because when Christ forgives, He is not saying He is not going to respond to us as we de-serve but He reaches into us, to the very roots of that which makes us the irascible persons we are. He does something if we let Him, if we are ready to be healed, to be touched, and to be cured. No person can forgive sin. We can empathize with people, we can say we are sorry that they are the miserable creatures they are, but we cannot change them unless we have the capacity to love them with the love of Christ. Otherwise they are untouched by our forgiveness and this is why there is a need and a hunger to be freed from our incapacity to love and not simply to be excused and accepted and remain unchanged. In the great mystery of Christ's death and resurrection it is the sacrament of penance that enables us in some way to get in touch with Him because without getting in touch with Him we cannot do His work. There is a strange misunderstanding in those who feel that the Eucharist is enough, that they can ignore our Lord's call to repent and forget our Lord's suffering and death. It is as if in some way I can forgive myself, can just ÷ ÷ ÷ VOLUME 29, 1970 681 4. 4. E. ]. Farreli REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 682 tell Him I am sorry or we can tell one another: "I forgive you, forget about it." In our non-response to love, our inability to love we experience the fact that we cannot heal, that we do not cnre. As someone said, it is not so much that the community or Church' has hurt them, but it has not healed them and that is why they can no longer suffer in this way. It is a partial truth, perhaps, but it is a truth. So often w~ cannot put this need for healing into words but we do expect, we do expect something. Some of our older brethren in Christ are not, I think, too far off in their intuition about the relationship between penance and Eucharist, pen-ance and community; and I think I would say that there is a correlation between the diminishment irl the cele-bration and experience of penance and the diminish-merit in community. The sacrament, the life of penance which is but the life of Christ lived out continually, is the most personal of all the sacraments, the most intense and, therefore, the most difficult. Perhaps it is the last sacrament we are ready for because it demands so much of us; it demands such maturity, it demands such a capacity to suffer, the most terrible kind of suffering, to really learn who we are, and we will do anything to escape that kind of suffering, that kind of anguish. Who of us is really ready to face the living God? There is so much we do in our life to prevent this happening. We talk a good faith, we even have many theologies, b~t who of us really wants to know himself as the Lord knows him? We do not have many temptations. It is the saints who are the primary witnesses to faith, not the theologians who are the primary witnesses--the saints, unlettered, undoctoral but primary witnesses to love. We do not get tempted too often to express our sorrow in the dramatic gesture perhaps of a Mary Magdalen. We do not to6 often weep over our sins, prostrate our-selves before the Eucharist or the Christian community and confess what we are. We have forgotten and per-haps at times we do not even have the capacity any longer because it has been so underexercised. Yet the life of Christ and the reality of man speak out, and we find an extraordinary emergence today from beyond those who are called to give public witness to the mystery of Christ. We find the phenomena of penance and confession and public confession in those "outside." We see it in Alcoholics Anonymous, we see it in Syna-non groups, in sensitivity groups, encounter groups, where the first thing persofis do is to repent, to bare their souls on the guts level and expose who they are. It is an extraordinary experience to experience our poverty and our honesty and in so many ways our nothingness and it gives a kind kind of game can ever give us. It who are or who have been in a there are no games left any more real. We see this, and perhaps l-IS. of freedom which no is something like those mental hospital where and all they can be is it say~ something to The Lord does not accuse us, the Lord does not call to mind our sins: we are the only ones that remember them. The Lord simply asks us again and again: "Do you love me?" Today one is often questioned on the frequency of confession. Should religious go every week to confession?. I think it is very important to see the sacrament of penance in terms of the totality of the Christian life; it is not something that can have its significance only in isolation and only in terms of sin. There was a valid aspect, I think, to the intuition and practice of the Church in encouraging and calling her priests and re-ligious to confession regularly and I am sure it was not so much in terms of their need for absolution from sin but more in terms of confession of the praise of God, and for a deeper understanding of how priests and religious in a special way are the most highly visible embodiment of the Body of Christ. There was an extraordinary article in Time maga-zine in February on environment and I would certainly commend it to your spiritual reading. In this article some experts say that we have so interfered with the ecological system of the world that it is irreversible and human life cannot continue on this planet beyond 200 years. This was just a small portion of the article but it drove home" the reality that the smallest atom has a history, has an effect that goes so far beyond itself that it is almost incalculable what any act of ours can do. I think it speaks so strongly, about the mystery of human community and how we affect one another not only for a moment but have an ongoing effect; and that nothing is really lost. It speaks so strongly to the awareness we must carry within ourselves of the responsibility Christ took upon Himself for the whole world and for the sin and inability and absence of love in so many. It speaks to the fact that to follow Christ's likeness we, too, must be totally concerned with the conversion and transformation of people and where there is not love, to put love. When religious or priests go to confession, they go first of all to recognize that they are sinners and no one of us gets beyond that basic fact--that we are sinners even though saved. The remarkable thing in the testimony and history of the saints is that the more one grows in his experience of the love of Christ, the more ÷ ÷ ÷ Penance VOLUME 29, 1970 ÷ ÷ E. ]. Farrell REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 684 he realizes how much this love is absent in himself and he is drawn to the sacrament of penance out of his life experience; not from some external "you ought to" or "you should," but because it becomes more and more a need. There is a hunger for it which cannot be satisfied by anything less except being plunged into this mystery of Christ. St. Catherine of Siena spoke so deeply of this mystery in words that sound strange and rather strong to us-- "Being washed in the blood of Christ." But at the same time, these are words that are deeply Scriptural--Isaian --the Suffering Servant--the mystery of the blood of Christ. We need to be. deeply penetrated with them. We need to be aware that when we go to confession, which is a profession of faith, a confession of love, and a deep experience of a need to be touched by Christ and to be transformed by Him, sgmething takes place even though there is no way of validating it in terms of a pragmatic principle. It does not make a difference. ~¥hy bother? We cannot measure it on the yday to day level just as life cannot be measured on that particular level. There are movements within ourselves that per-haps take a long time before they can make their mani-festation in our nervous system, on the tip of our fingers. When we go to confession we need to be aware that a whole community is involved, not just a par-ticular house but everyone who is in our lives. We can pick up the paper and read about the crime and the violence, especially to the young and the old, and the helpless, the war, and unemployment, and we can read it and so what? It does not seem to enter into the very life that we are living. We are called to be that Suffering Servant and to make up in ourselves what is lacking in others, to in some way experience what Paul experienced. When someone was tempted, he, himself, felt the fire o{ it; when someone was sick, he, himself, experienced it--that deep interpenetration of all these people involved in Christ. So, when one goes to the sacrament of penance, it is for one's own sins-- the incapacity, the inability to love, missing the mark so often, but it is also in terms of the sins of others. Christ's whole life was this life of penance. Religious living is and has to be a following in this life of penance, this ongoing change, this ongoing conversion. One of the problems of frequent confession is the confessor. I think we are all caught .in this together. Our theology is usually behind our experience, and there are many priests who have had great difficulty in finding confessors themselves. I do not think there is more than one in thirty priests who has a confessor, has a spiritual director; and there has been a great impoverishment because we have not recognized nor developed this charism. I do think there is a special apostolate that the Christian and especially the relig

Issue 28.5 of the Review for Religious, 1969. ; ASSOCIATE EDITORS Everett A. Diederich, S.J. Augustine G. Ellard. S.J. ASSISTANT EDITOR John L. Treloar, S.J. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS EDITOR Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Correspondence with the editor, the associate editors, and the assistant editor, as well as books for review, should be sent to REVIEW VOR R~Joxous; 612 Humboldt Building; 539 North Grand Boulevard; Saint Louis, Missouri 63to3. Questions for answering should be sent to Joseph F. Gallen, S.J.; St. Joseph's Church; 321 Willings Alley; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19106. + + + REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Edited with eccleslastmal appro~ d by faculty members of the School of Divinity of Saint Louts Umverslty, the editorial olhces being located at 612 Humboldt Building, 539 North Grand Boulevard, Same Louts, ~dlssouri 63103. Owned by the Missouri Province Edu-cational Institute. Published bimonthly and copyright t~) 1969by REVIEW roa REt.lmo~s at 428 East Preston Street; Baltimore, Mars-land 21202. Printed in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at Baltimore, Maryland and at additional mailing offices. Single copies $1.00. Subscription U.S.A. and Canada $5.00 a year, $9.00 for two years; other countries: $5.50 a year, $10.00 for two years Orders should indicate whether they are for new or renewal subscriptions and should be accompanied by check or money orderpaya-hie to REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS in LI.S.A currency only. Pay no money to persons claiming to represent REview vor~ RELIGIOL$ Change of address requests should include former address. Renewals and new subscriptions, where accom-panied by a remittance, should be sent to REvlF.w vo~ RELInIot~s; P. O. Box 671; Baltimore, Maryland 21203. Changes of address, business correspondence, and orders not accompanied by a remittance should be sent to REvIEw FOR RELIGIOUS; 428 East Preston Street; Baltimore, Maryland 21202. Manuscripts, editorial cor-respondence, and books for review should be sent to R~vmw FOrt RE~.IoIot:s; 612 Humboldt Building; 539 North Grand Boulevard, Saint Louis, Missouri 63103. Questions for answering should be sent to the address of the Questions and Answers editor. SEPTEMBER 1969 VOLUME 28 NUMBER 5 JOHN CARROLL FUTRELL, S.J. Some Reflections on the Religious Life It is no secret that today many religious are under-going a painful identity crisis. Participating in the con-fusion that always accompanies dramatic change in cul-tural patterns (complicated by the extreme rapidity of this change in our modern world), religious are further troubled by the problems posed very existentially to them in their effort to obey the call of Vatican II to renew their authentic living of the gospel pattern ac-cording to the original inspiration of their founder and to adapt their way of living to the signs of the times. The breakdown of external structures which in the past had supported their interior commitment, the loss of comforting customs which had provided a kind of.touch-stone of authenticity (however formalized one felt them to be), the disconcerting shift of attitudes toward the place of the religious life within the Church, the value placed upon active insertion into a secularized world, the challenges to faith itself posed by new theological and liturgical languages and symbols--all of these fac-tors together have brought up in' the minds of many religious agonizing questions concerning the value and even the validity of their lives. A basic question that is often repeated is whether it is possible to specifically distinguish religious life from lay life as a Christian. Having grown up in a culture that took it for granted that the religious life was the "way of perfection" and a "higher" or "better" form of Christian living and, perhaps, having included this idea within the complex of personal motives for following the vocation to the religious life, some re-ligious feel lost and without identity in a world where such abstract and tendentious comparisons are no longer significant. Members of various religious congregations wonder whether there is anything really meaningful in their specific vocation. A divisive and potentially death- 'dealing polarization develops in some communities be- John Carroll Futrell, S.J., is a faculty member of St. Louis University Divinity School; 220 North Spring Ave-nue; St. Louis, Mis-souri 63108. VOL~UME 28, 1969 705 + ÷ ÷ ~lohn Carroll Futrell, $.J. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS tween those who cling for personal survival to old structures of living, praying, and working, and those who are impatient to reject all that has gone before and to embrace all that is new simply because it is new. The following reflections are addressed to only some aspects of these difficult problems. Much time and prayer Will be needed before effective solutions are found to .them. Nevertheless, it is important that religious do reflect upon them and that they share their reflections with one another in an effort to discern what God is asking of us as religious in our own times. What is offered in the following pages, then, are some reflections, firstly, on the meaning of Christian spirituality in it-self-- whether lived by laymen or by religious; then, on the accurate location of the difference between lay life and religious life; and, finally, on the religious life as institutionalized in the Church and on the function of community structures within religious congregations. A Christian is a person whose life in the world derives its meaning from his faith in Jesus Christ encountered in His Church--who discovers in Jesus Christ God re-vealing Himself to man, judging and freeing us by the cross and resurrection of Christ, and sending His Spirit to enable us to share now and forever in the divine life of the Trinitarian community of love. Ad-herence to a creed of truths, following a moral code, commitment to living out certain religious values: all these are consequences of the basic faith experience of the person of Jesus Christ. A person who merely in-tellectually assents to propositions or who merely decides to espouse certain humanitarian values derived from the gospel is not truly a Christian unless these positions are expressions of his commitment in faith to Jesus Christ and of his belief in the good news which Christ proclaimed. When this faith in Jesus Christ is freely and de-cisively assumed as personal commitment by a person (and not merely as a sociological fact of "religion" in his life), this is the result of a personal experience of the person of Jesus Christ. That is to say, the individual recognizes in the divine revelation in Christ, witnessed to by the Apostles and handed down by the Church, the identification of the universal experience of the trans-cendent- the unknown God obscurely encountered in the openness of the human spirit to the mysterious Absolute. In spite of all the various scientific, philo-sophical, psychological, and magical efforts to explain away this experience, it remains real and undeniable in the self-awareness of human beings who have achieved a certain level of consciousness. Indeed, most children seem to have a real experience of God when they are very young. Wordsworth wrote reams of poetry testifying