May 24, 2022 On Wednesday, May 18, 2022 Pope Francis promulgated a rescript which grants the Congregation for Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life (CICLSAL) the authority to allow non-clerics to serve as general or major superiors of mixed congregations. The rescript concerns, in part, canon 588, §2, which [...]
May 10, 2022 It is assembly season for the conferences of religious, with many of the English-speaking conferences having already announced the date of their annual assemblies. In the United States, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious' assembly will be August 9-12 in St. Louis, MO, on the theme of [...]
By Tommy Tighe. Notre Dame, IN: Ave Maria Press, 2021. Pp. 224; $17.95. Sr. Josephine Garrett, CSFN is a native Texan, born and raised in Houston. She moved to Dallas in 1999 to begin studies at the University of Dallas where she completed a BA in Political Philosophy [...]
On February 15th, 2022, Pope Francis issued the motu proprio "Competentias quasdam decernere" (full text here), which contained a number of important changes to canon law. Nearly all of these changes have a decentralizing focus, often by transferring rights or responsibilities previously held by the Holy See to bishops or major superiors. [...]
By the Daughters of St. Paul. New York, NY: Tiller Press, 2021. Pp. 240; $19.99. Juliet Mousseau, RSCJ, is the Vice President of Academic Affairs at the Franciscan School of Theology. She completed her doctorate in historical theology at Saint Louis University in 2006. After teaching at Saint [...]
On February 2, Pope Francis celebrated the the 26th World Day for Consecrated Life on the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord. Preaching on the Gospel passage of the day (Lk 2:22-40), Pope Francis asked religious to consider three questions: What moves us? What do our eyes see? Who [...]
On January 17th, 2022, CICLSAL and the Synod of Bishops released a joint letter outlining how consecrated religious can participate in the synodal process. Signed by both Card. Braz de Aviz, prefect of CICLSAL, and Card. Grech, Secretary General of the Synod, the letter indicates it is a response to [...]
January 14, 2022 Sr. Catherine, an English Benedictine nun who goes by the online handle "DigitalNun," recently shared that she was close to death. Reflecting on the diagnosis and how to handle her final days, she writes: [A monk and a fellow nun] confirmed my opinion that Catholicism can be [...]
Fr. Aaron Wessman, GHM reflects on an unexpected lesson from the pandemic: the gift of true and open listening that his community stumbled upon while quarantining during the first waves of the pandemic. Reflecting on that experience, he asks what lessons it might hold for others thinking about how [...]
Review for Religious is pleased to offer a new essay format: group book reviews on a single topic. We select topics which may be of interest to religious but are not specifically about religious life. For our inaugural bookshelf, biblical scholar Sr. Joan Cook, SC reviews a broad sampling [...]