JUST as the Roman census was useful for the authorities of Jesus’ time, it remains an invaluable tool for the Church, but two Brisbane religious say the numbers do not tell the whole story.
The Church’s annual report was released by the Church’s Fides news agency on World Mission Sunday and covered the period of December 31, 2020, to December 31, 2021.
There are nearly 609,000 women religious in the world today, outnumbering even priests.
But last year, the Church recorded a substantial drop in women religious worldwide of 10,588.
Breaking this figure down by continent – Europe lost 7800 women religious, the Americas lost more than 5000 and Oceania lost 240 while Africa gained more than 2000 and Asia gained almost 400.
Brisbane Vicar for Religious Ursuline Sister Mel Williams says it is important to take the “long view of history”.
She said fluctuations in the number of religious had happened across time.
“Religious communities are usually founded for a need,” she said.
Many of the orders now diminishing arose in the 17th and 18th Centuries when there were desperate needs to educate the poor and provide healthcare.
Sr Williams pointed to St Mary of the Cross MacKillop as an example of a woman stepping up to serve this need through a religious life dedicated to educating the poor.
She said the strides made by religious in Australia’s own health and education systems could not be overstated.
The mission continues too, she said.
Many of these orders today have established Public Juridic Persons to continue the work through organisations that employ lay people in place of religious.
Not only that, the needs evolve and the religious adapt with them, she said.
Today there are Australian religious making strides in emerging areas of concern like displaced people, human trafficking and aged care, she said.
“I am terribly proud of the religious of Australia,” she said.
Vocations Brisbane women’s discernment leader St Paul De Chartres Sister Theresa Maria Dao says she is full of hope for the future of religious life.
All vocations are encountering new challenges, she says, and many are suffering as a result.
But she also saw it as a deeper call to prayer.
Sr Dao says all vocations must move as one.
All vocations are nurtured in the family and community where a child is raised, she says.
She encouraged parents to begin praying for their children’s vocations from when they are in the womb.
Children must also encounter religious and priests for the vocation to be a possibility, she said.
When she goes into a school, Sr Dao asks the children what they want to be when they grow up.
She remembers one child piped up, “a police officer”.
She asks why and they say because they saw a police officer and they waved at them one day.
“It’s that simple,” she said.
Sr Dao said 50 years ago, children grew up seeing religious in their schools and communities.
She praised the “immensity of their contribution” to Australia and the world, but unfortunately most children today did not see them in the schoolyard.
She says religious need to be present for the vocation to flourish and all it takes is a wave or a smile.
Sr Williams said religious life did not have its own sacrament like Holy Orders or Holy Matrimony, which provided special graces to those who undertook those vocations.
Instead, the Second Vatican Council called religious life an “ampler manifestation” of baptism.
Sr Williams said that was interesting to think about, especially now as the Church invited all the baptised more deeply into their calling as priest, prophet and king in a more synodal Church.
She pointed to the letter from the Holy See after the recent Synod on Synodality, which explained the role of consecrated life in the Church’s synodal path.
“She (the Church) also needs to let herself be questioned by the prophetic voice of consecrated life, the watchful sentinel of the Spirit’s call,” the letter said.
That deeply resonated with Sr Williams.
She said religious must be attentive to the signs of the times.
This, in many ways, was about “facing reality as it is” and staying true to the call, a trait which she admired.
She remained full of hope for the future of the vocation because the “human spirit is always longing for God”.
Sr Dao urged Catholics not to place too much weight in numbers.
“God will provide,” she said.
In the meantime, she said, tell children about the saints and visit churches with religious in them.
Asked who her inspiration from the Scriptures was for religious life, Sr Dao said the Mother Mary.
Mary gives her fiat to God, she said.
“Religious life is about saying ‘yes’ to the plan of God in our lives,” she said.
And once you say yes, religious life becomes about “giving birth to Jesus in the world”.
“I can’t think of a better image than Mother Mary,” she said.
For Sr Williams, her inspiration was the woman by the well, who she called the “great disciple”.
She said it was a beautiful story about a woman encountering Jesus and then she goes off to tell everyone she knows.
The people she spoke to go to see for themselves and do believe that Jesus is the Messiah.
The way the woman by the well simply invites others to Jesus and then gets out of the way, that to her resonated with religious life.
If you would like to find out more about religious life, please head to: vocationbrisbane.com