to this. Teilhard de Chardin has written eloquently of the growth of his experience in The Divine Milieu and has pointed out the errors into which men have fallen "in their attempts to place or even to name the uni-versal Smile" (Torch Books, p. 129). Contact with the Other who makes us feel his presence-in-absence in this experience has been the underlying goal of all the great world religions--and of the psychedelic games of today. The Christian is the person who recognizes in Jesus Christ the face of God: "I am in the Father and the Father is in me." Christian faith experience, then, is the consciousness ¯ of recognition: a recognition of the one true God ex-perienced in one's own interior experience of fulfill-ment, of completion, of "coming home" in faith in Jesus Christ; a recognition experienced also in seeing the lives of Christians who embody the word proclaimed by the Church, in the word of Scripture, in the break-ing of the Eucharistic bread, and progressively in one's own experience of new manhood through lived faith. Faith is certitude derived from the authenticity of witness---of signs--and experienced through living it. It is vital to recognize the particular form of certitude had in faith. It is the certitude of experiential experi-ence, the certitude that comes from fully experienced living. This is the highest form of practical certitude enjoyed by human beings, the form of certitude upon which we base our actual living. It has been well said that "theory is good, but it does not excuse you from living." Men do not guide their lives by the coherent symmetry of logical theories but by the practical under-standing that comes from the certitude of lived ex-perience. For example, the only way that I know that another person really loves me is by faith certitude. I cannot "get into the skin of another," cannot share the unique and incommunicable act of self-awareness within which the other freely determines his relation-ships to all that is exterior to himself---including me. My assurance that he does indeed love me can be based only on signs--words, gestures, all the human modes of non-verbal communication, actions of self-giving, and so forth. Yet, I can come to the greatest certitude of his love because of my lived experience of it. The certitude of faith in Jesus Christ, then, is the certitude of lived experience. It is faith--not the knowl-edge derived from empirical experience of the senses or of microscopes or test tubes, not the knowledge result-ing from the logical necessity of a syllogism, but faith + + 4. VOLUME 28, '1969 707 John Futrell, $.]. REV]EW FOR RELIGIOUS in witness and signs authenticated in the living per-sonal experience of God in the person of Jesus Christ risen and living in His Church. The experience of God is always the experience of presence-in-absence, just as is the experience of personal relationship with any person. Because another person is constituted in his selfhood by his unique self-aware-ness, there always remains a new depth of his person to be penetrated, a further horizon of mutual knowledge and love to beckon us onward. The greatest degree of union and love we reach in our mutual presence always opens outwards to a new profundity yet to be sought --the fascinating and wonderful absence discovered in mutual presence which makes personal relationship a dynamic always growing life and not a gtatic, finished work. Our personal relationship with God in prayer is characterized by this same presence-in-absence, this same experienced love and union, this same certitude of something being lived. Indeed, even our self-awareness is marked by presence-in-absence. The only "I" that I am is the self of the present moment summing up all my past history and straining towards my future self-actualization. But I never grasp this present of myself: it slips into my past even as I try to focus upon it. I know the present, my present, only in the lived experieuce of a unique kind of actuality, of plenitude, of density and richness. I know myself with certitude as presence-in-absence. In the lived experience of God as presence-in-absence in prayer, there is a similar plenitude, richness, density, actuality; and in opening ourselves to welcome God in this experience, we are conscious of a profound tran-quillity, peace, calm--a recognition of "rightness," of our authentic, fulfilled selves. It is this primordial ex-perience of peace in absolute openness to God, in total responsiveness to His word, which, is the touchstone of all future discernment of specific response to a specific divine call in a here and now situation. This experi-enced certitude of lived faith is discovered through the authentic testimony of witnesses who embody the word for us, and it is grasped in our own act of faith because of the signs manifested by these witnesses. This certitude grows progressively stronger as we have the living experience of our own faith, until our faith in God in Jesus Christ becomes the greatest certitude of our lives, a certitude daily renewed and accomplished anew everyday, just as is our love of another. On the other hand, it is important to notice the es-sential difference between the experience of personal relations with other human persons and with God in Christ. Another human is bodily present to me and his body mediates his interiority to me. God is not bodily present to me nor is the risen Christ in His human body. I cannot affirm the existence of God as the basis of the experience of his presence-in-absence as I can affirm the existence of another man. Even philosophical demonstrations of the existence of God, while they may be perfectly valid, do not give me God as the object of interior experience. For this reason, even the greatest mystics have always testified that they never felt that their interior experi-ence placed them outside the domain of faith. It is al-ways by faith, which is essentially a divine gift originat-ing from a gracious divine initiative, that we come to realize our experience of God in Christ. The Christian life, then, is a faith--a life of faith. No matter how we analyze the spiritual life according to human scien-tific categories, the object of our experience never leaves the realm of faith. That is why divine revelation in the Bible in no way claims to be a theory of our relations with God. On the contrary, it is the history of this relation which is there taught. And it is fundamental that the origin of our existence and of our reIationship with God is His divine initiative, that the beginning of this history is divine. This fact exactly situates the continuing relationship between God and us: every-thing depends upon His divine initiative. Faith is al-ways a gift. To be a Christian, then, means to live a life grounded in the personal faith experience of God in Jesus Christ. Now, human beings first experience--first live, and only thereafter do they seek to express their experiences and to reflect upon them. It is vital, therefore, to dis-tinguish the lived experience from its expression and from theoretical reflection upon this expression. In the life of the Church, lived Christian experience, the living tradition of the Christ-event as experienced by the community of believers, is primordial. The expressions of this experience at various historical and cultural epochs during the last two thousand years are only temporally conditioned, relative expressions of this ex-perience. The role of theology within the Church is always the re-expression and the re-interpretation of this primordial Christian experience in contemporary language, contemporary conceptual structures, contem-porary cultural contexts. What is essential is always authentically to preserve spiritual continuity across rad-ical cultural discontinuity. Similarly, the faith experience of an individual Chris-tian, beginning with his earliest experiences of God as a child, are necessarily conditioned in their relative expression by the language, the. symbols, the images ÷ ÷ ÷ Religious Li]e VOLUME 28, 1969 709 John Carroll REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ~10 available to him at a given age and stage of maturity. As he grows humanly and intellectually and rejects the anthropomorphic images of early childhood, such as God the kind grandaddy with a long beard, or the romantic idealizations of adolescence (which were the only modes of expression then available to him), he must not at the same time reject his certitude of the lived experience of God. All the great masters of prayer testify that prayer becomes progressively simpler, more and more leaning upon bare faith, less and less at-tached to a series of concepts or emotions. This is because one is entering more profoundly into the density and richness of God's presence-in-absence, into the lived experience of personal union with God in Christ which is beyond expression and theorizing. There is no greater certitude in life than this lived experience of God. The individual Christian, too, must preserve au-thentic spiritual continuity across the radical discon-tinuity of his language and images and symbols as he grOWS. Now, the Christian, having found the meaning of his life in the world in his faith in Jesus Christ, must live this faith in all the situations of his daily life. He must witness to his faith by a Christian style of life, a Christian spirituality. This is always true of all Chris-tians, even though the concrete expressions of this life style are relative to the historical and cultural context and the concrete situations within which Christianity is being lived. The essential elements of Christian spirituality are always the same: living out Christ's great command-ment of love according ~o the general norms He enunci-ated in the Beatitudes and exemplified in His life. How-ever, these essential elements will be expressed in different ways discerned by prophetically interpreting ex-istential situations, that is to say, by prayerfully reflect-ing upon the challenges posed by the signs of the times in the light of the gospel, in order to recognize and respond to God's word here and now. It is through listening to the world--the existential word of God--- and at the same time listening to the Spirit--the pro-phetic word of God in Christ in the Church and in the individual Christian--that through a continuing dia-lectic the Christian discerns how to live his Christian faith here and now. He confirms the validity of the decision arrived at through this discernment by com-paring his inner experience of peace and tranquillity in this specific choice with the peace and tranquillity enjoyed in his primordial experience of openness and surrender to God in Christ. All Christians are called to this essential Christian spirituality. In living their discerned life style, all Chris-tians must witness to both the incarnational and the eschatological aspects of the Christ life which animates the Church: the presence of the Spirit of the risen Christ in His Church renewing tile earth by unifying mankind and transforming the universe--building the earth to its fulfillment in Christ-Pleroma; and also the Christian hope in Christ who is to come in the final accomplish-ment of the kingdom of God in the Parousia. All Chris-tians must express the "cosmological" love of God im-manent in the ongoing new creation accomplished by the Spirit of Christ through the efforts of men in the history of the world; and all must express the "trans-cendent" love of God the absolute future of man--the Father who is known only in Christ, the Trinitarian community of love which will be shared perfectly by men in their union with one another and with the Father in Christ through the Spirit when Christ comes again. The manner in which individual Christians are to express ,this twofold Christian love is discerned in the here and now situation of their own historical and cultural context. This individual expression takes place within the community of Christians and is grounded in the initiative that comes from God: different gifts, dif-ferent charisms, different divine initiatives, different calls--all for the service of the entire People of God, all ordered to the community expression of the Christ life in the world and to the embodiment of the two aspects of Christian love. II Essentially, then, there is only one Christian spirit-ualitv, always aimed at the full possession of all men b~ tl~e Father through Christ in the Spirit. This is true because there is only one essential Christian vision of the meaning of life in the world, a vision based upon the faith experience of God revealing Himself to men in Christ through the Spirit living in the Church. The differences in the manner of living out this one spirituality originate in the various expressions of this spirituality determined by historical and cultural con-texts and, also, in the different charisms given by the Holy Spirit to individual Christians to enable them to serve the Church in specific ways. The distinctive func-tions within the Church of bishops, priests, religious, and laymen are grounded in these different charisms. The distinctive styles of life or spiritualities observable in the lives of married persons and religious are simply distinctive ways of living the one Christian spirituality ÷ VOLUME 28, 1969 ~ohn Carroll ~ Futrell, S.]. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS which must he fully expressed by the whole Church as a community. For instance, an essential element in the one spirit-uality of all Christians is evangelical poverty in its root meaning of an attitude (a beatitudel) of anawim: aware-ness of man's dependence upon God in Christ resulting in single-hearted seeking of God and issuing in acts of peacemaking and of mercy towards others. This attitude must be embodied by all Christians in lives showing forth the two-fold incarnational and eschato-logical Christian love. Living as anawim according to the Beatitudes, all Christians often will discern the call to acts of renunciation of real human values in order to be true to their faith in Christ; and these actions will witness not only to their faith in the risen Christ present in the Church and renewing creation here and now, but also to their eternal hope in Him who is to come in the final fulfillment of the kingdom--their existen-tial acknowledgment of God as the absolute future of man in Christ. The vowed evangelical poverty and chastity and obedience of Christians who are called to the religious life, then, is not the only way to practice or to express the eschatological aspect of Christian love. Neverthe-less, the life of the vows is the only way to manifest this aspect through the signification of an entire life to bear permanent, visible witness to it in the world. Any Christian living out his Christianity authentically .is called upon in many ways to renounce various goods and values in order to take up his cross and follow Jesus. Think of men and women who in order to fulfill their vocation in the sacrament of marriage or as parents or as truly just and loving neighbors to other men are challenged to sacrifice desirable goods and values for the sake of fidelity to Christ in their daily lives. Never-theless, the overall, visible style of li[e of the l~y Christian in its permanent life pattern manifests above all the aspect of Christian love in the Church which is to work in the world in order to transform it in Christ, continuing the incarnation of Christ by building the earth. Although this Christian lay life includes and, when necessary, expresses the eschatological aspect of the Church, it shows forth in its basic dynamism the in-carnational aspect. On the .other hand, a religious in his actual work of serving the Church normally is equally engaged in the ,work of building up Christ in mankind and in the world. He too lives and expresses the incarnational as-pect to the Church. But by the public foregoing of the 'high, positive, human values renounced through his vows, the total meaning of the being-in-the-world of the religious becomes the tangible insertion into this incarnational dynamism of the eschatological aspect which is visibly manifested through the overall, perma-nent pattern of life according to the evangelical coun-sels. To make permanently visible to men this eschato-logical dimension of the Church is the specific meaning of the religious life as a distinctive way of living Christianity. As Karl Rahner has pointed out, that which con-stitutes the unique signification of the vowed evangelical counsels in the religious life is that this is the perma-nent foregoing of high, positive, human values for the sake of a value which cannot be the object of a direct experience, a value which necessarily must be believed in and hoped [or. By their vows religious abandon a possible experience in favor of a value that is now possessed only in faith and hope. That is to say, it is possible for me to have the experience of possessing the results of my work, of having a wife and children, of exercising my own autonomy of choice; but I possess the value of the fulfillment of the kingdom now only in my faith and hope in Christ who is to come. The re-nunciation of the vows is a visible manifestation of permanent and absolute openness to God's future for man in Christ. This renunciation, therefore, is the visible expression and the continual realization of love for God much more in the eschatological dimension of this love than in its terrestrial or incarnational dimen-sion. Even the unbeliever must recognize the meaning of a gesture of faith and hope and love which is the perma-nent renunciation of these positive human, values through the vows. For example, a man in vowing chas-tity "puts his body on the line" until death because of his faith and hope and love of Christ who is to come, and thereby he visibly witnesses in a most striking way to this faith and hope and love. One can believe that this faith and hope and love is absurd, but one cannot deny its depth in the People of God among whom it can call forth such a visible testimony. All Christians, then,--religious and lay--must live both incarnational and eschatological love. But the over-all pattern and significance of the Christian lay vocation is visible witness to the incarnational aspect of the Church, while the overall pattern and significance of the religious life of the vowed evangelical counsels is visible witness to the eschatological aspect. The distinction between lay life and religious life in the Church, therefore, is not to be sought in a difference of the basic Christian vision o~ of the essential Christian spirituality. The distinction is. to be sought, 4. VOLUME 28a 1969 ÷ John Carroll Futrell, SJ. