I am spending the weekend with a group of Dominican Sisters. They have to be, in all honesty, the coolest women I have hung out with in quite awhile. And, if things had gone just a bit different in my life, I would most certainly consider joining them. It is so strange to type that, but it is a completely true statement.
I think the Catholic church is losing something very important as its religious orders age and die. I especially think this is the case for women religious. Male religious orders are declining too, but since the church's hierarchy is made up of predominately men, the Catholic church is in no great risk of losing "the male perspective." As the orders of women religious disappear, the voice of women in the church will become even more diffused than it is today. This diffusion is what I find troublesome.
It is already challenging enough to be a women in the Catholic church. The challenge, at least for me, comes from the fact that I can only stand at the table on one side because of my gender. Where a man might want to be ordained but chooses not to because of the requirements, I am not able to make that choice. The deepest difficulty is that I am not given the chance to make that choice because I am biologically seen as not qualified. My very biological essence that gives me life is what prohibits me from choosing. Therefore, each time a priest says Mass he reinforces for all women (especially young girls) that they are, to the core, inferior.
Here is where I think women religious give an incredible depth to the Catholic institutional experience. They are a community joined together by their gender, their call to ministry, and living a vowed life. Their shared gender forces the church to deal "with women" as a collective group. Once "Sisters" is no longer a predominant grouping in Catholicism, its "gendered" voice will be gone. As that voice is silenced, the masculine voice will deepen its hold on the Catholic faith.
The scary thing about all of this? I will live to see it happen.
