A questionnaire covering the life and operation of 341 congregations of women religious in the U.S. was sent Sept. 18 to congregational leaders.Distribution of the questionnaire opens the second phase of a comprehensive study of U.S. institutes of women religious announced in January and ordered by Cardinal Franc Rode as prefect of the Vatican's Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life.
Topics covered in the questionnaire were outlined in a July 28 working document, known in Latin as an "instrumentum laboris."
Topics include identity; governance; vocation promotion, admission and formation policies; spiritual life and common life; mission and ministry; and finances.
The questionnaire originally was scheduled to be sent in early September with a deadline for completion of Nov. 1.
With distribution delayed until mid-month, the deadline for completing the questionnaire has been adjusted to allow the congregational leaders adequate time to work on it, the apostolic visitation office's Sister Eva-Maria Ackerman, a member of the American province of the Franciscan Sisters of the Martyr St. George, said in an e-mail.
The questionnaire as well as a letter from Mother Mary Clare Millea, superior general of the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the apostolic visitator charged by the Vatican with directing the study, were to be posted on the apostolic visitation Web site Sept. 21.
Sister Eva-Maria told CNS that Mother Clare would not comment on the questionnaire.
Under the timeline established by the apostolic visitation office in Hamden, Conn., information from the questionnaires will be compiled and congregations will be selected for apostolic visits beginning in January and continuing throughout 2010.
The study covers about 59,000 American nuns, all but those living in cloisters.
Mother Clare's final report, expected in mid-2011 and based on what will be learned from the questionnaires and the apostolic visits, will be sent to the Vatican congregation. It will not be made public.
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SIC: CNS