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS rather, in the variety of charisms and the different modes of response to the divine initiative. The difference arises from distinctive ways of living the one Christian life, that is, particular ways of responding to and of ex-pressing the love of God through following Christ within a permanent life pattern having a specifically different, total, overall signification than do other particular ways of living Christianity. Whatever might be concluded through theoretical discussions based upon various hier-archical models, there can be no question in the real order of one Christian way of life being "higher" or "better" than another. It is a question rather of a charism, of the divine initiative and authentic response to it which can only be the "best" for the individual person responding to God's call to him. III A community of persons has a history, just as does an individual person. In the history of the community of Christian believers, the Church, there has been from the beginning an evolution of "structured" charisms, dis-cerned by the community as authentic responses to the divine initiative for service of the People of God. These structured charisms have been lived by groups of in-dividuals who have been given these charisms, organiz-ing themselves into institutionalized communities for service of the Church through lives devoted primarily either to prayer, to spiritual or corporal works of mercy, or to apostolic mission. In this way, the religious life developed as a distinctive, institutionalized way of liv-ing Christianity, eventually having its own juridical description in canon law. From the groups congregat-ing around St. Antony in the desert to the official recognition of secular institutes in 1948, this evolution has continued (as it still does) in the response of Chris-tians to divine initiatives within diverse historical and cultural contexts. A Christian who discerns that he has been given the charism of service of the Church in the religious life enters into the institutional structure of this charism by public, vowed commitment to the three evangelical counsels, declared to the whole People of God repre-sented by the one who in the name of the Church re-ceives the vows. By so doing, this Christian establishes himself in a permanent, distinctive life style which has a special and unique force as a sign of one aspect of the one spirituality of the entire Christian commu-nity. His response to the divine initiative is, therefore, his acceptance of the charism of his vocation. The personal experience of Jesus Christ is the basis of all Christian faith. When this experience is char- acterized by certain qualities, the result is that one is simply impelled to give his whole life and all his love to Jesus Christ through living the vowed evangelical counsels. Depending upon certain other characteristics of this personal experience of Jesus Ctirist, one feels simply impelled to consecrate all his life and energy to prayer for the People of God in the contemplative life or to their active service and to helping other persons to share this faith experience of Jesus Christ through apostolic mission. This Christian's whole life as a re-ligious is grounded in this faith experience; and it depends for its growth and depth and permanence upon the growth and depth and permanence of his personal relationship to Jesus Christ in love. The original charism must come to its complete fulfillment. The individual choice to live the religious life in one specific religious community rather than another is the result of the judgment that one's own response to the divine initiative discerned in the charism of his vocation can be best embodied in this specific community voca-tion. He discovers his personal identity as a Christian person precisely in the community identity of this re-ligious order or congregation. The community identity of a given religious congre-gation is rooted in the original inspiration of the founder(s), the basic vision of a particular way of follow-ing Christ, which underlies all the different techniques devised to try to live out this vision within different historical and cultural contexts. Where, as in many apostolic congregations, the basic vision of various com-mumtles as similar or even identical, the specific differ-ence of these congregations arises from their particular approach to service or mission and from the history of each congregation in living out the basic vision. The history of an institution progressively charac-terizes this institution in its identity, just as the personal history of a man characterizes his identity. A man of forty carries with him the accumulated characteristics oflhis own personal evolution. His face and body and psychology are marked by specific traits by which he identifies himself to himself and by which other people identify him. This is equally true of different religious congregations. That which is essential today, then, in order to ac-complish authentic renewal of religious congregations is to truly discover the original inspiration of the founder, the basic vision, the radical intention neces-sarily expressed by the founder in the language (images, symbols, gestures, practices, ways of action) of his own historical and cultural context. 0nly when this basic vision is clear is it possible to discern how to express it ÷ ÷ ÷ Religious Li~e VOLUME 28~ 1969 ÷ ÷ ÷ John Carroll Futrell, S.~. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS authentically in the new language imposed upon us by the signs of our times: to preserve spiritual con-tinuity across cultural discontinuity. Furthermore, since there is no infallible guarantee of the permanent worth of this basic vision, and since charisms can be given for time-conditioned service of the People of God, it must be discerned whether or not the basic vision and, so, the existence of a given religious congregation is still valid and valuable in the ongoing life of the Church. When it is discerned that a religious congregation can still make a real contribution to the life and mission of the Church, then courageous and loyal adaptation of life style must be undertaken in order to renew the true embodiment of the basic vision of this community here and now. Whatever means are discerned to be authentic and effective for this end, these will have to be structured into the life of the community. The com-munity is made up of individual body-persons who find their own personal identity in the community identity. Their mutual union in this community of persons is grounded in this profound identification of life meaning which they share with one another. Unless this profound union is embodied in some really ex-perienced way in common worship, common ways of living, common service of the Church, it is inevitable that it will float off into the realm of pure abstract theory, an ideal existing only as a dream. During a time of dramatic cultural change such as we are now experiencing, it is clear that there must be much experimentation with community structures, al-ways discerned according to the criterion of the re-newed basic vision of the community. Indeed, at present the indications are that much pluralism must be al-lowed. But especially during a time of pluralistic ex-periments, ways must be found to embody the total unity of the entire community sufficiently and frequently enough to keep it real. This is absolutely imposed upon us because we are body-persons, a fact too often forgotten with disastrous results. The fundamental problem posed by the necessity of embodying community unity through some form of structures is the continual need to carry on the dialectic of the individual good and the common good, personal initiative and aspirations and community ideals and commitments. The aim should be to effect a synthesis of these personal and community elements as often as possible through true mutual discernment. But when such a synthesis proves impossible, after this discern-ment, it is the universal good of the community which must be given priority in making decisions, precisely because the personal identity of each individual member is found in the community identity. In any community, even that of two persons in marriage, there is a new reality larger than each individual 'T': it is the reality of "we." The final word must always be given to this Because of the depth of their union grounded in common personal identity, the persons belonging to a religious community have a unique foundation for true, warm, human mutual love. This love must be experi-enced and embodied in aII the ways that go to establish and develop human interpersonal relationships and to confronting difficulties of temperament, disagreement, misunderstanding, and so forth. Since this union is the result of divinely given charisms, every effort must be made to share the basic faith experience of Jesus Christ which is the source of the communion of persons in this religious community. Because the individual experience itself is not verbal but lived, this sharing must be chiefly on the level of non-verbal communication. Here communitarian prayer can be very effective. Listening to another praying to God, even in language that I myself couhl not use, is a most effective way to come to the recognition that he shares the same faith experience of Jesus Christ, the same charism, the same response of life commitment, as do I. If the members of a religious community do share the basic faith experience of Jesus Christ which grounds their unity and their life together, then they will be enabled to grow in true human love for one another. Where there is profound union and an atmosphere of mutual love, it is possible to disagree (even violently) about means to ends without becoming polarized and, finally, disunited and destroyed as a community. Dif-ferences will be seen for what they are: differences of language and symbols which are conditioned by cultural contexts and, so, are completely relative, deriving their value only from their effectiveness in embodying the basic vision which remains the ground of union. Where deep union and mutual love are present, it will be recognized that persons in the community in responding to community-discerned adaptations are not to be condemned if they find it difficult to adjust to what for them is a new and foreign language to express their personal identity issuing from their personal faith experience of Jesus Christ. This is a matter of the dif-ficulty of changing ways of structuring and of expressing experience which have been built up over a lifetime, rather than a matter of a negative attitude to renewal and adaptation. The only attitude that one must change (whether he be "traditionally" or "progressively" oriented) is that 4. Religious Li~e VOLUME 28~ 1969 4" 4" ÷ John Carroll Futrell, $.]. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS o[ fixation: confusing language with experience and means with ends and insisting that unless things are done my way, they cannot be authentically Christian. This is equivalent to saying: "If you speak French in-stead of American English, you cannot be expressing truly human thoughts and feelings." Redemption from fixation--and from polarization--will be achieved through sharing the faith experience of Jesus Christ and only thereafter attempting to find a language to express this experience. These reflections have led to the conclusion that the religious has his personal identity through his response to a particular divine initiative, his acceptance of a special charism discerned in the characteristics of his personal faith experience of Jesus Christ. The religious embodies his response to this charism by vowing himself to the life of the evangelical counsels in a specific re-ligious community. This means that he commits him-self to witness visibly by the total signification of his overall pattern of life to the eschatological aspect of Christian love lived in the Church. Within the community of Christians, all of whom ~hare one Christian spirituality, the distinctive role of the religious is permanently to manifest the faith and hope of the entire People of God in Christ who is to COmae. The religious' life of union with his companions in his own religious community is a life of mutual love grounded in the community identity of shared faith experience of Christ, which is expressed in the basic vision of this community's service of Christ in His Church, and which is embodied in community struc-tures adapted to the signs of the times through authentic discernment. The way towards a solution of the difficult problems being experienced by religious today, therefore, would seem above all to be the way of a universal renewal in all religious of their profound, personal faith experi-ence of Jesus Christ and a renewal of their mutual union and mutual love through mutually sharing this experience. It is through union with Jesus Christ that we shall achieve communion with one another. EDWARD G. BOZZO, C.F.X. Being-toward- Community:. Essence oJ Religious Life As the over-delayed Instruction (dated Jan. 6, 1969) from the Congregation of Religious concedes, the forma-tion of young religious is a topic of deep concern today. Leaving to others the full assessment of that ,uneven document which, in my view, hovers indecisively between old and new theologies, between an essentially juridical conception of religious life and some attempt to touch its theological pith, what I would urge is that religious life is dominantly about community and that this must be sustained as the master idea in considering every phase of its renewal. Though this is a simplification un-less qualified as I hope to do further on in this article, it is at present the hermeneutical wedge needed to cut through the complexities renewal involves. If, I submit, in the light of the recent Instruction, religious congrega-tions attempt to grapple with formation as a problem apart from the religious life as centrally concerned with creating and maintaining community, their adaptations of formation programs will be misfocused or foundering. As is evident from my intentional use of first person references, I present a personal (though I hope not un-substantiated) point of view as forcefully as I can. In doing so I make no claim to infallibility but hope that in presenting a position as vigorously as possible that I might at the very least provide the reader with a means of clarifying his own notions of the religious life, even if it be by disagreeing with those presented here. Though my topic is the general import of the idea that religious life is essentially the sustained effort toward community, let me begin by briefly stating the connection between this thesis and the specific question of the forma-tion of young religious. And let me begin this brief Edward Bozzo, C.F.X., is a mem-ber of Xaverian College; I0000 New Hampshire Avenue; Silver Springs, Md. 2090~1. VOLUME 28, 1969 + 4. Edward G. Bozzo, C.F.X. