address: MISSION AND TRANSITION (April 07)

 

at a Colloquium on Mission and Identity in Church-based Organisations
Australian Catholic University
April 12 2007

 

 

How do religious congregations sustain their mission and identity in their lives and in their institutions during a time of transition, in particular as their institutions pass from religious to lay leadership?

 

The topic allows me to reflect on four years as Jesuit Provincial and on the last few months as President of Catholic Religious Australia. This body gathers the congregational leaders of some 175 religious orders in Australia. They represent about 8,000 Australian religious on mission at home and abroad.

 

When religious speak together about planning, I have noticed two styles of conversation. They reflect two views of the future of our religious communities. One style is of those who believe they have a real future. They may be unsure what that future is. But even as they age, diminish and change, they are not dying. International congregations often display this buoyancy. Although their numbers may be shrinking in Australia, in other parts of the world they continue to grow.

 

Other communities, particularly the very local and smaller ones, display a different style. They may not have received novices for twenty or thirty years and their average age of members now nears 70 or more. Though their members live remarkable lives of witness, they cannot realistically hope that their communities will survive. Instead, most plan realistically to live out their lives with integrity, true to their calling in the church to be contemplative and to serve others.

 

The reality of religious life in Australia today is complex. The number of religious in the Australian Church is clearly diminishing. In 1977 there were about 17,500 religious in Australia. Today there are just over 8,000. Holiness, generosity, zeal and integrity are patent. Alongside traditional religious life are also new forms of religious life. All of us today face a similar challenge: to discover how best to remain on mission, to bring life to the Church, and to pass on our rich heritage to the next generation.

 

In the Church now there are now many ways of service. Lay people find increasing opportunities for ministry. Forty years ago in Lumen Gentium (30— 38), Vatican II saw that the Church of the future is the Church of the Laity and that lay and religious roles are complementary. Many religious then recognise that part of their role is to help develop lay leadership in the Church. This transition is more complex than changing shifts — it must be thought through well. Religious will continue to have a role in the Church. We must ask how today laity and religious can best serve the needs of people through the Church.

 

Vatican II called religious life the prophetic dimension of the Church. Religious make the life of the Church more vigorous and its work more fruitful. The Council called religious to re-imagine themselves. We were asked to return to the Gospel, the source of all Christian life, and to the original inspiration behind our particular religious community. We were also called to adjust to the changed conditions of our time.

 

Among the 'changed conditions' we might count the growth in the number of lay people who offer leadership of mission in the Church; the growth in the institutions that were originally inspired by religious, especially in health care, education and social services; and the numerical diminishment and ageing of religious. These changed conditions we may also include the stigma of abuse, which marks many sectors of the Church today. Like the Church as a whole, religious communities are buffeted by the cultural and historical forces at work in society.

 

Religious are particularly affected by the fact that lifetime vocation is rare today. The average person, I am told, has 11 jobs in a lifetime. Timothy Radcliffe remarked that "a vocation, whether to be a priest or a religious, to be married, or to practise a profession, goes against the grain. It is a witness to our hope that my life as a whole may have some sense. I do not just do things; I am called to be someone, and a vocation is part of saying who I am." (What is the Point of Being a Christian, p 198)

 

There is a need then to present religious life freshly, to re-image, not just re-imagine religious life. Some communities have been particularly vigorous in renaming and reshaping their lives and work. But changing conditions force all of us to consider who we really are, and what kind of actions and institutions will truly reflect our identity. In doing that, we attend seriously both to the original inspiration that formed our congregations and to the transfer of the organizations we have begun. In making this transfer, we want to honour the original inspiration. Different congregations have approached the communication of inspiration and mission in different ways. I would like to identify five of these approaches.

 

1. Integration: In this approach laypersons are invited to take leadership roles in mission within the corporate ministries of a congregation.

 

In our Australian Jesuit Province, for example, are about 150 Jesuits. The number of active members diminishes by around 5 a year, mostly through ageing and its consequences. Yet our ministries count around 2,000 laypersons who are either employed or volunteers. We invite all of these to join the mission of the Province. Some respond with great alacrity and energy to this invitation and give themselves to the Province's ministries as a vocation. Around half of our Jesuit ministries are now under lay leadership.

 

To engage in this process we need to be very clear about our mission. It requires induction, orientation and formation of those who respond to the invitation. We need to identify the essential characteristics of our institutions so that we can measure and evaluate them in the light of the mission. It is not appropriate for a religious congregation to remain identified with any institution that no longer reflects its mission, especially the faith and service of the poor that are at the heart of mission.

