__LAST WORD________________________

Obedience with a Twist
Anyone can defy the Vatican. It takes someone special to advertise flat defiance as a form of obedience.

A few weeks ago, a friend sent me a statement issued by Sister Christine Vladimiroff, the prioress of the Benedictine Sisters of Erie, Pennsylvania. I found the statement so extraordinary that I have reproduced it here—in italics, with a few comments.

For the past three months I have been in deliberations with Vatican officials regarding Sister Joan Chittister’s participation in the Women’s Ordination Worldwide Conference, June 29 to 31, Dublin, Ireland. The Vatican believed her participation to be in opposition to its decree (Ordinatio Sacerdotalis) that priestly ordination will never be conferred on women in the Roman Catholic Church and must therefore not be discussed. The Vatican ordered me to prohibit Sister Joan from attending the conference where she is a main speaker.

The Vatican “believed” that participation in the Women's Ordination Conference signals opposition to the Church's doctrinal stand on the ordination of women. Sister Vladimiroff does not concede the accuracy of that perception.

I spent many hours discussing the issue with Sister Joan and traveled to Rome to dialogue about it with Vatican officials. I sought the advice of bishops, religious leaders, canonists, other prioresses, and most importantly with my religious community, the Benedictine Sisters of Erie. I spent many hours in communal and personal prayer on this matter.

Sister Chittister flew to Dublin, Sister Vladimiroff to Rome. Just out of curiosity I wonder who paid the airfares. Might those funds have been donated instead to the annual collection for aging nuns? 

After much deliberation and prayer, I concluded that I would decline the request of the Vatican. It is out of the Benedictine, or monastic, tradition of obedience that I formed my decision. There is a fundamental difference in the understanding of obedience in the monastic tradition and that which is being used by the Vatican to exert power and control and prompt a false sense of unity inspired by fear. Benedictine authority and obedience are achieved through dialogue between a community member and her prioress in a spirit of co-responsibility. The role of the prioress in a Benedictine community is to be a guide in the seeking of God. While lived in community, it is the individual member who does the seeking.

A few paragraphs ago the Vatican had “ordered” her to keep Sister Chittister home; now she declines the “request.” But Sister Vladimiroff tells us that her direct disobedience is an act of obedience. Obedience, she tells us, has a higher meaning than merely following orders from a legitimate superior. Reading these words, I felt the urge to grab a bottle of Jack Daniels, and drink a half-dozen toasts to the higher meaning of temperance.

Sister Joan Chittister, who has lived the monastic life with faith and fidelity for fifty years, must make her own decision based on her sense of Church, her monastic profession, and her own personal integrity. I cannot be used by the Vatican to deliver an order of silencing.

So we never get to know whether Sister Chittister would also have invoked the “higher” obedience, and told her prioress to soak her head.

I do not see her participation in this conference as a “source of scandal to the faithful” as the Vatican alleges. I think the faithful can be scandalized when honest attempts to discuss questions of import to the Church are forbidden.

The Vatican sees a scandal. Sister Vladimiroff does not. The “controlling authority” in this case is the obedient nun. And would you hazard a guess as to what the prioress herself thinks about women's ordination? 

I presented my decision to the community and read the letter that I was sending to the Vatican. One hundred twenty seven members of the 128 eligible members of the Benedictine Sisters of Erie freely supported this decision by signing her [sic] name to that letter. Sister Joan addressed the Dublin conference with the blessing of the Benedictine Sisters of Erie.

So Sister Chittister wasn't really acting independently, was she?

My decision should in no way indicate a lack of communion with the Church. I am trying to remain faithful to the role of the 1500-year-old monastic tradition within the larger Church. We trace our tradition to the early Desert Fathers and Mothers of the 4th century who lived on the margin of society in order to be a prayerful and questioning presence to both church and society. 

So now we learn the “higher” purpose of the Desert Fathers—and don't forget those Desert Mothers! 

Benedictine communities of men and women were never intended to be part of the hierarchical or clerical status of the Church, but to stand apart from this structure and offer a different voice. Only if we do this can we live the gift that we are for the Church. Only in this way can we be faithful to the gift that women have within the Church.

The Benedictine Sisters of Erie do not want to be part of the hierarchical structure of the Church. I think something could be arranged . . . . 

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