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS treatment from the juridical aspect of the religious life --a perhaps more familiar starting point to middle-aged religious--that irrelevant species of which I am a member. Two other prenotes: I write as a member of what is usually called an active religious congregation and I beg pardon of any sister who might read this for main-taining masculine references throughout. Men become religious, in the technical sense, by pro-nouncing vows to God through His visible Church. These vows are called public in a technical sense, namely, that the Church so designates and recognizes them as con-stituting a person in the religious state. To describe how these spare juridical facts occur in actual life, how-ever, it would have to be added that a person becomes a religious by joining a specific religious institute approved by the Church. This datum is [taught with significance. Among other things, it means that one's chief source of awareness of what being a religious means comes ~rom the particular religious with whom he lives. One's idea of what the practice of the vows means, of the style of life to which they give rise, one's idea of life in common and dedicated service to others--all of these one learns from the religious with whom one lives. (;anon law and the institute's constitutions, no matter how well expressed, capture these realities only partially and in bare out-line. I Both are theoretical instruments which subserve the experience of religious life which latter holds the primacy, not vice versa.2 Since one's self-definition as a religious, for one's whole life as a religious, has its source in the lives of the reli-gious with whom one lives, it follows that our life in 1 See Friedrich Wulf, "Decree on the Appropriate Renewal of the Religious Life," in Commentary on the Documents o[ Vatican II, v. 2, ed. Herbert Vorgrimler (New York: Herder and Herder, 1968), p. 303, where Wulf notes that it will take religious congrega-tions a long time to overcome the narrowness which has plagued the official ecclesiastical concept of the religious life, especially since the 19th century. See also pp. 338, 340, and 362. ~ In philosophical terms, though we always need theory, it is ex-perience, the practical, which holds the primacy. Theory derives from practice and serves practice. To reverse this order is to create a host of difficulties in daily life. See John Macmurray, The Sel[ as .4gent (London: Faber and Faber, 1957), pp. 17ft. As regards religious life, it is necessary to recall not only that theory derives from experience and helps to interpret experience, but also that the theoretical apparatus has been overjuridical in its emphasis. Hence, even though theory is subservient to experience, now as never before, religious life requires work on its theoretical base. As Wulf remarks in commenting on chapters five and six of the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church: "The theology of the reli-gious state is only in the making," Commentary on the Documents o] Vatican //, v. 1, ed. Herbert Vorgrimler (New York: Herder and Herder, 1967), p. 278. See Wulf in Vorgrimler, v. 2, p. $43: "Religious life today, that of active orders in particular, is becoming less and less amenable to detailed regulation." common is and ever remains the formative influence in our lives. Religious life does not escape the law of our lives as persons: we need one another to be ourselves,s Indeed, religious life aims to express this with a force un-paralleled by other styles of life.4 Whether or not they really believe it, at least many religious are now saying that religious formation never ends. The principal reason why it does not is that we ever depend on our fellow religious for discovering the implications of our lives as persons dedicated to God.5 The practical consequence of these facts for our con-gregations is that each one of us, whether he acknowl-edges the fact or prefers to dwell in illusion, plays a form-ative role. He cannot shirk this fact, nor the obligation arising from it by pretending that it is the novice master's job or the task of a group or team more particularly associated with young religious. For all of us formation is continual so long as we lead lives of mutual interde-pendence-- a phrase which describes our very condition as persons, and therefore our lives as religious as well. Under either head, life in common is essential. From the point of view of formation, personal and religious, our lives of mutual interdependence constitute our chief source of strength and progress, as well as the source of our obligation to live for our fellows. It scarcely needs mentioning that this mode of dis-course is currently employed to talk of Christian life in general and that there is nothing particularly distinctive about it so as to mark off religious as a spedal class,o That 8 See John Macmurray, Persons in Relation (London: Faber and Faber, 1961), p. 211. ' "The theological and spiritual new mentality which the council introduced into the religious orders has forced us to pose anew the question about the structures of religious life. To begin with we must mention the fundamental law which was present at the founding of every religious order, and which has moved into the forefront of Christian thought today in a specially urgent manner: the law of brotherliness" (Wulf in Vorgrimler, v. 2, p. 330). ~ Obviously this does not preclude a religious learning from those not members of the religious fraternity. See Wulf in Vorgrimler, v. 2, p. 339: "Common prayer, spiritual conversation among brethren and sisters--things which in fact make them brethren and sisters-- alone cause all of their efforts to bear fruit. The place where spiritual renewal happens is in the small group. The more a com-munity fosters these small groups, the greater the hope that the work of the general chapter will go beyond mere words and regula-tions, and reach out into real life." e Commenting on Chapter 5 of the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Wulf, in Vorgrimler, v. 1, pp, 267-8, writes: "We are all set a single goal, one and the same Christian holiness (the degree of which., can and does vary according, to the vocation and the measure of grace allotted to each man). Ultimately, there-fore, there is only one kind of Christian life, and its nature is briefly sketched for us here: (1) The inward road that leads a Christian to his salvation (and often the outward road as well) + + .I-Being- toward. Community VOLUME 28, 1969 + ÷ ÷ Edward G. Bozzo, C.F.X. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS should not be surprising, since the religious life is not .a. privileged class existence, but the Christian life lived with utter seriousness. It has been the custom to define religious life in terms of Christian life. Hence, when individualistic notions of Christian life prevailed, reli-gious life--Christian calling lived intensely--was defined in individualistic patterns. When the dominant con-ception of Christian life was saving one's soul, the concomitant conception of religious life was a perfec-tion that made little of the social dimension of personal and Christian progress.7 Thanks to a host of long germinating movements in the field of theology itself (Biblical studies, for example) and in the world of thought more generally (most signifi-cantly in philosophy), individualism is seen now as an unrealistic way of conceptualizing personal existence,s As persons we do not possess any fullness of ourselves alone. We do not store up richness of interiority on our own and then issue forth to bestow our largesse upon others if and when we feel magnanimous enough to do depends at the deepest level on the guidance of the Holy Ghost and the promptings of his grace. (2) At every turn, therefore, in every situation he encounters, the Christiau must listen for the voice of the Spirit making known God's will for him., and obey it. This obedience is what the gospel calls adoring the Father in spirit and in truth (cf. Jn 4:23), and it means utter openness to God and utter docility to him. (3) Within the framework of the Christian dis-pensation taking this road means following the poor and humble Christ as he carries the Cross. (4) On this road the main business of the Christian is a living faith that stirs up hope and acts through love. At a time when every state of life and every community in the Church is trying to expound its own particular spirituality (and often ineptly), it is well for this Constitution to remind us of the one fundamental Christian spirituality of Scripture and tradition." Further: "What they all have in common is this: that Christian sanctification is not a road running parallel to the road of one's ordiuary life and work, but is a thing achieved in and through one's state of life with its daily tasks, in and through the concrete circumstances and events of one's existence." ~See Wulf in Vorgrimler, v. 2, p. 347, n. 11 especially. As Rahner writes: "This sense of being responsible for my brother, not only for his earthly needs but precisely for his eternal salvation, may be nothing short of decisive for my own eternal salvation. This is not sublime egoism. The realization that unless one loves selflessly one is risking one's own salvatiou does not imply some higher form of egoism. It is the scale by which I can measure how absolutely necessary is concern for my brother's salvation. The possibility that he has of working out his salvation without me means that he owes me nothing. But I can find myself only if I find my brother. The whole of life has got to be a forward movement towards loving my brother. I must love my brother, and in that love forget myself. If I do that, I am an apostle. If I do not do it, I am ultimately lost" (Karl Rahner, Christian in the Market Place [New York: Sheed and Ward, 1966], pp. 13-4). ~ See William F. Lynch, Images o] Hope (New York: New Ameri-can Library, 1966), p. 185. so.0 Hard as it may be for men, especially Americans, to swallow it, no one in his existence as a person exists in-dependently of other persons.10 The terminus a quo of personal life is a complete dependence on a personal other and the terminus acl quem is not rugged individ-ualism but interdependence with others.11 Personal exis-tence is and ever remains conditional upon mutuality with other persons. Failure to live according to this basic norm of our being is, in William F. Lynch's view, one of the root causes of mental illness. In religious terms it is Pelagianism. As Biblical studies have made apparent with ever increasing emphasis and as the recent conciliar documents attest, God calls us as He did Israel, as a people; He saves us as a people; .we worship Him as a people. In short, Christianity is fraternal faith, demon-strated in fraternal concern for others, Christians or not, for Christian faith is a progressive assimilation to the Father's only Son who is universal in His concern--in His life, His death and His eternal priestly intercession in behalf of all men.12 In yielding to the Spirit, in allowing Him to consume our selfishness, we are made Jesus all over againJ~ In him all walls of separation from our fel-lows crumble (see Gal 2:llff). With the growing appreciation that Christian life is a OAs Kwant writes: "We are intentional beings and not centered on ourselves. We achieve a meaningful existence through the reali-zation of values. The situation is not such that we find first in ourselves, in our so-called interiority, the fullness of meaning and value and that, next, our giving of meaning in the world and in encounters with other human beings are an effusion of our interior fullness. Divorced from the world and from the others, there is only emptiness in ourselves" (Remy Kwant, Phenomenology o] Social Existence [Pittsburgh: Duquesne University, 1965], p. 239). ~°See Lynch, lmages, pp. 19-20 and 31. n See John Macmurray, Persons in Relation, p. 66. = "The first characteristic of faith today I should like to stress can be summed up in one word: brotherly . Faith both presup-poses the community and creates it; the courage to believe is always born of a pentecostal event, where many are gathered together in unity of purpose. Faith is our confidence in the personal experience of others, a conviction gained through the power of the Spirit which is at work in others, our personal experience of the Spirit given to us for the sake of others, This permanent characteristic of faith., should be one of the most notable characteristics of the form of faith today. It cannot be sufficiently stressed, however, that this brotherly love is not directed towards an abstract but toward our actual brother here and now, our 'neighbor' " (Karl Rahner, Belie] Today [New York: Sheed and Ward, 1967], pp. 54-5). as See Barnabas Ahern, New Horizons (Notre Dame: Fides Dome Book, 1965), p. 94 and passim; Piet Fransen, "Towards a Psychology of Divine Grace," Cross Currents, v. 8 (1958), p. 219; Franqois ¯ Roustang, Growth in the Spirit (New York: Sheed ~ Ward, 1966), p. 21; and Amed~e Hallier, "God is Friendship: the Key to Aelred of Rievaulx's Christian Humanism," American Benedictine Reoiew, v. 18 (1967), p. 403. 4- 4. 4- Being-toward- Community VOLUME 28, 1969 723 ÷ + Edward G. Bozzo, C.F~X. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS call to brotherly faith, brotherly existence and care, there is a concommitant realization that religious life as the radical living of Christian life is predominantly brotherly existence. Insofar as religious life manifests this, its fundamental nature, it renders its primary serv-ice to both Church and world. This conception of the nature and function of religious life holds implications of highly practical import. The following paragraphs aim to explore some of them by attending primarily to the intramural living of religious life. As stated previously in touching on "formation," all religious must appreciate that each of them is involved in striving toward community. Recognizing this, one practical suggestion that has been proffered with increas-ing insistence is that religious cannot attain this by living in large groups in Mussolini-modern buildings.14 With-out disputing this recommendation, I submit that the import of religious life as fraternal existence in Christ lies deeper than the intimacy to be attained by living in smaller groups in cosier houses. Keeping the communal nature of reigious life to the fore means realizing that no religious can achieve "his perfection," his union with Christ, by an idealistic leap up to God which would ignore his concrete relations to his fellow religious. Each of us approaches God only by living for his particular brethren at hand, centering his interest in them and not in himself. To live this is to live in Christ; more specifi-cally, it is to live Christ's kenosis. Capsulizing St. Paul's view of Christian life again, one may see it as a progres-sive yielding to the Holy Spirit who transforms us into the image of the Father's only Son. And this Son is one who lives His whole existence towards the Father through a self-forgetful concern for all men. In sum, the Christ in whom we live, move, and are, the Christ into whom we are transformed through the Holy Spirit's action in us, is a self-emptying Christ, not a self-regarding Person.1'~ Selfishness in this perspective is not just per-sonal immaturity, it is--far more significantly--a resis-tance to grace, a refusal to let the Spirit take over in us so that the Christs we are meant to be cannot take form in our lives. The poverty, chastity, and obedience of the religious find their deepest meaning in this kenotic yielding to the 1~ In commenting on Vatican II's decree on religious, for example, Wulf (in Vorgrimler, v. 2, p. 330) writes: 'The responsible and effec-tive participation in the common good and in the common task in the spirit of brotherhood can no longer be realized in large communities, for by his psychical constitution, modern man feels lost and threatened in the mass, so that the ideals just mentioned can only be realized in communities of manageable size." 1~ See Piet Schoonenberg, "He Emptied Himself, Philippians 2, 7," in Who Is Jesus oI Nazareth? (New York: Paulist, 1965), pp. 47-66. Spirit, manifested inour heterocentricity toward others. These two cannot be separated, for a relationship to Christ, or to God in Christ, which is not a relationship to one's brothers, is no Christianity at all. The more earnestly a religious strives to live the Christian life, that is, to live as man sanctified by God, the more he becomes aware of his own poverty his impotence, weakness, and guilt and the more he realizes the totality of the de-pendence in which he lives from God and unto God-- the essence of what he professes in the vow of poverty. The more a religious strives to live as the force of God's agape in him would have him live, that is, the more uni-versal his love toward others becomes both in its scope and quality the more his chastity comes to expression. For then he loves as God loves, caring for others hon-estly, 16 with no eye to using them for his advantage but with a creative love that aims to set others free of the myriad forms of slavery which keep them from the liberty to which they are called. This honesty in love-- loving others as the Father loves, with no eye to private gain is the essence of religious chastity. The more the religious yields to God's beckonings to him, the more he follows the particularities of God's petitioning of him through others---even to the point of yielding his life for them, the more the relig!ous lives obedience to the Father. The depth of asceticism that is required to live this style of Christian existence, the depth of personal prayer required to maintain and nourish this kenotic orienta-tion needs no commentary. It involves many dyings be-fore death, surrendering the comfortable illusion that each of us is a special case, that life and other people should make exceptions in our regard. It means living Christ's life of service and in so doing becoming a vehicle through which the glory of the risen Christ is manifested. As Ratzinger writes: "A true parousia of Christ takes place wherever a man recognizes and affirms the claim on his love that goes out from a fellow man in need." lz Much more could and should be ex- 1BChastity is emotional sincerity. See John Macmurray, "The Virtue of Chastity," in Reason and Emotion (London: Faber and Faber, 1962), pp. l17ff. x7 Joseph Ratzinger, The Open Circle: The Meaning o] Christian Brotherhood (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1966), p. 119. The glory of the Father is the brotherhood of all men in his Son Jesus Christ. Our life as a community and as individuals, serving one another and others, must make the name of the Father known, manifest His glory by seeking the brotherhood of all men in Christ Jesus. But the source of this, it cannot be sufficiently emphasized, is God's love for us---this is what makes us persons fundamentally. What we have to give is God's love (see the Epistle to the Philippians). At this profound level the operative law is: All receptivity is produc-tivity, as SOren Kierkegaard notes in SOren Kierkegaard's Journals + + + Being.toward- Commu~nity VOLUME 28, 1969 ÷ 4. ÷ Edward G. Bo~o, C.F~X. