Pope Francis frequently denounces
two aspects of modern culture: the way it encourages people to throw
away whatever or whoever they no longer find useful and the belief that
nothing lasts forever, not even love.
Hundreds of members of the Franciscan family -- friars from different
branches as well as different congregations of religious women --
gathered in Rome Oct. 29 to discuss the impact the "culture of the
provisional" is having on religious life.
In brown robes or black veils or bright batik African scarves, the
sisters and friars spent a day discussing a key challenge for modern
religious life: "fidelity and perseverance."
The problem is decades old, but all the speakers quoted Pope Francis'
succinct descriptions of the cultural atmosphere that makes it difficult
today for young people to make lifelong commitments and encourages
those who have made vows to head for the door when trouble arises.
Meeting with families -- grandparents, engaged couples, parents and
children -- in late October, Pope Francis said the "culture of the
provisional cuts life up into pieces." Meeting with novices in July, he
said he'd once heard a seminarian say he would go forward to ordination
and "try out" the priesthood for 10 years, and then he'd see.
That's not the way it's supposed to work, the pope said. A vocation is a
call by God, who loves continuously and endlessly. God's love is
reflected in the sacrifice of Christ, who died to save human beings "not
provisionally, but for eternity," he said, and making vows is a
person's response to that everlasting love.
The October conference was part of an ongoing, long-term project of the
Franciscan friars to study why so many religious are leaving and what
orders can and should be doing to help members live their permanent vows
permanently.
Father Michael Perry, minister-general of the Franciscans, said speaking
openly of the "reality and fragility" of religious life is necessary if
orders are going to calmly and objectively find responses to "a reality
that often is embarrassing for us."
Archbishop Jose Rodriguez Carballo, former superior of the Franciscans
and secretary of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and
Societies of Apostolic Life, told the gathering that religious "can't
obsess over" the number of members who leave each year, "but we also
can't bury our heads in the sand."
Between 2008 and 2012, he said, the congregation for religious issued
11,805 dispensations, releasing men and women from their religious vows.
Other religious received dispensations from the congregations for the
Doctrine of the Faith, for Bishops and for Clergy, which brings to about
3,000 the average number of perpetually professed religious leaving
every year.
The figures, he said, work out to be about 2.5 dispensations annually
for every 1,000 consecrated men and women with perpetual vows. The
Vatican's Statistical Yearbook said that at the end of 2011, there were
903,363 religious priests, brothers and sisters in the world, but that
figure includes those with temporary vows.
"We shouldn't be alarmed, but we must not fall asleep," either, the
archbishop said. As Pope Paul VI once said, "Fidelity is not the virtue
of our age."
Archbishop Rodriguez said the way many people watch television today --
"channel surfing" -- is the way they go through life, "not taking on
long-term commitments, passing from one experience to another without
let any of them impact their lives."
While recognizing that the dispensation applications submitted to his
office may not fully reflect the reason a person is leaving religious
life, the archbishop said the leading explanations fall into the
categories of: "absence of a spiritual life," leading to a crisis of
faith; "loss of a sense of belonging to a community" or even to the
church; and "affective problems," including falling in love and
struggles with chastity.
The response of religious orders, he said, must begin with being very
clear and even blunt with potential members, letting them know what
religious life entails and not offering them what he described as
"discounts."
At the same time, the archbishop said, religious communities can't be so
eager for new members that they'd accept just anyone, and they can't
simply "clutch" those they have, but must challenge and offer support to
those in crisis.
Sister Concetta Resta Zaccaria, superior of the Franciscan Immaculatine
Sisters, said it's very difficult to convince young people today that
love is forever and, therefore, so are marriage and consecrated life.
"Young people see their parents love each other only for a time" and
then get divorced, so "how can they think it's forever?"
In religious life as in family life, she said, "it's all about love. You give up everything for it."
Striving for holiness in a religious community "means struggling, loving
others even if they are annoying," Sister Concetta said. "It's not
easy. Maybe today you can do it and not tomorrow, but you keep trying."