Catholic Religious Australia’s new president says aging memberships and declining numbers in some religious congregations in Australia are just a reflection of a changing society. Source: The Catholic Leader. Source: The Catholic Leader.
“That doesn’t mean God is abandoning Australia,” Ursuline Sister Kari Hatherell said.
The Australian Ursulines provincial took over the CRA leadership role in August. With about 150 members, CRA is the peak body for the leaders of religious institutes and societies of apostolic life in Australia, covering congregations of sisters, brothers and religious priests.
“It’s putting the voice of Catholic Religious Australia into the public debate,” Sr Hatherell said.
And it came down to listening and working in a synodal way.
“Religious have practised that without knowing the name, perhaps, for a long time. It’s a coming together, listening to each other and trying to find ways to work together,” Sr Hatherell said.
It was something the Church in Australia was doing well, she said.
One area it had worked hard and faithfully at was responding to the recommendations from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
“The majority of the members of the Church have understood the issues and have not denied what happened,” Sr Hatherell said.
“They have tried to commit themselves to make the Church and the world a safer place. Is it perfect? No. But there’s a sense that we’ve discovered that we need to work together.
“It helps us as Catholic religious not to work in silos but together, for a more just and a more open Church.”
Looking to the future as several congregations age and lose a presence in Australia, she commended larger Church organisations moving their ministries into Ministerial Public Juridic Persons – a legal entity under Canon Law created to oversee specific Church ministries run by lay people. So, when a congregation did die out, the work could carry on.
It would not be the first time that religious groups had come and gone, she said.
“It doesn’t mean that we as congregations haven’t been living good and faithful lives. It just means that there’s a change in society, a change in the Church,” she said.
“The seed that dies eventually bears fruit. I don’t know what that fruit will be in the future,” she said, expecting religious life to be smaller than the ones that built big institutions, schools and hospitals.
FULL STORY
God is not ‘abandoning Australia’, reminds religious sister as Church navigates changes (By Kymberlee Gomes, The Catholic Leader)