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS plored regarding the linkage between religious life and kenotic Christology as this constitutes a promising vein for elaborating a theology of the religious life. However, the few hints offered will have to suffice for the moment, so as to attend to other implications of conceiving reli-gious life as a process of being toward community. One of these is that religious life as brotherly existence does not mean that the uniqueness of each religious is abolished. Quite the contrary. As Teilhard de Chardin was fond of phrasing it, true union differentiates,is That is, when we put into act by living communion with others the mutuality which makes us persons, each of us comes to himself. Each attains, at least in some measure, his freedom. The fundamental reason for this is that in friendship, fellowship, fear is eliminated or overcome by love. None of the parties in the fellowship has to pretend, act a part, be on his guard. For this to become a fact in a religious community all must share the intention to live as brothers. All must overcome fear of each other with trust. For fear paralyzes and separates us. Since fear is always fear for oneself in the face of others, it closes us in on ourselves, drives us away from exercising our constitutively mutual relationship to them. Fearful of others, I might seek for God, for free-dom, or more simply, for some sense of contentment not in my relations to others but solely in the life of the mind and imagination--solely in a private spirituality. Others might deal with their fear of their fellow by dominating them, using them as means to their purpose-- even if that purpose be "spiritual" it demeans the persons so manipulated. For fellowship, community, to become an actuality each must be positively motivated toward all his brothers. Consequently it cannot happen if a religious seeks friend-ship with only one or two other members alone, and when each of the parties in this relationship or clique is negatively motived toward all the other members. The trust of each member of the community, his faith in them, must extend toward all of them. Only so can true brotherhood become fact. To the extent that it does, each member can, for example, express his ideas without fear that what he says will be used against him. By the very nature of brotherhood, variety issues naturally-- from the assurance of feeling at home in one's reli-gious family. One does not have to strive after artifical techniques to assert his individuality. He is accepted and and Papers, v. 1, ed. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Indiana University, 1967), p. 395. ~See Robert L. Faricy, Teilhard de Chardin's Theology o[ the Christian in the World (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1967), pp. does not need to contrive test cases to discover if he is or not. More significantly, in the context of realized brother-hood ideas do not divide us. I know that even if you do not agree with my position on this or that issue that you will not cut me off--excommunicate me from your con-cern. And you have the same assurance from me. When each member of the community feels secure in this confidence our differences, whether in the realm of ideas or otherwise, are a potential source of enrichment for all of us. We are free to work out fruitful constructive forms of compromise to further corporate action. Every dif-ference between us does not become a wall of separation dividing brother from brother, camp from camp. Such division is our damnation. The future is in our hands only so long as we live as brothers. We cannot achieve any good as a congregation, or as a small community within it, if we do not share the same intention in our apostolic action. Just as we are mutually interdependent as persons, we are inter-dependent as agents. If as agents our intentions do not harmonize, the action of each of .us is frustrated. The future then becomes something that happens to us, some-thing which we await, rather than a reality which we as agents are empowered to determine and can determine when our intentions harmonize and agree with God's intention--that we as religious be one and through our work (directly or indirectly) work for the realization of brotherhood among all men. In this light religious life can be appreciated as the concrete expression of what the Church is. It is the fra-ternity of God's people, His family which lives a broth-erly existence under Him and by so living is the instru-ment for expressing and extending brotherhood among all mankind. The creative energy for realizing this broth-erhood is the agape of the Father Himself operating through the common humanity which each of us shares with every other person.10 The task of the Church today is what it always has been--to cooperate with God under the guidance of the Spirit of Christ in establishing the kingdom of God. The means for establishing this king-dom, for accomplishing this task is the means that Jesus taught His first Disdples. The Church must be a real community on earth which exhibits to the world, in its life and in the relations of its members, the image of the kingdom of heaven, and which acts, in relation to the world outside, in the brotherly spirit of that king-dom. Never has the Church needed religious life to mani-fest this, its nature at its truest, as now. And never have 4. 4. Being-toward- Community 1, See Yves Congar, .4 Gospel Priesthood (New York: Herder aVnOdLUME 28, 1969 Herder, 1967), p. 5, on the Father's love as the source of all mission. 727 men so expressly proclaimed in myriad ways, their thirst for brotherhood. If religious life would only come to itself it could spearhead the realization of brotherhood--- the consummation of personal existence now so devoutly wished. It depends on so little and so big a condition as this: that each of us in his religious family treat each of the others as a friend. 4. 4- 4- Edward G. Bo~,o, REVIEW FOR RELIGIous 728 HRBAN NAAL, S.M. The Community of Today Walls are built either to keep people in or to keep people out. Whether these walls are built of stone, brick, or concrete or whether they are built of weaker material, the object is to keep someone or something in or to keep someone or something out, physically. There are also pyschological walls built for the same purpose, though not always built intentionally. In the Middle Ages cities had walls. Most of these walls are in ruins today or have disappeared as the cities expanded beyond them. In fact, expansion could take place only when the people went beyond the walls. It seemed that as man neared modern times the walls crumbled, "freeing" the community to expand in all directions. It would seem that one could almost say that the walls had to come down if expansion were to take place, for the walls that kept out also kept in. Any com-munity that held rigidly to its walls would of necessity suffocate. Growth took place as the walls came down aIIowing for greater activity, travel, business, communica-tion, work, education. Modern communities no longer have walls. They are neither needed nor desired. Yet, there seems to exist today in the modem world communities whose walls have remained intact since the Middle Ages and who seem rigidly to resist any attempt to break down those walls, whether physical or psycho-logical. The citizens seem determined to hold onto those walls, nor can they visualize that real progress can take place only if they break down these separating walls, walls that are keeping them in and keeping others out. The communities referred to are religious communities and the walls that they will not demolish are not those made of stone, brick, concrete, or even weaker materials but those psychological walls existing in their interpre-tation of what a community is and must remain. Com-munity for these religious is a "living" together and by 4- 4- 4- Brother Urban Naal, S.M., teaches at Vianney High School; 1311 South Kirkwood Road; St. Louis, Mo. 63122, VOLUME 28, 1969 ~9 Urban Naal, S.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS this they mean a living together in one place at one time by all the members assigned to a particular community or house. What is actually stressed is the physical sharing of one house though they do not seem to realize this. As the modern community cannot be limited by walls that suffocate, so the modern religious community must be ~eed from the walls that bind it. This can only be done through a reinterpretation of what a religious commu-nity is and a realization that a modern community must be a psychological sharing and not a physical sharing alone. To constantly insist upon a physical sharing, a doing everything together, to keep repairing walls that need to crumble, succeeds eventually in suffocating the very members who have retained the walls. Growth can-not take place until the walls are removed. The modern religious community must be bound to-gether by a spirit and not by the physical presence of the walls of a house. The witness o[ such a community must consist in a harmonious interest in the diverse works of each of the members and not in the force shown by a group of people living together under one roof. The community witness must be a living together of diverse ideas and cultures and values. The individual religious, bound by public vows of religion, must be free to leave the walls of the commu-nity for greater activity, travel, business, communica-tion, work, education, and the needs of society at large. He is living in the modern world, not the Middle Ages. He must be trained to think as an individual and not as a group. This is not to say that there are no dangers in taking protective walls down, especially for those who first cautiously venture forth. (Nor is it to try to claim that walls of themselves preclude all danger.) There is danger for the young who need walls to inclose them until they are old enough to venture forth on their own. There is danger for the member of the community who has never been given the chance to go it alone and Who psycho-logically needs walls to shield him. There is danger for the immature in the community who do not have the strength nor security to leave the womb. There. is danger, too, once the walls are down that undersirable persons or ideas might creep in. Yet, to grow in the modern world the member of the community must learn to live with these dangers, to grow because of them. No one can avoid all danger. In fact, it is through these dangers that growth takes place. In learning to deal with danger man matures. It is a fallacy to feel that walls make it possible to create an artificial situation in which all members by a certain age or a certain stage of life become model religious, fitting perfectly into some kind of foreseen mold. Nor can this denial of the individuality of man be called Christian, no matter how much it appears to be the basis of the religious community. The members of a religious community must be trained to use the God-given talents they possess and to grow as individuals according as God made them. Guidelines are not outlawed, but charity must consist in accepting each member for .what he is and for how God made him rather than to how closeIy he matches someone's personal rule of perfection. If the religious community prepared thinking individ-uals using the brains God gave them to use, there would be no need of wails for physically mature persons, no reason to fear the wails coming down. The community of living together under one roof tends to stifle initia-tive and creativity. It forces the members to aim at a common--and often lowest--denominator, regulating the lives of the members according to some precon-ceived general norm resulting in the members actually dedicating themselves to mediocrity rather than to the highest potential of which they are capable. It does not permit each person to grow at his own rate nor to be-lieve according to what he is able to "see" at present. The religious community in the twentieth century must be an outgrowth of the Middle Ages. It must progress with the times and be as efficient as the dines permit. The religious, to be true religious and apostles, must go out beyond the wails to where they are needed, to where the action is. Artificial action and needs cannot be set up within the walls or close-by. The modern religious must carry his community in spirit wherever he goes, wherever he is needed. He must be trained and trusted to carry this community with him, rather than be crippled by forever being tied to a particular house often far from the needs of the world. He must often go alone into the field (be it education, communication, business) to bear witness and to work, even though it be far from an established community of his order. He might even become the center of a new-type of "community" of those working around him. This does not mean that there is no need for the com-munity in the traditional sense of the word. It definitely has a place. It is the walled city or quiet womb in which the religious needs to reside while being formed. It is the "dock" to which the weary working religious needs to return periodically for nourishment and light and the moral support of his fellow religious which is so important to one working alone in the field of battle. The individual religious could not continue to work + + ommunity VOLUME 28, 1969 without these periodic retreats to that haven from whence he came. There is need, too, of the traditional community for those who do not feel that they can or want to leave it. Yet, the modern religious, a religious in the true sense, must be free to go beyond the walls that presently hem him in and thwart his apostolate. To force community members to live closely together under the same roof under the guise that the four walls constitute a commu-nity is to miss the point completely and to miss the modern apostolate completely. The real community is a spiritual thing, a love of and an acceptance of one's fellow religious wherever they are. It is not confined to those living within the four walls of a particular com-munity. Nor is it created by the mere presence of four walls. The normal family with grown members no longer reside within the same four walls; and yet no matter how far they are scattered they exhibit an in-tense loyalty to the members of the family from which they came because of their love and acceptance of one another, not because they happened to at one time reside within the same four walls (which have now crumbled). The modern religious community if it is to succeed must go beyond the walls that they have erected less they awake one day to find that life has pass them by. Let not today's religious communities be the ghost towns of tomorrow. ÷ ÷ ÷ Urban Nail, $.~. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS GEORGE C. McCAULEY, S.J. The Toll and Why We Pay h: A Theological Image of Religious Life Religious are always surprised and annoyed by the basic ignorance, even in the Catholic community, of the distinction between priesthood and the religious life, between orders and vows. In the new Church people ask brothers, nuns, and religious priests: "Are they going to allow you to marry?" It becomes easier to live with such ignorance when finally we discover that it is based on a lack of any real interest. But today the question: "What is a religious?" is being posed earnestly and painfully not by others but by many religious themselves. Prophets of doom count the days for religious orders and congregations, and they offer statistics in support of their baleful prognoses. With many religious leaving and fewer entering the re-ligious life, religious are anxious for a self-understanding that will help them navigate through some of the con-temporary uncertainty. A perfectly satisfying self-under-standing is rarely forthcoming in life. We are more in need of a creative and humanly intelligible hypothesis against which we can test our Christian and religious experience. It is the task of theology to set forth such an hypothesis. To that end we will attempt first to describe more thoroughly the religious' contemporary plight, and then to isolate the human (therefore intelligible) form of the religious' commitment, its various motivations, and the content of that commitment or the directions in which the religious life has always and will always take those who embrace that life. The Toll The religious gradually becomes an out~ider to the cultural milieu in which he lives. True, it is hard to iso-÷ ÷ i÷ George C. Mc- Cauley, S.J., is a member of the the-ology faculty of St. Peter's College in Jersey City, New Jersey 07306. VOEUME 28, 1969 4- 4- 4- George C. McCauley, $.~. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 734 late a cultural milieu which affects all people in exactly the same way. It is also possible that many religious are more in touch than many non-religious with what-ever cultural milieu is available. We will develop the thesis, however, that the more in touch the religious is, the greater the toll will be that he will pay. If we ac-cept as a working definition of cultural milieu as the main network of achievements, activities, and values that emerge from the physical and spiritual resources of men, then it is clear that the religious gradually becomes unstuck from this network. The reason for this is that most men are usually attached to this network at various points, while the religious fits the cultural pattern only sketchily. The cultural pattern involves at least the triad of job, marriage, and family. The economic, political, and recreational systems of men are geared to and de-pendent .upon man's wishes in those three areas. The communications media feed, and feed upon, the needs that are contained in those three aspects of life. Assiduous-ness, success, planning, ingenuity, failure, social useful-ness, ambition, acceptability, and normality are in a thousand subtle ways measured against the standard inherent in the triad of job, marriage, and family. The religious recedes from this standard, and this gradual recession takes its toll on his'cultural sensibilities. His routine activities have little to do with the cultural standard: his clothing is both singular and culturally meaningless. His language is dissonant: fun, life, enter-tainment, pleasure, anxiety, responsibility, relaxation-- these words have a different ring for him than for other men. His normal working hours are accompanied by different expectations, and hence he misses the rhythms which usually mark the beginning and end of a man's work. He is disassociated from the immense cultural ritual of finding and keeping a mate. His energies are not spent on the intricate process of nesting, of providing and securing goods for a family. He does not shop, keep financial records, save, angle, sweat, or celebrate with the same sentiments or relish that other men have. The point of all this is not simply that the religious does not do what most men do. It is rather to suggest that he gradually foregoes sensibility in these areas. Sen-sibility is itself a difficult term to define. The religious need not become insensitive to the cultural life around him. He knows that men around him are engaged might-ily in their own routines, and he senses these routines in others. But he notes their absence in himself. He can-not perceive them within his whole emotional, self-aware-ness apparatus. The toll that he pays is this sense of void in himself in comparison with the cultural mass which surrounds him and which, by its sheer weight, seems to pressure him to be like it. This realization should not lead the religious to exag-gerate his predicament. Every vocation has its toll and everyone could recount the frustrations and limitations implied in his life choices. What is important is that the religious understand the scope and dimensions of the toll that he will in all likelihood pay. He must situate himself as honestly as possible in terms of his actual cultural coordinates which in his case are not normal ones. Then he must ask himself if he understands why he takes, in faith, such a peculiar stance vis-a-vis his culture. Not that he should so call his faith into question that it ceases to exist. This unimaginative and simplistic solution removes the problem by denying its existence and we can only get so far in life with this gambit. On the other hand religious communities must have a con-sensus of self-understanding against which they can judge themselves and the times. The stresses and strains of living as marginal men in a vast cultural network tend to prove too much for everyone's individual nerves. Only a community's conviction, its faith elaborated in intelli-gible and affirmative terms, can sustain the religious life today. The religious is not helped by being told his life is more than human. He suspects mightily that what people mean by this comes down in the long run to being less than human. Hence he asks for an understanding of his vows in terms of their true humanity. Reasons and an Image The religious is pressed to say why he does what he does. Up to a point he can answer that Christ's example is what motivates him. But the limitations of this ex-planation of the religious life are apparent. For one thing, we are not Christ. For another, the Scriptural references to "imitating Christ" (1 Th 1:6; 1 Cot 4:16) apply to all Christians, not to one class or group of Christians. The same is true of the Scriptural ref-erences to "following Christ" (Mt 8:22; 19:21; 12:26; 19:28; Mk 9:38; Jn 8:12). Again, the picture of the way Christ actually lived is difficult to disengage from the sev-eral layers of testimony about Him which we have in the Gospels. In other words, we do not have any ready-made picture of what His poverty, chastity, and obedience looked like, and this makes our claim as religious to be imitating Him more difficult. The Son of Man did not have a place to lay His head, but He had a devoted fol-lowing of women and it is hard to see how anyone in those circumstances would have to do without material necessities. He was obedient to the Father, but was such .I-÷ 4- TI~ Toll VOLUME 28, 1969 ÷ ÷ ÷ George C. McCauley, REV]EW FOR REL[GIOUS obedience more difficult than obedience shown to men and women who do not have all the Father's advantages? He was celibate in a culture that did not set as much store as we do today on mutual love between man and woman, on personal sexual attraction and its flowering in family life. We will return to the question of the reli-gious' relationship with Christ in a moment. The point here is that expressions like "imitating" Christ which recur in our traditional formulations of the religious life are not by that simple fact illuminating when we come to examine what the religious life is. We are there-fore forced to take a closer look at the religious life as a form of human activity. One advantage to this ap-proach is that the religious might get a clearer, more identifiable picture of what he is doing, even apart from the question of why he is doing it. What image, then, will help us understand what the religious is doing? We will suggest as a basic charac-terization of that life its daring nature. By this is meant more than that the religious is exposed to the toll men-tioned earlier and hence that he risks not surviving his being distanced from the cultural milieu. Not surviving is a risk, to be sure, but a risk is not a dare. The latter has a more positive connotation and requires a more ex-tended analysis. When we speak of a daring feat or of a daring way of life, the emphasis is less on the possibility of failure as it is on the uniqueness of accomplishment involved. The accomplishment takes place in the face of obstacles and danger, but these aspects are subordinate to the inner content of the accomplishment itself. Examples of daring are varied. There are daring feats of exploration, .of physical prowess or menta! endurance, of both of these latter in varying combinations. We even speak of daring crimes. Daring stems from a certain persistent determina-tion to do something which (though not necessarily be-cause) other people do not do. This determination settles on what is uncustomary.The darer fixes on strange goals and pursues them with a single-minded intensity. He is oblivious to commentary, favorable or not, on his ac-tions. It is not a question of toughness nor of unconven-tionality. The darer may be outwardly the mildest and most unprepossessing person in the world. But he is capable of totally concentrating on the steps which sepa-rately and together form his achievement. We cannot deny that his dare resembles an obsession. He is also sub-ject to the usual urge to limit and falsify the demands of his dare, to exaggerate his readiness, qualifications, and technique for daring properly. But these he corrects in order to be true to the dare. The point here is not to ask why he dares, but to ob- serve the act of daring in itself, its rigid demands, its engrossing personal fascination for the darer, and its indifference to other ways of acting. This indifference is important. The mountain climber, for example, can be questioned endlessly as to why he does what he does. He is in effect being asked to justify his daring which often seems to be either sheer folly or disdain for life in the valley. Mallory's well-known explanation of why he assaulted Everest ("Because it is there") is, however, less a comment on Everest, which is there for everyone, than a revelation about Mallory who was different precisely in his d~ring. In his case, as with all daring, we are forced to admit that, to some extent, daring is its own justifica-tion. No amount of scepticism, no amount of bewilder-ment on the part of those who do not dare, can detract from the darer's achievement. The test of the human validity of a dare is the admiration that it inspires in the observer. And in terms of a traditional humanism, the burden of the proof is on the non-darer to show that daring is unjustified. In all this, we cannot facilely iden-tify daring with "doing your own thing," since there is an aspect of human achievement and of human approval to the dare that is often lacking where some attempt to glorify "their own thing." If we apply the image of an act of daring to the con-duct of religious, we get some idea of what the religious life as a form of observable human conduct is. It is a form of daring whose justification, in part at least, is to be sought no further than in its own intrinsic impera-tive as daring. We must practice the same discipline in examining the religious life as we did with the act of daring itself, by postponing questions of motive and of content in order to see the human form of the religious life as such. Hence we may not assume as a general prin-ciple that Christ "calls" to the religious life individuals who are neutrally qualified, that is, ready to lead that life or some other life, with the only difference in the subsequent choice beifig a difference in the degree of love that they can summon up for Christ. Such a view makes the choice of the religious life almost com-pletely a matter of an adult decision to move from a neutral plane to one of greater (more altruistic) love. But is it not more likely that Christ calls individ-uals to this life because they are daring types, that is, because they have, before any adult decision related to Christ, something in themselves which is capable of and which demands living a dare? The rich young man in the Gospels was sad that Christ invited him to a life of poverty and of dedication. This narrative has sometimes led to the impression that a call from Christ brings a person who supposedly stands in neutral balance before various ~÷ ÷ ÷ Tlw Toll VOLUME 28, 1969 George C. McCauley, S.J. REVIEW FOR REL~6~OUS possible life options to choose a "lfigher" state into which he then fits his talents. But such a view of Christ's calling may not credit Christ with sufficient politeness. The call of Christ is perhaps better adapted to our in-dividual capacities than we expect. The rich young man's sadness is not only to be attributed to the fact that, in following Christ, he will have to do without his riches, but also to the fact that he is the kind of person who should dare to do without riches if he is to respond to the imperatives of his own deepest person which Christ sees more clearly than he does. How then do such terms as "greater love," "closer following of Christ," or "higher state" apply to the re-ligious life? If, as we will suggest later on, the religious' dare also turns out to be of immense service to the Church and to the world, how is the religious to relate his own imperative as a darer, this personal and quite human as-pect of his calling, to the service of others? What we are really asking is how Christ looks upon the individual religious: as someone who should consciously concentrate on the service and love of Christ and of others beyond the measure of what is normally asked? or as someone who should be candidly aware of his own personal imperative to dare, to enjoy the situation of being a darer regardless of how much service or love is connected with it? Is Christ the kind of person who would "use" the darer for the service of the Church? Or is Christ calling the darer to a conscious love and service of Himself and of the Church only in order to reveal to the darer his own true self? If Christ's concern in calling the individual religious is primarily to a!low that religious a large meas-ure of fidelity to what is most personal and quite human in himself--to his capacity to dare--what sense is there in describing the religious life as a call to greater or higher love? The religious life is indeed centered on Christ; and, through this centering, it has a more uni-versal scope and influence. And all this, too, is thoroughly human, even if our cultural norms do not recognize this humanity. But we should not call such a commitment "greater" or "higher" if what we really mean by those words is a commitment that is more universal in scope. Perhaps the better way to describe the religious' relation-ship to Christ is to speak of Christ initially as someone who calls us to love Him and others, then as someone who shows us the way in which we love ourselves, and finally as someone with whom we are ourselves in the daring service of others. There are several corollary observations to be made on our use of the image of daring to help us understand the religious' commitment. First of all, it seems that this image is less suited to women religious then to men, simply because men more than women have been asso-ciated with those activities from which we sought an un-derstanding of the structure of daring. It is risky to sug-gest what daring consists of for the gentler sex; yet, if a parallel image is to be sought, it is to be sought in a con-text of exceptional actions which of themselves call forth human esteem and which also call for unusual deter-mination, singleness of purpose, no apologies, and a deep sense of a specific pull in one direction. Childbearing and putting up with male pretensions are daring enough, but are