Upon This Tradition

The founders of the first Benedictine communities expected to continue their European monastic way of life in the new mission field. But because of the primitive living situations on the frontier, the extreme physical poverty, and the apostolic needs of the Catholic immigrants, the sisters had to adapt their lifestyle to new circumstances in order to survive and to serve. The most evident adaptation was their inability to observe the confines of the traditional European cloister, as their crowded quarters often served as convent and boarding school.

Mother Benedicta Riepp, the superior of the sisters at Saint Marys, soon found herself in conflict with Abbot Wimmer over questions of jurisdiction. When she appealed to Rome to clarify her authority as superior, the Vatican responded with a decree (December 6, 1859) that the Benedictine women in America were to be under the jurisdiction of their local bishop. Furthermore, they were required to substitute simple vows for solemn vows, apparently because they were not keeping the strict enclosure which was associated with solemn vows. (1)

Another alarming change was initiated by Abbot Wimmer, acting solely on his own authority. Without consulting the sisters, he petitioned Rome in 1858 to decree that the American Benedictine women should substitute the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary for the Divine Office. (2) No doubt he thought he was doing the sisters a favor by lightening their prayer obligations. But this decree, granted in 1866, together with the previous decree of 1859, effectively deprived the American sisters of three of their basic monastic rights: autonomy, solemn vows, and the Divine Office.

Some major consequences followed. First, certain members of the hierarchy refused to recognize the sisters as Benedictine monastics. For example, Bishop William Ullathorne, OSB, of Birmingham, England, wrote to an American prioress in 1880, From all that I have heard about Benedictine women of the United States, . . . you do not appear to be true religious in the canonical sense of the term, but rather a pious Institute, bearing the Benedictine name. (3)

Second, the Benedictine nuns of Europe considered the Americans unfaithful renegades who had indifferently abandoned their precious monastic tradition. The separation from the European motherhouses was officially solidified in future church documents, in which the strictly enclosed Benedictine women were classified as moniales or nuns, and the American Benedictine women were classified as sorores or sisters. From all sides it appears that the American sisters were considered apostolic rather than monastic religious.

Moreover, salt was rubbed into the American sisters' wounds by the realization that their brother monks in North America, who lived a similar lifestyle without strict enclosure, were not deprived by Rome of their autonomy, solemn vows, nor the Divine Office. Thus, the American monks were not divided into a class separate from their European roots, but continued to be recognized as observant monastics.

In the decades that followed these decrees, ministry in the fledgling American church kept the sisters so occupied with missionary endeavors that they did not ponder the long-term consequences of the above changes. Nor did they use their resources in seeking to reclaim their full monastic identity. Rather, their energies were expended in responding to the demands of bishops and pastors for schools, orphanages, and hospitals, together with evangelization of the immigrants and Native Americans. With apostolic zeal for the Gospel and the vigorous momentum of pioneers, they staffed parochial schools while at the same time building their own educational and health-care institutions, thus participating in the rapid expansion and development of the Catholic Church in North America.

Despite being deprived of some aspects of monastic life, the sisters never wavered in their conviction that they were faithful to the Benedictine tradition. In the early 1900s communities began to reclaim the Divine Office (which some had never relinquished in spite of the Vatican decree). (4) They also began to organize themselves into congregations, which exempted them from the authority of the local bishop by placing them under Vatican auspices. (5)

Following the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), North American Benedictine women took seriously the mandate of the Council to renew their way of life. The Council instructed religious communities to return to their roots and to reclaim the charism of their founders:

The appropriate renewal of religious life involves two simultaneous processes: 1) a continuous return to the sources of all Christian life and to the original inspiration behind a given community and 2) an adjustment of the community to the changed conditions of the times. . . . Loyal recognition and safekeeping should be accorded to the spirit of founders, as also to all the particular goals and wholesome traditions which constitute the heritage of each community.(6)

In response to this mandate, Benedictine women reexamined the Rule of Benedict and Benedictine history to ponder more deeply the ancient charism of their monastic heritage. They discovered that the history of Benedictine women was mostly invisible in the standard histories of the Benedictine Order. Their contributions to church, culture, art, education, and health care in Europe and North America were minimized, if mentioned at all.

