Author Archives: Tereza Ma

International Pentecost Celebration

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PEARL – Mexican dancers perform as part of the 13th annual international Pentecost celebration at St. Jude Parish. Families bring food to represent their homelands and different groups present cultural exhibits such as music and dance. Dozens of nations are represented each year including the Phillipines, Germany, countries in Central and South America. The event also featured a drawdown-style fund-raiser for the Carmelite Sisters. (Photo by Tereza Ma)

Calendar of events

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SPIRITUAL ENRICHMENT

COVINGTON, La., Abbey Christian Life Center, Couples Retreat, June 9-10. Cost: A donation of $275 is requested but not required. Details: www.FaithandMarriage.org or call Jason Agelette at (504) 830-3716.
GREENWOOD Locus Benedictus Spirituality Center, The Redemptorist priests of Greenwood are now available at the retreat center on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 1-4 p.m. for spiritual direction, the Sacrament of Reconciliation, and prayer. Details: (662) 451-7980.
KENNER, La, The Catholic Charismatic Renewal of New Orleans (CCRNO) will sponsor its annual Day of Refreshment for Women on Saturday, June 23, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Kenner, in the school gym. The theme is “We Walk by Faith, Not by Sight.” Patti Mansfield and Kim Lukinovich will teach; Andi Oney and Denise Beyer will lead praise; Janice Charbonnet and Mary Lukinovich will give testimony. Cost is $30 and includes lunch. Enjoy teaching, fellowship, small groups, prayer ministry and music by Mercy Beaucoup. On-site registrations are accepted but no lunch is guaranteed. Details: (504) 828-1368 or register online at www.ccrno.org by Wednesday, June 20, noon to order lunch.

PARISH, SCHOOL AND FAMILY EVENTS

AMORY St. Helen, Book Discussion on Lilac Girls by Martha Hail Kelly at the parish hall on Monday, June 11, at noon. Everyone is invited to read the book and plan to join in the discussion. Details: (662) 256-8392.
CLEVELAND Our Lady of Victories, High School Seniors’ Mass and breakfast, Sunday, June 3 (change of date) at the 9 a.m. Mass. All parishioners are welcome to attend both. Details: (662) 846-6273.
Takeout smoked chicken dinner, Friday, June 29. The Knights of Columbus are pre-selling tickets to raise money for the annual Relay for Life. Details: Michael Lott, Grand Knight (662) 588-6163.
GREENVILLE Sacred Heart, parish picnic, Sunday, June 3, at 1p.m. Details: (662) 332-0891.
St. Joseph, 7th Annual Delta Soul Celebrity Golf and Charity Event benefitting the Steve Azar St. Cecilia Foundation, June 7-9. The event promises to be filled with the southern hospitality and laidback good times. Sponsorship and participation opportunities available. Details: deltasoul@sascf.org.
HERNANDO Holy Spirit helps feeds the hungry at Garden Cafe on Thursday, May 31, and Thursday, June 28. Volunteers are needed for set up, serving and clean up. Details: (662) 429-7851.
Father’s Day Brunch, Sunday, June 17, sponsored by the Ladies Association immediately following Mass. Bring your family and celebrate. All fathers eat free. Tickets will go on sale at the weekend masses beginning June 2-3. Cost: adults other than fathers $10.00 and $5.00 for children. Details: (662) 429-7851.
Annual bazaar, Saturday, September 22. This is a later date due to a calendar conflict. Details: (662) 429-7851.
SHAW St. Francis of Assisi, Rediscover Catholicism by Matthew Kelly at 9:30 a.m. after Mass, beginning Friday, June 1. Everyone is invited to attend. Details: church office (662) 754-5561.