they not also too universal to illustrate a womanly dare? The will to make sense out of life, and to live its rhythms in one's actual circumstances, char-acterizes every basic vocational choice. It is only where the choice seems to depart from the usual without be-coming bizarre that we are dealing with a dare. Hence women religious must seek the image of their daring in some other more appropriate phenomenon. The only one that suggests itself at the moment is the image of the woman of abandon who sets no store on propriety, scorns convention, and foregoes a good name in the pur-suit of love. Despite its obvious limitations this image conveys many of the qualities that we associate with dar-ing. The second observation concerns "leaving" the life of vows. There are overanxious minds who rule out a priori the continued desirability of a permanent style of religi-ous life. Yet, it is somewhat tyrannical to say that no one should live his religious dare to the end of his days. It overlooks the fact that some people do live it, and live it well for a lifetime, shifting emphases and priorities as the circumstances of the Church require, deepening the main lines of their dare, personally enriched and a source of joy for all around them. But in assessing the permanency of the religious life we have to keep in mind that, where we are dealing with something resembling a dare, we are going to have to keep a respectful distance from another person's commitment. The reason is that we simply do not know who is called to dare and for how long. The Church has always recognized this and has granted dispensations from "permanent," "final" vows, however "solemn" they might have been. We have pre-served, if grudgingly at times, the insight that Christ is not as fanatical as we sometimes wish to be in insuring lifetime commitments. No less a master of spiritual in-sight than Ignatius of Loyola indicated in his spiritual Exercises that there is always room for the subsequent discovery that one's life choices have not added up to a "divine vocation." His sixteenth century advice to a per-son making such a discovery was that they make the best of the situation. In parochial Europe at that time making ÷ 4- ÷ Th~ Toll VOLUME 28, 1969 ~9 ÷ ÷ ÷ George C. McCauley, REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS the best of the situation often excluded, [or purely social reasons, departing from one's chosen state. There is less pressure on the religious today to continue in a vocation that no longer appears to be divine, that is, that no longer amounts to a growth in charity (beginning at home) for the individual or for those he encounters. We all must wait on the individual to tell us as the fruit of his most interior discovery whether or not in fact he wishes to continue his dare. If he does not, that is, by the unique nature of his daring situation, his business and not ours. It might even not be a bad idea for the Con-gregation of Religious, when issuing papers that release from the vows, to add a word of thanks for the service, short or long, that an individual has given to the Church in the course of daring commitment to Christ. A third observation brings us back to the question of the religious' motivation in choosing to make the dare that his life is. We suggested that his motivation is pri-marily a response to Christ in which the religious may not be aware that Christ's invitation suits his own make-up as a darer. This prior suitability in no way offends against the gratuity of Christ's invitation. It simply gives Christ more credit for exercising his gratuity politely, according to the actual condition of the person whom he is inviting. Yet, the choice of the religious life is open to other motivations precisely because of its dare struc-tare. These motivations are not properly religious and can therefore cause great harm to the individual who acts on them. For example, there is the motivation pres-ent, ironically, in those whose faith is most precarious. Doubt sits in the center of most authentic faith; but where this doubt is severe, and where the person in ques-tion is highly sincere or scrupulous, it sometimes hap-pens that the person wishes to put his doubt "to the su-preme test." That is, he wishes to test it out in the most difficult circumstances in order to be able to say that he gave faith a chance to prove itself to him. A parallel may be drawn here between the case of some religious and that of doctors and psychiatrists among whom a high incidence of depression is found. This depression is con-sidered to be as much a cause of their professional interest and vocation as it is a result of exposure to the hard realities of their profession. Similarly the religious may gravitate to his particular way of life in order to test faith at the extreme. Unfortunately, he may then push himself (or others) beyond the measure of daring to an unbounded or fanatical kind of performance testing, without much joy or real personal exchange, and without the care that distinguishes the darer from the presumptu-ous or dangerous achiever. What the Religious Dares to Do If in its human form the religious life is an act of daring, what is the content of that dare? What does the religious dare to do? As a general statement we might say that the religious dares the normal structures of Christian living. The Vatican Council (II) pointed out that the religious' special act of consecration "is deeply rooted in [their] baptismal consecration and provides an ampler manifestation of it" (Decree on the Appropriate Renewal of Religious Life, n. 5). This baptismal con-secration takes in the whole Christian commitment to form community with God and with one's fellow men by engaging in a life of authentic cult and. sacramental humanism. It is obviously a very broad kind of commit-ment. How then is it possible to dare it? What the Church has done is to divide up the baptismal commitment somewhat artificially into the less broad categories of poverty, chastity, and obedience; religious center their dare in these areas. What is important to realize is that the normal Christian has a commitment in these areas by reason of his baptismal vows. He is directed to take a stand, in the name of Christ, on material goods and pos-sessions, on sexual and married love, on his relationship of dependence on God and on others. What the religious does is to take these preexisting structures of the Christian commitment and to treat them in a daring fashion. We will analyze this effort in a moment. Part of the contem-porary crisis in the religious life, however, is precisely the fact that the normal structures of the baptismal com-mitment are in flux. Hence the religious is uncertain in his dare. This is an extremely painful state, and all the more dangerous because the religious is, as a darer, a most earnest person, all appearances to the contrary. It is not surprising that many religious are leaving to under-take specific (if temporary) tasks of more than ordinary dedication. To attribute this phenomenon solely to a lack of generosity or to a general softness is perhaps one of the most simple-minded analyses ever made in the Church. On the other hand, the uncertainty attendant upon the religious life today is largely inevitable. The review to which the Church itself and the baptismal commitment are being subjected today creates a state of imbalance for the general believer and for the religious. We can illustrate this in the three areas of the religious' dare. In one sense, little has changed in the baptized per-son's commitment to poverty. There is still the need to resist our tendency to clutter, to surround, to weigh our-selves down with all sorts of paraphernalia which pains-÷ ÷ ÷ The Toll VOLUME 28, 1969 74! ÷ ÷ ÷ George C. McCauley, S.J. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS takingly insure or trumpet our personal importance. There is, too, the command and invitation of Christ to share with the needy. In daring these Christian forms of poverty, the religious can hardly pretend that it makes no difference what he owns or what he shares with others. He will therefore continue to aim at divesting himself of those layers of material possession which enable nor-mal people to define themselves in terms of what they have instead of who they are. The religious will bare his person to the world in testimony to the fact that it is at the level of personhood that we most truly exist and Christ most truly works. He will continue to share his talents and his energies with his fellow man. He will also give witness to the fact that sharing at the level of personhood is a far more demanding and far richer kind of sharing than all others, and that this kind of sharing is most illustrative of the kind of redeemer Christ was. But there is a special stamp to the poverty of the baptised Christian today, a stamp which in turn calls for revisions in the way the religious dares that poverty. The Church's present attitude (officially communicated in various encyclicals) toward material goods and toward money is characterized by an insistence on a responsi-ble, intelligent, and imaginative use of these things in society at large. The religious' dare at this level need not imply that he personally receive and keep a salary which he then uses wisely and imaginatively. The prob-lem with money today is not in the individual use of money but in the social uses of money, in the con-structive political uses of money at the institutional, local, national, and international levels. Religious have in fact felt the need to be daring in these areas. They have had to question their investment of money and manpower in traditional institutions and aposto-lates, to consolidate their houses of formation, to avoid reduplication that has no other justification than a de-sire to be true to the Good Old Founder, to fund mis-sionary work conjointly with other groups and even other faiths, to work through civil institutions where these have the moneys and structures to do a job better. But there is always room to improve the quality of our dare. The fortunes of Christian authority are also fluctuating today. Everyone is trying to make sense out of the apparent "disobedience" shown papal and episcopal authority. Opinions range from the simplistic view that we are dealing with a wave of sinful disloyalty to the view that we are developing a Christian anarchy which reduces the relation of the faithful to the hierarchy to a matter of contending power groups. The more solidi analyses of theologians of authority have taken two di- rections: first, to attack facile identifications of Christian authority with those profane forms of authority that we meet in our normal experience (parental, civil, educa-tional, personal magnetism, power, and so forth). What changes, this attack has brought about in our usual attitudes toward jurisdiction, law, rules, derision mak-ing, official teaching, penalties, and so forth, is not yet clear. Secondly, theologians have put Christian authority in the context of dialogue, not as though dialogue were simply the modern style of Christian authority and its pragmatic concomitant, but because of the God-given and inalienable dignity of the individual Christian be-fore all men which demands that he direct his life in responsible freedom, that he assess events with an open-ness to people who think differently from himself. There are innumerable problems in the theology of authority which remain unsolved. Our point here is again to point out that the religious dares what the normal Christian is exposed to in the matter of authority. The hero in the religious community today is not the one who can keep the rules best. Many of those trained to wait for superiors to decide for them what they will do by way of work, apostolate, or formation suffer most. And it is not clear that their suffering offers us the opti-mum example of the folly of the cross. Ironically, the greatest suffering (and possibly the more authentic em-bodiment of Christian folly) comes in the religious' ex-perience of dialogue. Today's religious communities probably have more experience in dialogue than any other large groups of people in the world. In the hours and hours spent on examining apostolate, structures, attitudes, renovation, and local problems, religious have discovered the real dimensions of their divi-sions. This discovery has often been accompanied with confusion and even with bitterness. Some communities have, to all appearances, been destroyed by this dialogue. Others are finding their life less romantic, more stark and seemingly loveless. Still others are discovering that it is precisely in a keen sense of intramural differences that the true nature of Christian faith is emerging. The religious is discovering that he must and can break bread --at least the bread of Christ--with those with whom he differs. He must and can work together despite serious ideological rifts. He must and can love what is really not himself. The image of his religious community as a homo-geneous unit has shattered irreparably. If he does not find a new and absolute source of unity in the principle of dialogue itself, he is doomed. The astounding aspect of this whole development is that the secular world needs precisely this kind of unity-in- diversity at the present time. Nothing could be more ÷ ÷ ÷ The Toll VOLUME 28, 1969 4. 4. George . McCauley, S.J. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS pragmatic and more relevant than for the Roman Catholic Church, through its experience of dialogue, to become the spokesman for dialogue in the modern world, to share with the world its hitter experience and yet the constructive healing that it has found in dialogue. We are learning as a community and not simply as in-dividuals to face the different levels of meaning that lie behind human language, to concentrate on that which unites us rather than on that which tears us apart, to rid ourselves of the mentality that says it is easy to dis-agree in lucid and unambiguous terms. Perhaps if we learn this lesson well the world will profit from our presence. The religious communities are now £eeling the pain of dialogue in the most intense fashion. Dialogue has hardly even begun on the parish level and, given our cultural and religious background, it will be only through an "authoritative" command of bishops over a long period that parish-level dialogue will be triggered and sustained. In the meantime religious communities will be asked to dare this dialogue structure of authority. If they are hard pressed in doing so, it is no great surprise. The question is: Is it not worthwhile? The third and most obvious area of the religious' dare is the matter of chastity. Chastity is required of all Christians by reason of their baptismal vows. Unfortu-nately, it is often understood in purely negative terms without much realization that a purely negative view is uhimately insulting to Christ. Yet, the purpose of Christian chastity is that every Christian learn from Christ what it is to be an authentic human lover. Such is the logic of the sacrament of matrimony, in which a couple accepts Christ into the heart of their human love, making His attitudes the standard for their own relationship. What this implies, too, is that, when Christ is introduced into the heart of human love, that love is forced to become open to other people beyond the lovers themselves. For the commitment to Christ as the standard and support of human love opens the couple out to Christ's community who help to interpret the standard and to support the couple in their pursuit of human love. Hence Christ makes even the private love between man and woman more open to others and more enriching for all. The religious extend this principle of openness in human love through Christ. By introducing Christ even more into the heart of his love, he opens himself out to more human contacts, to relationships of support and understanding with more people. Whatever the ac-tual scope of the religious' concern for and contact with people, his intention, and the content of his dare, is to give himself to as many as possible through Christ. Or, to put it more in the actual terms of his awareness, his instinct and his hope is that in not giving himself to one woman in Christ, Christ makes of him a man for all men and women. There are two observations to be made concerning the religious' chastity. First of all, a vow 0f chastity is not something which blots out in the religious an aware-ness of his own capacity for married love. In fact it seems that the more authentic hi~ dare in this area the more proximately ready he should be for married love. We might even say that, without ever mildly compromising his commitment, the religious should try to keep ready in order that his dare never become a sort of misguided m~prise for other