An internationally known religious author and theologian has decried
religious congregations for continuing to impose Western European and
American styles of religious life on religious communities in the
developing world.
Addressing Vocations Ireland’s spring seminar in Dublin last weekend on the theme, Living the Resurrection – Being the Good News of God,
Megan McKenna criticised the emphasis within the “dominant
culture of Catholicism” to impose its clothes, language and devotions on
local churches and religious communities in places like Pakistan,
Bangladesh and Africa.
“One young nun said to me, ‘We have to wear their clothes, to pray in
their language and we have to say their devotions – they never ask us.
We have to do it their way’,” Ms McKenna told ciNews.
The writer, who has written more than thirty books, including Send My Roots Rain and The New Stations of the Cross,
told nearly 100 vocation directors, representing up to 60 congregations
from across Ireland, that one of the dangerous characteristics of
religious living was a tendency to think that other people were the
problem, “whether it is the people you minister to or the people above
you in the Church or a different group like the clerics or the ones that
don’t go to church.”
Warning vocations directors of the pitfalls of seeking out new
members who “think like you, act like you, pray like you, look like
you”, she said this would only make the current vocations situation
worse.
As members of religious communities, she told the assembled priests
and religious, “more than anybody” they were supposed to be asking as a
group “how do we need to be converted publicly on a regular basis.”
“It is too easy and when you hang around with people who think like
you, act like you, pray like you, look like you to say ‘we’re doing the
best we can; stop pushing’ or ‘we’re ok, it’s them’.”
She added that this became especially pronounced when members of
religious communities were all the same age group. "The older you get,
the harder it is to change,” she acknowledged.
The rise of
individualism within religious communities was blamed by the American
author for causing major problems within religious life today.
Megan McKenna told the seminar that the emphasis on members “doing
their own thing” meant that new members were no longer “joining a
community – they are joining a loose-knit organisation.”
“This attitude of ‘I want to do this job; I want to go study this’ is one of the major reasons why communities are breaking down”, Ms McKenna told ciNews.
In a hard-hitting address, the American author also lashed out at the sense of entitlement that she warned was pervasive in culture generally and warned that it was particularly dangerous for religious communities as well as marriage.
“This sense of entitlement comes from being part of the structure of the dominant culture. The longer you are part of the dominant religion or culture, the more that sense of entitlement grows.” She also warned that this sense of entitlement in turn led to individuality.
The American said that despite their best efforts, the Church had not managed to undermine base communities that continued to flourish across South and Central America and in Africa.
“They tried their darndest because they want to go back to the glory that was Rome and what the medieval Church was. That is not what the future will be,” she claimed.
Paying tribute to Irish missionaries, Megan McKenna said the there was a time when Ireland was known for its missionaries who went all over Africa and South America.
But because of the abuse scandals, she warned that the Church in Ireland was “folding in on itself.”
She warned that most people in vocations ministry were looking for vocations among the 18-40 age group and were “not looking for anything other than what we have got now” and to “keep that going.”
This she warned would be “the kiss of death.”