YOUTH BRIEFS

CLARKSDALE, St. Elizabeth, College/young adult Bible study, Wednesdays at 6 p.m. They will be using the Symbolon program as the basis for studying apologetics (why we believe what we believe). Details: Sarah Cauthen at (662) 645-6260.
JACKSON St. Richard, “Somethin’ for Summer, How Great is our God” in the Mercy Room, remaining sessions are June 13, July 11 and August 8 (second Wednesdays), 6:30 – 7:30 p.m. DVD presented by Louie Giglio, a motivational speaker who uses science and astronomy to show how big our God is and how every detail is all part of his plan. Details: (601) 366-2335.
MADISON, St. Francis of Assisi, Castaway Creative Arts Camp for fifth and sixth graders, June 18-22, 9 a.m. – noon. An Assistant Camp Director is needed. Details: (601) 856-5556.
St. Joseph School, Fine Arts Department will host a choral camp, June 4-8. Open to students currently in grades 3-6. Details: Michael Hrivnak at mhrivnak@stjoebruins.com
Bruin Soccer Camp, May 29 – June 1, 8 a.m. – noon. Cost: $135. Details: ddemmin@stjoebruins.com.
Jr. Bruin Baseball Camp on June 19-21 for boys in Pre-K through rising 7th grades at D.M. Howie Field from 9 a.m. – noon. Cost is $100.00 per camper. The Bruin coaching staff and players will be on hand to teach the fundamentals of baseball. This camp is for beginners, as well as the most experienced players. Walk-ups will be welcome. Details: Please pre-register with Coach Gerard McCall at gmccall@stjoebruins.com.
NATCHEZ St. Mary Basilica, Summer Choir Camp, July 16-20, 9-11:30 a.m. Let your child learn the joy of song in the context of children’s choir. Students also will complete a visual arts project and serve as music ministers for the 5 p.m. Vigil Mass on Saturday, July 21. Details: Register online at www.stmarybasilica.org or email musicdirector@cableone.net.

Jubilarians both dreamed of becoming priests from childhood

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By Maureen Smith
JACKSON – Abbot emeritus Thomas DeWane, OPraem grew up “surrounded by Norbertines” in Green Bay Wisconsin. His family, five siblings and his parents, attended a parish staffed by Norbertines. The order also ran the schools he attended, so it was natural for him to enter the order as soon as he graduated from high school.
This summer, the abbot will celebrate his 60th anniversary of ordination. His family will gather at their old parish in Green Bay for Mass and then a meal at a local restaurant on Sunday, June 3. The Norbertines always celebrate their significant jubilees on the Feast of St. Norbert, Wednesday, June 6. A classmate of Abbot DeWane will join the celebration along with two priests celebrating 50th and two more celebrating 25th anniversaries this year.
“I always wanted to be a priest, I used to play at being a priest when I was a boy,” said Abbot DeWane. He remembers the Norbertine Sisters encouraging him to pursue the vocation. He spent most of his career in education management, as a principal, director of education and dean of student affairs, all around the Green Bay area. When it came time to retire, he decided he wanted to stay in ministry and maybe even try something new.
“I saw our priory in Mississippi and thought I would come help them,” he said. He enjoys helping out with works of mercy. “I have been involved in prison ministry in Yazoo and Washington. I am the chaplain at the VA hospital so I minister to the sick and parish work, I am the sacramental minister for Magee (St. Stephen parish),” he explained.
The abbot said his vocation has brought him great joy. “I am happy, I have never regretted any of it.”
Father Alphonse Arulanandu dreamed of being a priest from the time he was a child. In May of this year, he gave thanks for 25 years of priesthood at the First Friday healing Mass at Leland St. James parish, where he is pastor.
“I came from a farmer’s family in a rural area so we only had a priest come a few times a year. It was a privilege to be able to go to Mass every Sunday,” he said. The youngest of four, Father Alphonse said his family prayed all the time. When he left to become a priest, he served 2,000 miles from home so the idea of coming to Mississippi was not that far-fetched.
“I just wanted to go and explore more places the way the missionaries who came before did,” he explained. He heard about the missionary Diocese of Jackson while he was serving in Louisiana and decided to apply. He has been here for six years, serving at Brookhaven St. Francis before going to Leland, and said he is enjoying the people in the diocese.
Early in his career, Fr. Alphonse did social work in institutions such as hospitals and Catholic Charities. He is glad that he can now serve in a parish. “My goal in life is to spend more time with the people in my parish, praying with them when they are sick, visiting with them, things like that,” he said. “I like this place and I like the diocese and the people here.”

