Denver Catholic sisters under Vatican scrutiny of their lifestyles, missions and obedience to Rome say there is a simple answer to investigators' questions about their fidelity: "We are trying to live the gospel," said Sister Cathy Mueller, president of Denver's Loretto Community.
A three-year Vatican investigation of U.S. women in religious orders that began last December is examining the quality of the Catholic sisters' vocations — and assessing whether they are faithful to church teaching.
Heads of orders, including Mueller, must complete detailed questionnaires on their religious practices by Nov. 1. Visits to some congregations by Vatican representatives will follow in early 2010.
Last month, as she prepared to travel to Pakistan to start a new mission, Mueller said she had little knowledge about Rome's agenda, but that her order will cooperate with characteristic integrity.
"We work for justice and peace because the Gospel urges us," Mueller said. "We don't feel as if we have anything to hide."
The sisters of several orders sounded respectful of the Vatican investigation, yet not contrite or cowed.
"There are struggles in every institution. We want to be reverent. We love the church," said Sister Patty Podhaisky, a Marycrest Franciscan and teacher at Arrupe Jesuit High School.
The Vatican has expressed concern that the numbers of U.S. sisters have declined to fewer than 59,000, from about 175,000 in 1965, according to Georgetown University's Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate. The average age of U.S. sisters is the mid-70s.
"Sometimes it takes a crisis to bring new hope," said Bette Anne Jaster of the Dominican Sisters of Hope. "We can always examine how to live vitally in every moment."
The National Catholic Reporter, an independent weekly newspaper, has said the probe was ordered in part because American sisters had not addressed problems raised by the Vatican in 2001 about faithfulness to church doctrine, especially relating to issues such as homosexuality and male-only priesthood.
American sisters are seen as generally more liberal than the church patriarchy.
"Catholic sisters have always traveled with people who were at the margins of American society," Mueller said. "Sisters started schools where there were no schools. They opened hospitals where there were no hospitals. We're still working at the margins. We go where needs aren't being met."
Thirteen years ago, Mueller and Jaster co-founded the Denver nonprofit EarthLinks, which offers picnics, hikes and gardening opportunities for the homeless and underprivileged.
"We're all about community-building," Jaster said. "We have it in our bones."
Podhaisky said sisters are not easily pigeonholed and run the gamut from ultra-liberal to very traditional.
"We can hold these tensions, these differences, and still cooperate and collaborate with each other," Podhaisky said. "We build consensus."
Despite diversity within their own communities, Mueller said, "We know we all belong."
Sister Karen Crouse, head of the Marycrest Franciscans, said rank-and- file Catholics have been supportive.
Crouse said one sister was stunned when, after word of the investigation became widespread, she walked into church before Mass to a standing ovation. "People just stood and clapped and clapped," she said.
Yet the idea that women who helped pioneer American frontiers need the physical, social and spiritual protection of patriarchy has been held for centuries, said Sister Sandra M. Schneiders, a member of the Michigan-based Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and a professor at the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley, Calif.
This "cultural gender oppression" may be in its death throes in the Western world and the Catholic Church, Schneiders wrote in an essay that appeared Sept. 11 in the Reporter. And yet, she wrote, "many people have expressed the suspicion that the current investigation of non-cloistered women Religious in the U.S. is another spasm in this misogynistic agenda."
The investigation was ordered by Slovenian Cardinal Franc Rode.
In July, the woman directing the Vatican's study, Mother Mary Clare Millea, sent a letter and working paper to orders under scrutiny.
It cited the areas of concern as doctrinal fidelity, dwindling numbers of women in religious vocations, internal governance, admission and formation policies, spiritual life, communal life, mission, ministry and finances.
The Leadership Conference of Women Religious, an association representing 95 percent of the 59,000 U.S. sisters in 341 congregations, issued a statement in mid-August that their orders "have always been fully accountable to the church and plan to collaborate with the Vatican in these studies."
However, the official statement expressed concerns about "the lack of full disclosure about the motivation and funding sources" of the study.
The Vatican has asked U.S. bishops to cover some of the $1.1 million cost, according to a letter recently obtained by the Reporter.
Meanwhile, Denver sisters say they will participate in the investigation with humility.
"Obedience for us is listening carefully — listening to the Spirit," Mueller said.
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