They noticed that, in most cases, North American Benedictine women were regarded as apostolic religious rather than monastic because of their lifestyle and ministry. Yet in their current experience they found little that distinguished them from their Benedictine brothers who were considered monastic. These sisters began asking why the male Benedictines were allowed to continue the European tradition of living in abbeys with abbots for leaders, while the sisters lived in convents rather than abbeys and had prioresses rather than abbesses for leaders. They asked why the men professed solemn vows while the women were allowed to profess only simple vows. They questioned why they were invited to pay dues to the Benedictine Confederation of Benedictine men (which elected the Abbot Primate and published statements on Benedictine life) but had no representation or voice in this body.

Because of such questions and the emerging answers, American Benedictine women began to realize a desire to claim their identity as true monastic women whose lives were an authentic expression of the Benedictine tradition. They owned a history in North America of which they could be proud. They recognized the need to articulate the genuine monastic identity of American Benedictine women, for the benefit of their own communities, of other Benedictines, and of the universal church. They wished to establish that they had not been disloyal to the long tradition of the Benedictine monastic way of life. Rather, historical and ecclesiastical circumstances had affected and modified their manner of life from the time the first monastic women set foot on the shores of North America more than a century earlier.

Now, a hundred years later, Benedictine women obediently accepted the Vatican II authorization to experiment with prayer forms, government, and lifestyle before revising their constitutions. The late 1960s and 1970s were unsettling yet exciting times as experiments flourished, new habits appeared, and schedules were adapted to be more humane. Sisters were allowed to take more personal responsibility in regard to schedules, spiritual life, finances, family visits, and vacations. New prayer forms, committee structures, and small groups emerged, based on the popular concepts of collegiality and subsidiarity. Many North American communities hired facilitators to assist them in the process of adapting their heritage to contemporary culture.

Other observable changes occurred as Benedictine communities of women decided to change the name of their motherhouses from convent to the monastic terminology of priory. Their new constitutions, in the process of revision in the 1980s, clearly identified the Benedictine women's houses as monastic. Sisters slowly and hesitatingly began to name themselves as monastic women. Their motherhouses soon underwent another name change from priory to monastery. However, some sisters felt fear as well as pride in this designation: fear that monastic would mean strict enclosure, uniformity in dress and behavior, rules of strict silence, and authoritarian government. Nevertheless, their designation as monastic was increasingly treasured by the women as they grew in understanding and appreciation of what monastic meant in 20th century North America.

In the 1970s, the Conference of American Benedictine Prioresses, composed of the prioresses of the fifty-some communities in North America (who had been meeting biennially as a group for the past twenty-some years) began sharing their hopes and concerns regarding their monastic identity. They often found themselves trying to describe and validate their monastic identity to the publics they served, to the hierarchy of the church, to their Benedictine brothers, and to their founding houses in Europe. They continued to probe the question, What does it mean to be a monastic woman in the American Benedictine tradition? They were convinced that they had been loyal in retaining their monastic identity while adapting to the needs of the American church and society.

Convinced in their own hearts of their genuine monastic identity, the prioresses determined to proclaim publicly that American Benedictine women had been and continued to be loyal daughters of Benedict and Scholastica. Thus in 1975 the Conference of American Benedictine Prioresses published the first of a series of documents entitled Upon This Tradition. In this document they claimed and explained their authentic Benedictine identity for themselves and for the church. Subsequently, four more documents were published before the end of the century: Of Time Made Holy, Of All Good Gifts, Toward Full Discipleship, and With a Listening Heart.

These documents have provided a highly valued common resource for North American Benedictine women, as they continue to be used in every community for reflection and study in initial and ongoing formation programs. Communities have also distributed them to their local bishops, neighboring monks, their European motherhouses, and other international communities.

In 1999 the Conference of American Benedictine Prioresses decided that the five documents then in existence needed to be republished and combined in a more user-friendly format.

Original Process of Composition of the Five Statements
Sister Pascaline Coff of Clyde, Missouri, was president of the Conference of American Benedictine Prioresses when the first document was initiated in 1974. In a memo dated Epiphany, 1974, Sister Pascaline reported to the members of the Conference on a meeting of the presidents of the four American congregations (St. Scholastica, St. Gertrude, St. Benedict, Perpetual Adoration). They decided it was timely to compile a statement of basic American Benedictine values, . . . which might be a stepping-off point for formation programs among us, supplying the basis for structural procedures which reflect our values, . . . [and say] to the church and to the world who we are.(7)

The writing process for the document was created and chaired by another Conference member, Sister Joan Chittister of Erie, Pennsylvania, president of the Federation of Saint Scholastica at the time. She continued to chair the work and contribute to the writing of the next three documents when she served as president of the Conference from 1975-90.