(Editor’s note: Mea Culpa. When I produced the previous issue of Mississippi Catholic, I inadvertently omitted these two jubilarians. I offer my deepest apologies. -Maureen Smith)

Pastoral Assignments 2018

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Father Augustine Palimattam is appointed pastor of Meridian St. Patrick and St. Joseph Parishes effective Thursday, July 5.
Father Darnis Selvanayakam is appointed pastor of Philadelphia Holy Cross Parish effective Thursday, July 5.
Father Binh Nguyen is appointed pastor West Point Immaculate Conception Parish effective Thursday, July 5.
Father José de Jesús Sánchez is appointed pastor of Greenwood Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish effective Wednesday, August 1.
Father Joseph Le is appointed parochial vicar of Tupelo St. James Parish effective Monday, August 20.
Father Raju Macherla is appointed chaplain for St. Dominic’s Health Services effective Monday, August 20.
Joel Schultz is appointed Lay Ecclesial Minister of Booneville St. Francis of Assisi Parish and Iuka St. Mary Mission effective Sunday, July 1.

Parishes grow only when people are welcomed, heard

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By Cindy Wooden
ROME (CNS) – After months of study and discussion, the parishes of the Diocese of Rome have recognized “a general and healthy exhaustion” with doing the same things over and over, touching the lives of fewer and fewer people as time goes on, Pope Francis said.
Changing the way parishes – and their priests and involved laity – operate will not be easy, the pope said, but members of the diocese must set out to follow the Lord more closely, deal with the reality in their neighborhoods and learn how to show everyone living within the parish boundaries that they are recognized and loved.
Pope Francis addressed some 1,700 diocesan leaders, both clergy and laity, May 14 at the Basilica of St. John Lateran, the cathedral of the diocese of Rome.
In the process of identifying the “spiritual illnesses” of the diocese, the pope said, the priests and parish leaders made it clear that they are tired of being content with what they have been doing for years.
A renewed outreach, the pope said, must begin by “learning to discern where God already is present in very ordinary forms of holiness and communion with him.”
There are people in the parishes, he said, who might not know their catechism, but they see the basic interactions in their lives through a lens of faith and hope. Calling for a “revolution of tenderness” in parishes and the diocese, Pope Francis said that while “guiding a Christian community is the specific task of the ordained minister – the pastor – pastoral care is based in baptism and blossoms from brotherhood and is not the task only of the pastor and priests, but of all the baptized.”
The pope’s speech marked his formal reception of a diocesan report on “spiritual illnesses” afflicting the city. Through a process that began in Lent, parishes identified the main challenges as “the economy of exclusion, selfish laziness, comfortable individualism, wars among us, sterile pessimism and spiritual worldliness,” according to a statement from the diocese.
The priest who summarized the findings at the evening meeting told the pope that a lack of education in the faith was identified by many of the groups; that lack was seen regarding basic church teachings but also regarding how the Gospel and its values could be brought to bear on modern problems.
Pope Francis told them the process of identifying the problems had two benefits: a recognition of “the truth about our condition as being in need, sick,” but, at the same time, a recognition that even if people have failed, God is still present and is calling his people to come together and to move forward.
“Our parishes,” he said, “must be capable of generating a people, that is, of offering and creating relationships where people feel that they are known, recognized, welcomed, listened to, loved – in other words, not anonymous parts of a whole.”
To move forward, he said, Catholic communities must look at “the slaveries – the illnesses – that have ended up making us sterile.”
Often, he said, parishes are slaves to doing things the ways they always have been done and to investing time and energy in projects and programs that no longer meet the needs of the people.
“We must listen without fear to the thirst for God and to the cry that rises from the people of Rome, asking ourselves how that cry expresses the need for salvation, for God,” he said. “How many of the things that emerged from your studies express that cry, the invocation that God show himself and help us escape the impression that our life is useless and almost robbed by the frenzy of things that must be done and by time that keeps slipping through out hands?”
Too often, he said, evangelization also is stifled by “faith understood only as things to do and not as a liberation that renews us at every step.”
Pope Francis asked the diocesan leaders to dedicate the next year to “a sort of preparation of your backpacks” for setting off on a multiyear process that would lead to a “new land,” a place marked by new pastoral action that is “more responsive to the mission and needs of Romans today, but also more creative and liberating for priests and those who directly collaborate in their mission and in the building up of the Christian community.”