ways of living and loving, and in order that his devotion to the Lord preserve its own proper relationship to other loves. Religious love Christ not with some globally undifferentiated or asexual love, but men love him as a man and women love him as women. And unless one has some notion of what the difference between the two is, one risks marring the appropriate overtones to the individual's relationship to Christ. The second remark to be made is that the religious also serves those for whom human love between a man and a woman is a physical, psychological, or economic impossibility. In an affluent sodety who cares for the un-gainly loves? Who sympathizes for the awkward, the ugly, the malproportioned? For people in whom love crouches like a deformed child? For those for whom their own sexuality is an embarrassment or a grotesque albatross? For whom communication with the other sex is at best a halting dumb-show or hollow bravura and at worst a mockery? Against the standard of successful married love, these people are judged severely in most societies. We do our best to hide them, or not to discuss them, because we surreptitiously set up as an absolute standard of human dignity success in married love. The presence of religious can do much to dissipate this false assessment of human dignity. Sooner or later, some0he is going to have to explain the religious who, while he insists on his own dignity, does not measure it by the imperious standard of successful married love. And others, seeing the religious, can take hope for their own dignity. Conclusion Our analysis has not left us without questions. This is inevitable since any theological image is no more than that, a way of understanding a faith experience which constantly runs ahead of our images of it. In admitting the difficulty of reconciling the image of daring with the service aspect of the vows (service to Christ and to men), we are simply expressing in other terms the perennial problem of reconciling love of self with love of others, ÷ ÷ Th~ ToI! the problem of being a self in the world. Other prob-lems lie beneath the surface of our consideration of the content of the religious' dare. A kind of parallel think-ing urges us to conclude that, just as the religious ends up not marrying, not having possessions, so too he should end up not choosing in the face of a superior's commands. This is indeed an aspect of his dare, but only in the sense that the religious foregoes choosing to limit dia-logue, just as he foregoes limiting his human love to one woman and just as he foregoes limiting his person to his possessions. The superior's commands should not ignore the positive purpose of the vows which are not supposed to be some kind of exercise in how-long-can-you-go-holding- your-breath. The religious superior has to realize that the vows open up the religious to the service of all. Moreover the superior has to realize that he is dealing with the daring of an individual person and that his function as superior is not to get individuals to conform to some imaginary and generalized "will of Christ." The superior's main role is to let Christ work in the life of the individual religious, without himself insisting a priori on the possible ways in which and only in which Christ can work. The religious superior can never interfere with the general lines of the structure of the religious life itself. If, as we suggested, these general lines require the re-ligious to dare the baptismal commitment to poverty, chastity, and obedience, it becomes all the more im-portant for religious superiors today to examine their own attitudes toward how the Church today is formu-lating the baptismal commitment. On this point, the general argument in the Church over what the implica-tions of Christian baptism are is taking a further toll on individual religious who feel that their dare is up in the air while the general argument rages. It is hardly sur-prising, then, that the optimists and pessimists line up in about the same way on the religious life as they do on the Church itself. It is curious, however, how optimism also resembles a dare. ÷ ÷ ÷ George C. McCaul~y, S.J. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS JOHN W. STAFFORD, C.S.V. Prayer Life in the Contemporary Community Introduction There are several approaches to a reflection on the prayer life of the contemporary religious community. One could enter the reflection, with the bias that there just does not seem to be much prayer going on these days in the contemporary community, either private, personal prayer or communal prayer. In that case the title of this paper might have been altered to read: "The Decline and Fall of Prayer in the World of Today." A second bias might be a more joyous one. Freed from the routine of the so-called religious exercises, the con-temporary religious leads a life of prayer that is unself-ish, authentic, meaningful, and full of compassion and concern for one's fellow man in God's world of today. The times and places of prayer are utterly unimpor-tant, but there is prayer going on. The forms of prayer are informal, perhaps free-form, or even utterly form-less. But there is substance to the prayer, and substance is certainly more important than form. Our title then might have been: "Come, All You Gals and Guys, Let's Strum a Prayer to the Lord." Or, if one wants to risk use of a language that is not exactly alive and jumping, the title might even be, with a certain appropriateness: "Laborare Est Orate." A third approach might be from the bias of the har-monizer, the synthesizer, the cool observer of the con-temporary scene, who perhaps thinks he is without bias. The reflection then would focus on what is good in the prayer life of religious in the past that should be pre-served, on what should be modified to conform to the needs of today (with a reference, of course, to Perfectae ÷ ÷ ÷ John W. $taf-ford° C.S.V., lives at 1100 Forest Avenue; Evanston, Illinois 80£02. VOLUME 28, 1969 747 + + ]ohn W. Sta~ord, C~.V. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS caritatis, n. 3), and finally on how entirely new concepts of prayer can enrich our religious life. The title of all this could well be: "The Adaptive Renewal of Prayer Life in the Contemporary Community"; perhaps more briefly: "Old Wine in New Bottles", or maybe: "Old Wine in Your Own New Plastic Bag." There could even be a fourth approach (and I am sure more), that of the planner and the prophet. The reflection would be directed towards some kind of schema of prayer life to fit the tempo and needs of to-day. There could be principles and propositions, a sort of blueprint or script or scenario for the ideal type of prayer life for a contemporary religious. This could be entitled simply: "How the Religious of Today Should Pray." The approach here, no doubt with conscious and un-conscious overtones of all four of the above, will be what may be rather grandiosely called phenomenological. The reflection will be that very difficult one of attempting to look at the prayer life of religious factually and with-out bias, non-judgmentally. Perhaps in any meaningful sense this is practically impossible, not only because of the lack of truly factual information, but. also due to man's apparently irresistible drive to look at every-thing through the basic biases of his being. The Facts of Contemporary Prayer The hard facts of the contemporary prayer life of religious are not easy to come by. There are all sorts of things going on ad experimentum; but there seem precious few real experiments with verified data that can be communicated and dealt with in objective study. There are, of course, some generalizations frequently made, but of dubious value. Some examples: religious today have largely lost the true spirit of prayer; there is less prayer today, but better prayer; there is really more prayer going on, in pri,date, although less in public to be seen by others; there are new modes of prayer around that are truly prayer even though they cannot at all be classified into the categories of the past. No doubt such statements are true for selected nmnbers of people, but how generalized we can make them it is impossible to say. But it seems that, based on widespread observation and report, some true generalizations are possible about the present-day prayer behavior of religious. Fewer religious are seen in their chapels, either for private prayer before the Blessed Sacrament or for com-munal exercises of prayer. When they do come together to pray, it is on a schedule that is notably more flexible and less demanding than even only a few years ago. There certainly has been adaptation in prayer "to the physical and psychological conditions of today's reli-gious" (Perfectae caritatis, n. 3). Changes in the forms of communal prayer have been widespread: exercises formerly thought best performed in common, like spiritual reading and visits to the Blessed Sacrament, are now considered more personal and private. The formulas of morning and evening prayer, which in many congregations grew like barnacles over the decades and even over the centuries, have been largely replaced by the official prayers of the Church, Lauds and Vespers or Compline. More recently, these official prayers have lost some of their novelty in those congregations where they were only recently introduced; hence there has been a rather widespread substitution of other readings for the Psalms, and this has here and there taken forms that are as contemporary as the latest popular literature. Today, then, there is certainly more variety, more improvisa-tion, more individual participation in prayer than there has been in the "Official" Church for centuries. It seems that another notable change with regard to the prayer life of religious is that, even though there may be less praying in public, the whole question of prayer has become explosively public. People talk about prayer more than perhaps at any other time since the Golden Age of Spanish mysticism in the sixteenth cen-tury. But the talk today would hardly be understood by a Spanish or any other variety of mystic: it deals not with degrees of the spiritual life, not with problems of aridity and desolation and dark nights of the soul, but with the very relevance of forms of prayer and of prayer itself in a secular age. There is a frankness in today's discussions about prayer totally unknown before. The superiority of prayer over service to others is seriously questioned. The assumption that there should be the same prayer for all at the same time and in the same place is simply rejected. And some of the traditional prayers of the Church come in for especially withering criticism, like the clear implication in the Hymn at Lauds for the Christmas season that the Infant Jesus was cold and hungry, and that choice bit from Psalm 136, at Thursday's Lauds: "Happy the man who shall seize and smash your little ones against the rocks." And "Good Night, Jesus," just does not seem to swing on an electric guitar. The whole place of prayer in the religious life, es-pecially in the formative years, has come under ques-tioning scrutiny. It would seem a valid generalization that until fairly recently young religious fresh "out of the world" and into the novitiate, for the most part, first were taught to pray, according to the accepted 4. 4- 4- Prayer LiJe VOLUME 28, ].969 749 ÷ ÷ ÷ John W. Sta~ord, C~.V. REVZEW FOR RELZG[OUS forms and customs of the congregation. Then, in seclu-sion from the world they learned how to live in charity with one another. Finally, if they belonged to the active societies, after a number of years of formation it was considered safe to permit them to engage in some form of external apostolate for the service of others, where they would meet "people of the world." Throughout they were taught to do all this for Christ who is God. It is not at all. clear that the concepts of Christ and of God of many religious today are those of even a decade ago. The Thomistic God of the philosophers is by no means accepted by all religious today. Maybe this was true a generation ago, too, but the fact is that if it was, one just did not say so! And views of Christ held today by many religious might have been labeled as tainted with heresy not at all long ago. It is not popular today to begin with prayer, for God through Christ, then move on to carefully guarded relationships with a highly se-lected group of chosen souls presumably much like yourself. You begin with people. In your encounters with people you learn more of yourself; and, if you are lucky, you come to see that people, ultimately, cannot really fulfill the totality of human needs. So God enters in, transcendent, it is true, but not at all the God with the carefully distinguished attributes of the old theo-logical manuals, and by no means always the God to whom novices formerly were taught to pray. But this God, nevertheless, is still a God to whom one prays. As everyone knows, a notable change in the prayer life of the contemporary religious, as in the prayer life of the whole Church, is the restoration of the centrality of the divine liturgy. Even though the importance or even the wisdom of daily Mass is questioned widely, and the forms of the Mass by no means always held to what is officially permitted, the Mass is still the great prayer of religious. It is a fact that many are dissatisfied with the Mass unless it is made something that they consider authentic, .dynamic, and fulfilling. The Liturgy of the Word is modified to fit the needs and interests of the participants, and the spontaneous changes made in the Liturgy of Sacrifice are in the direction of more personal meaningfulness and of greater social relevancy. A final fact that might be noted in today's prayer life of religious is that it can no longer be considered as restricted to the "ghetto" of the convent chapel. For the Mass at least, religious join more often than before with others in public church or university chapel. And those who do not belong to the congregation have now a warmer welcome than ever before to worship with religious in their own chapels. Religious, too, like all in the Church, have come to see that ecumenical prayer is a beautiful witness to the uriity and brotherhood of mankind. The PersonabCommunity Tension Throughout what has just been said we can distill out, amongst other things, a tension between the per-sonal or the private and the communal or public that, it would seem, is the greatest in history. Whether, as some would say, in the past the person became lost in the group or, as others would say, the group bestowed per-sonal fulfillment on the individual, there did in fact seem less tension between the two. Some things were done privately, some together; there seemed litde debate about it all. Certainly, there have always been in reli-gious communities as in all societies this elemental con-flict between the individual and the collectivity, the age old philosophical and very real and practical problem of the one and the many. But the conflict was generally controlled in the area of religious prayer. Today we witness a tremendous development of per-sonalism, of emphasis on the dignity and integrity of the individual. Though there is around, even in our highly sophisticated society, a lot of compulsive conforming to group norms and tribal customs, there is a more wide-spread and more intensive insistence on the importance of the individual. Read the documents of Vatican II and the pronouncements of our own contemporary popes; read the Declaration of the Rights of Man of the United Nations; recall the Four Freedoms of a generation ago; note the contemporary emphases everywhere on the rights of conscience and on freedom of religion; look at the map of the world. Everywhere there is insistence on self-government of peoples, on responsible self-determi-nation of the individual. Truly we can call this the supreme age in history of the individual person. Paradoxically, we can also see that never before in history has there been more "community." This can be seen, at one level, in the communications explosion of our age, the mass media of communication, the break-down of barriers of space and time by jet and satellite. Although there is certainly not peace throughout the world, nevertheless as never before in history a political or diplomatic brushfire anywhere is watched with alarm lest it become a world conflagration. Even though all men are by no means brothers, there is a longing for universal brotherhood, and progress towards it, that are truly remarkable. There is a concern for the poor and the unlettered and the deprived of the world as never before. This is clearly evident on a more local level. Vast groups of our own population are outraged, not because + + Prayer Liye VOLUME ~8, ~tg&~ ¯ 751 + 4. 4. John W. Sta~o~d~ .$.V. REVI