The writing committees for the first four documents were composed of the presidents of the four congregations. Two professionally competent sisters from each congregation were also appointed to the committee. In a recent communication, Sister Joan Chittister recalled that the purpose of this structure was to keep the presidents involved and responsible for the final documents.(8) Usually the committee met only twice, although there were also phone consultations. At the first meeting, the material was outlined and writing assignments given. The second meeting was held a couple days before the whole Conference gathered for their week-long retreat/ workshop. During this week, the prioresses reviewed the drafts, made suggestions, and finally endorsed and took ownership of the documents. The names of the writers were not published, since the documents appeared as A Statement of the Conference of American Benedictine Prioresses. However, in Appendix B of this edition, the names of the members of the writing committees are listed.

Of this process, Sister Joan commented that the writers formed healthy, competent, and committed committees. . . . We took the best thinkers, the best teachers, and the most experienced writers and tried to turn out a document that could speak a common language to us all. She further added:

Each of these documents--with one exception, the document on women--was received by the prioresses with great support, encouragement and enthusiasm. The document on feminism brought out the underside of patriarchal formation in all of us. Fear of offending men, abbots, monks, etc., and lack of feminist sensitivity even in women emerged with great clarity. (9)

Editorial Comments
The content of the documents has proved to be inspiring, formative, and generally timeless. However, since they were composed in their own historical milieu, some portions may appear somewhat dated today. Changes have occurred in our monasteries since then--partly as an effect of these documents themselves.

The first document was influential in encouraging communities to reclaim a more monastic vocabulary. In 1975 the motherhouses were mostly identified as priories. Twenty years later most were known as monasteries. Therefore, in the first documents, the earlier term appears.

As the issue of inclusive language came to the forefront in the 1970s and 1980s, Benedictine women were at first intent on horizontal inclusivity, as generic men became men and women, and brethren became brothers and sisters. It took a few more years to recognize that God language also had to be revised. So in the early documents, masculine pronouns were used for God.

To retain the historicity of the these documents, as reflecting their dates of composition, the Conference decided that the original text should be retained in this new edition.

Since the translations used for the Scriptures and the Rule were not identified in the original documents, they remain unidentified in this edition.

Notes
(1) Decree and Rescript quoted in Incarnata Girgen, OSB, Behind the Beginnings: Benedictine Women in America (Saint Joseph, Minn.: Saint Benedict's Convent, 1981), 156-57. See also the following two works: Ephrem Hollerman, OSB, The Reshaping of a Tradition: American Benedictine Women, 1852--1881 (Saint Joseph, Minn.: Sisters of the Order of Saint Benedict, 1994), 113, 241; and Judith Sutera, OSB, True Daughters: Monastic Identity and American Benedictine Women's History (Atchison: Mount Saint Scholastica, 1987), 37-38. These three books are essential resources for Benedictine women's early history in North America..

(2) Letter of Boniface Wimmer to Scholastica Burkhardt, quoted in Girgen, 188. See also Hollerman, 292.

(3) Quoted in Sutera, 151-154.

(4) Hollerman, 294-95.

(5) The Congregations of Saint Scholastica (1922), Saint Gertrude (1937), and Saint Benedict (1947) have since been renamed Federations. The fourth group of American monasteries is the Congregation of Benedictine Sisters of Perpetual Adoration. A small number of other monasteries founded in North America have membership in international congregations.

(6) Walter M. Abbott, SJ, ed., 'Decree on the Appropriate Renewal of the Religious Life,' in The Documents of Vatican II (New York: America Press, 1966), 468, #2.

(7) CONFERENCE CALL (newsletter), minutes of meetings, and letters of the Conference of American Benedictine Prioresses are located in the Archives of the Conference at Mount Saint Scholastica Monastery, Atchison, Kansas, where Sister Mary Louise Krenner is the Conference archivist. They are also on file in the archives of Sacred Heart Monastery, Richardton, North Dakota, and in most other women's monasteries in North America. Therefore no further reference will be noted in the rest of this book.

(8) Joan Chittister, OSB, (Mount Saint Benedict Monastery, Erie, Pennsylvania), response to editor's questionnaire of June 10, 2000.

(9) Ibid

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Upon This Tradition Homepage

©Conference of American Benedictine Prioresses, 2001-2002