On Suicide and Despair

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Father Ron Rolheiser

IN EXILE
By Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI
For centuries, suicide was considered as an act of despair and despair itself was seen as the most grievous sin of all. In many religious circles, despair was seen as the most sinful of all acts and ultimately unforgivable.
Sadly, a strong residue of that remains, suicide is still seen by many as an act of despair, an affront to God and to life itself, an unforgivable relinquishing of hope. Many church people still see suicide as an act of despair and as the unforgivable sin against the Holy Spirit. But this is a misunderstanding. Suicide is not an act of despair and is not an act which cannot be forgiven. That suicide is an act of despair is not what the Christian Churches and certainly not the Roman Catholic Church, believe or teach.
My purpose here is not to disparage what our churches teach about either suicide or despair, but rather to highlight with more accuracy what they do teach. The same holds true for people who still believe that suicide is an act of despair and an unforgiveable sin. I am not disparaging their belief but trying rather to free them from a false fear (based on a misunderstanding) which surely must cause them grief and anxiety vis-à-vis loved ones who have died by suicide.
Suicide is not despair. Dictionaries define despair as the complete lack or absence of hope. But that’s not what happens in most suicides. What does happen?
The person who is taking his or her own life is not intending that act as an insult or affront to God or to life (for that would be an act of strength and suicide is generally the antithesis of that). What happens in most suicides is the polar opposite. The suicide is the result of a mammoth defeat.
There’s a powerful scene in the musical adaption of Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables. A young woman, Fantine, lies dying. She tells of once being youthful and full of hopeful dreams; but now worn-down by a lifetime of poverty, crushed by a broken heart and overcome by physical illness, she is defeated and has to submit to the tearful fact that “there are storms we cannot weather.”
She’s right and anyone who does not accept that truth will one day come to a painful and bitter understanding of it. There are things in this life that will crush us and surrender isn’t an act of despair and indeed isn’t a free act at all. It’s a humbling, sad defeat.
And that’s the case with most people who die from suicide. For reasons ranging from mental illness to an infinite variety of overpowering storms that can break a person, there’s sometimes a point in people’s lives where they are overpowered, defeated and unable to continue to will their own living – parallel to one who dies as a victim of a drought, hurricane, cancer, heart disease, diabetes or Alzheimer’s. There’s no sin in being overpowered by a deadly storm. We can be overpowered and some people are, but that’s not despair (which can only be willful and an act of strength).
To begin with, we don’t understand mental illness, which can be just as a real and just as death-producing as any physical illness. We don’t blame someone for dying from cancer, a stroke or a physical accident, but we invariably cast moral shadows on someone who dies as a result of various mental illnesses which play a deadly role in many suicides. Happily, God is still in charge and our flawed understanding, while generally permanently tainting the way someone is remembered in this world, doesn’t effect salvation on the other side.
Beyond mental illness we can be defeated in life by many other things. Tragedy, heartbreaking loss, unrequited obsession and crippling shame can at times break a heart, crush a will, kill a spirit and bring death to a body. And our judgment on this should reflect our understanding of God: What all-loving, merciful God would condemn someone because he or she, like Victor Hugo’s, Fantine, could not weather the storm? Does God side with our own narrow notions where salvation is mostly reserved for the strong? Not if Jesus is to be believed.
Notice when Jesus points out sin he doesn’t point to where we are weak and defeated; rather he points to where we are strong, arrogant, indifferent and judgmental. Search the Gospels and ask this question: On whom is Jesus hardest? The answer is clear: Jesus is hardest on those who are strong, judgmental and have no feeling for those who are enduring the storm. Notice what he says about the rich man who ignores the poor man at his doorstep, what he says about the priest and scribe who ignore the man beaten in a ditch and how critical he is of the scribes and Pharisees who are quick to define who falls under God’s judgment and who doesn’t.
Only a faulty understanding of God can underwrite the unfortunate notion that being crushed in life constitutes despair.

(Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser, theologian, teacher and award-winning author, is President of the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, TX.)

