However Long the Night: Making Meaning in a Time of Crisis ed. by Annmarie Sanders

Abstract

Reviewed by: However Long the Night: Making Meaning in a Time of Crisis ed. by Annmarie Sanders Br. Patrick Sean Moffett, CFC However Long the Night: Making Meaning in a Time of Crisis. Ed. Annmarie Sanders, IHM. Leadership Conference of Women Religious, 2018. Pp. 184. $14.99. The cover makes explicit the kerygma of the text: However Long the Night, Making Meaning in a Time of Crisis, A Spiritual Journey of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), The story of how an organization found an alternate, contemplative way of working through impasse. Edited by Sr. Annmarie [End Page 217] Sanders, IHM, the testimony of the sister protagonists in this most unique journey merits recognition as documentation of a critical episode in the shared journey of our contemporary church. Many subscribers to Review for Religious would have awaited and then welcomed the report when it was first issued in 2018. Review for Religious, meanwhile, was in its dormant period. This review chronicles the book's place in the emerging story of religious life in the post-Vatican II era. On April 18, 2012, in the Vatican offices of the Congregatio Pro Doctrina Fidei, the Cardinal Prefect of the then-CDF presented to the officers of LCWR a Doctrinal Assessment of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious. The sisters were in Rome for their annual consultation with various Vatican congregations. Although there had been rumblings beginning in 2009, they had not anticipated the issuance of such a statement and were shocked to learn it had been made public. The entire text was posted on the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops website moments after its presentation. The headquarters of LCWR was inundated with requests from news agencies for comment. The Sisters, while still in Rome, decided on initial silence as they processed what was needed. They were deeply disturbed by encountering accusations of lack of faithfulness to the Church to whom they had committed their lives. The document contained obvious fallacies of fact, as well as interpretations, prejudices, and judgements from unnamed sources. However Long the Night makes clear the temptation to react was visceral. Nevertheless, communal discernment among membership, contemplation, and prayer, had become their core approach to all the major issues of the Conference. This would be no different. In the post Vatican II, pre-Francis era, LCWR had pursued a path of renewal guided by the Council document Perfectae Caritatis. They reported annually to what was the Vatican's Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life (CICLSAL, but post-June 2022 the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life). The religious congregations whose leadership they served, had followed the call to re-examine the charisms of their founders and intensify their faithfulness to Jesus Christ and the Gospel, the Church and her Mission, and to the women and men of today. Modalities of communication had become more open, styles of leadership more communal and less hierarchical. The practice of the virtue and vow of obedience involved deep personal and communal discernment. Listening attentively to each other, sharing insights, embracing diversity, contemplation, and communal invoking of the Spirit had become guideposts for their interactions. The CDF spoke a different language. In a clarification visit in June of 2012, LCWR's explanation of how they saw their organization and its ministry was reported by the Cardinal Prefect to a public news source as "a dialog with the deaf" (83, endnote 3). [End Page 218] Enter the story of Jacob and his night long struggle as a "God-wrestler." In contemplation, the sisters came to welcome the mandate as a gift they would have never sought but understood to be an invitation to a more integral engagement with the mystery of God. Reverence for the journey to which they had been summoned required respect for the office and persons who were the agents of the call. The media pressed for interviews, ever ready to advance stories of division, subplots of persecution, and hints of vendetta. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of letters of support and indignation along with a steady stream of financial contributions arrived. Clearly the sisters would have considerable public support were...