The Apostolic Visitation of Women Religious in the US

Vatican City, Nov 3, 2009 / 12:12 pm (CNA).- Cardinal Franc Rode issued a statement on Tuesday in response to questions about the motivation for the ongoing apostolic visitation of the women's religious communities in the United States. He said that his dicastery had been considering a visitation for years and that a report on the objective findings will be made public.

As prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life—which is heading up the visitation—Cardinal Rode said that he hopes it will “encourage vocations and assure a better future for women religious.”

The prefect also shared information about the decision-making process that led to the launch of the visitation. “For many years this dicastery had been listening to concerns expressed by American Catholics – religious, laity, clergy and hierarchy – about the welfare of religious women and consecrated life in general, and had been considering an Apostolic Visitation as a means to assess and constructively address these concerns,” Cardinal Rode said.

He also mentioned the September 2008 Symposium on Religious Life which was held on the 200th anniversary of the Archdiocese of Boston at Stonehill College. The gathering, he said, made the “multitude and complexity of these issues” clear and helped him understand that “such an evaluation of the challenges facing individual religious and their congregations could benefit the Church at-large as well as the sisters and institutes involved.”

“My hope,” Cardinal Rode added, “is that the Apostolic Visitation will not only provide the Holy... (Continued here).