New Vatican religious leader to US sisters: 'Keep hope'

Amid the continuing uncertainty of two separate Vatican investigations into their lives and work, U.S. Catholic sisters "can never lose hope" about their role in the church, the new second-in-command of the Vatican office that oversees them said Tuesday.

The difficulties of the moment, said Franciscan Fr. Jose Rodriguez Carballo, the new secretary of the Vatican's Congregation for Religious, "can never take us to despair."

"In the moment of least hope, the sun could shine -- and I can see it," Rodriguez said. "I invite [the sisters] to prayer, discernment and dialogue -- communion. These are the three words that the consecrated life always has to have present."

Rodriguez, appointed to the Vatican post April 6, spoke exclusively to NCR at the sidelines of an international meeting of leaders of women's congregations.

The interview, which lasted about 20 minutes, is the first the new secretary has given to an English-language news outlet since the announcement he was leaving for the Vatican from his former post as the minister general of the Orders of Friars Minor, which traces its roots directly to 13th-century St. Francis of Assisi.

Rodriguez's comments refer to two investigations launched by separate Vatican offices of U.S. women religious in the last several years.

One, launched by his congregation, looked into the lives of the individual orders of U.S. sisters. The other, launched the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, investigated their umbrella group, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), which represents about 80 percent of some 57,000 U.S. sisters.

Cardinal João Braz de Aviz, the head of Rodriguez's new Vatican office, told the approximately 800 sisters gathered for the international meeting Sunday that the doctrinal congregation never consulted him on its investigation of LCWR and said the lack of communication caused him "much pain."

In his interview Tuesday, Rodriguez also spoke on the status of investigation his congregation launched, known as an apostolic visitation; on his view on the future of religious life; and on Pope Francis' mission for the church.

The new pope, Rodriguez said, wants to remind people that the "mission of the church has to embrace everybody."

That means "we're not going to exclusive, we don't exclude others," Rodriguez said. "The mission of the church is always inclusive. It doesn't exclude anyone."

Rodriguez spoke to NCR shortly before celebrating Mass Tuesday for the sisters gathered in Rome, who were meeting under the aegis of the International Union of Superiors General, a membership group for some 2,000 leaders of Catholic sisters around the world.

Opening the Mass, Rodriguez thanked the sisters for their invitation for him to join them and assured them that "the congregation is there at your service, do not doubt."

"Ask what you need," he told the sisters. "We are there to serve you because we love you, the way you are. We love you."

"I've had the possibility to visit the world three times over," Rodriguez said during a homily later in the Mass.

"In the most forgotten corners ... in the most arid spiritual deserts, there I always found a community of sisters who gave courageous witness to the Gospel," he said. "As little ones among the littlest ones, teaching healing, accompanying all kinds."

"What would be of the thousands of thousands of poor people who you serve without preserve?" he asked. "I am convinced that the church needs you because the world needs you."