 

I stress the service of the poor because it is central to the Gospel. In our day, too, it has also been emphasised by the Church as central to Christian life and as central to the witness of religious congregations. Service of the poor is not based in ideology but in attention to the faces of those who are most in need, and in accompaniment of them. This attention will guide the ways in which we serve the poor and advocate for them.

 

 

Sometimes these arrangements involve transferring the assets of one congregation into the safekeeping of another congregation so that they can continue to be used for mission. Other initiatives are simply first steps. For example, the women's congregations of Ignatian inspiration have formed a consultative body that reviews how they run their schools. Such association often leads to practical cooperative projects. Several religious congregations (Mercy Sisters, Christian Brothers and Josephite Sisters), for example, combined their social service organisations to form the MacKillop Family Services. When the original inspiration of many groups flows into partnerships, it can lead to confusion. We again need to be clear about the mission and so about the characteristics of the new organisation.

Partnerships with dioceses or with diocesan organizations, such as Catholic Education Offices, have so far proved more problematic. While some Catholic Schools are re-discovering the value of their distinctive inspiration, we find the diocesan organizations are curiously unaware of the continuing institutional role of religious congregations.

 

 

The Christian Brothers have done this with their schools in setting up Edmund Rice Education Australia (EREA). Some congregations engaged in health care have taken or are seeking to take similar steps. The Mercy Sisters in WA did this for a range of social services.

 

The task is complex, because to set up a new juridical person means also to create a new personality. Obviously the Congregation desires that this new personality will reflect the original inspiration that gave it birth. But given the new composition of the body, this cannot be taken for granted. Much work needs to be done to clarify the mission and values that inspire the new body, and to recruit the people who can drive the project.

 

 

The Jesuit Refugee Service, with its motto, "to accompany, serve and defend refugees", is such an organisation. Although it comprises only about 100 Jesuits, it nonetheless is active in some 60 countries and recruits thousands of co-workers, some of whom are religious.

 

 

Brother 'Ollie' Pickett, for example, set up the 'Wheelchairs for Kids' workshop that designs and manufactures low-cost, robust wheelchairs. They have been sent to children in India, Cambodia, East Timor, China and El Salvador who have lost the use of their lower limbs through landmines or other causes. They have so far provided over 1300 wheelchairs. Olly has also helped establish similar factories in three locations overseas.

 

In Brother Ollie's factory retirees volunteer their time and service to construct the wheelchairs. Their work helps them feel more valued in society. That the factory is sometimes called a Rotary project shows that many can rightly lay claim to it. But its spirit is ultimately bound to the leadership of one person whose identity is shaped by his religious vocation as a Christian Brother.

 

In a similar way Mercy Sister Patricia Pak Poy initiated a Landmines campaign and gained the support of the Australian, Lao, Vietnamese and other governments. Having set that project moving she is now working to establish "Hope Adelaide", a movement that reaches out to Burmese, especially refugees, who suffer HIV/AIDS. Both of these effective projects perfectly reflect the Mercy spirit, yet they do not need to carry the corporate identity of the Mercy order.

 

These examples show that religious believe the Spirit to be present in both world and Church. They also believe that if religious life is to serve people it must be responsive to the changes in the world. The examples also point to elements that must be present if the inspiration of the religious congregation is to be carried over through a time of transition. I would like to conclude by naming seven of these.

 

The congregation must be clear about its mission and consequently about the mission of the work that it wishes to maintain in a new form.

 

The congregation must exercise strong leadership, either corporately or through an individual, in the process of transition.

 

The religious community as a whole must support both the transition and the preservation of its inspiration in it.

 

The mission must include some real form of identification with the poor. Because this is central both to the Gospel and to any form of religious life that wishes to witness to the Gospel, it must be maintained in the process of transition.

 

As they plan to carry on their ministry in changed ways, congregations must also reflect on the changing needs of our day. Institutions need to be adapted to the changing circumstances in which they work. This requires constant discernment.

 

Because transition in religious congregations requires organisational change, it must be supported by knowledge of how organizations work and skills in implementing change. Large desires are necessary, but not sufficient.

 

Religious congregations are nurtured and guided by the stories they tell of the initial inspiration that shaped them. The importance of telling good stories cannot be overemphasised when we attempt to carry over the inspiration of the congregation into new structures of ministry.