Minnesota volunteers return to Clarksdale

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By Michael Banks
CLARKSDALE – On the grounds of a church that was formed in the days of segregation, white students from a Minnesota college entertained and formed friendships with black children from Clarksdale on a recent weekday afternoon.
This marks the ninth year that students from St. Catherine’s University in St. Paul and Minneapolis, have come to Clarksdale to assist and learn more about the people of the Mississippi Delta. They are here for two weeks to learn more about others and also about themselves.
For Abby McCall, a Superior, Wis., native who is in the final year of the graduate program at St. Catherine’s, this was her first trip to the Delta.
“Every experience has been eye-opening, but the people are very hospitable and welcoming. It’s been very inviting,” said McCall, who has plans to be a physical therapist and work with patients who have suffered brain injuries.
“It was my hope to be exposed to people and work more with children,” she said. “I really like being able to interact with the kids on a personal level.”
In the afternoons, the nine St. Catherine students conducted an afterschool camp for children ages 5 to 14. The camp was held on the grounds of and with the assistance of members of the Immaculate Conception Parish.

CLARKSDALE – A physical therapy student from Minnesota plays ball with a child on the grounds of Immaculate Conception Parish.

During the mornings, the students did volunteer work at the Care Station and exercised with clients at the S.L.A. Jones Senior Activity Center and the students at George H. Oliver Elementary School. They also spent time ministering to the patients at the Clarksdale Children’s Clinic.
David Chapman, an associate professor at St. Catherine’s, said it is the program’s goal to promote physical activity and fitness, as well as increase awareness of good nutrition for all age groups.
“Hopefully we’re able to meet some needs of the community and learn social and political structure and how it impacts health,” Chapman said.
During the two weeks they are in Clarksdale, the students stay in the former sister’s rectory on the church campus. The weekend was filled with a night at the Ground Zero Blues Club and then a tour of the National Civil Rights Museum and blues festival in Memphis, Tenn. Sunday consisted of a trip to Oxford and a visit to Ole Miss.
The visit is part of a one-credit course for the students, Chapman said. Once they return to campus, each student will give a two-minute, self-reflection report to their classmates on what the experience meant to them.
“If anything, it helps them be aware of their own biases they may have,” Chapman said, noting that this if often the first trip to the Deep South for most of the students.
They learn “cultural competence” and become mindful of how things are done in different parts of the country, as well as the social, economic and political influences of each community and their impact on health care.
The program came about due to a collaboration between the late Sister Manette Durand, who was a Midwestern native but was serving in Clarksdale, and Dr. Jyothi Gupta, an instructor at St. Catherine’s. Sister Manette, who passed away in October 2015, was a member of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, which helped form St. Catherine’s University in 1905.
Christine McDaniel, a member of Immaculate Conception and one of those who works behind the scenes in organizing the event each year, said there have been years when they have close to 100 children in the afterschool camp.
And while church members give the students “a taste of the Delta” with a soul food supper of smothered cabbage, barbecued neck bones, corn on the cob, collared greens and cobbler cake, she believes both the students and Clarksdale benefit.
“The last day is the most emotional,” McDaniel said. “We see a lot of hugs and tears.”

(This story was reprinted with permission from the Clarksdale Press Register.)

Historians’ approval moves Father Tolton’s sainthood cause forward

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Father Augustus Tolton, the first recognized U.S. diocesan priest of African descent, is pictured in an undated photo. Father Tolton’s cause is moving forward after receiving positive news from the Vatican’s historical consultants. (CNS photo/courtesy of Archdiocese of Chicago Archives and Records Center)

By Joyce Duriga
CHICAGO (CNS) – The canonization cause of Father Augustus Tolton received important approval from the Vatican’s historical consultants earlier this year, moving the cause forward.
Father Tolton, a former slave, is the first recognized U.S. diocesan priest of African descent. Chicago Cardinal Francis E. George opened his cause for canonization in 2011, giving the priest the title “servant of God.”
The consultants in Rome ruled in March that the “positio” – a document equivalent to a doctoral dissertation on a person’s life – was acceptable and the research on Father Tolton’s life was finished, said Chicago Auxiliary Bishop Joseph N. Perry, postulator for the cause.
“They have a story on a life that they deem is credible, properly documented. It bodes well for the remaining steps of scrutiny – those remaining steps being the theological commission that will make a final determination on his virtues,” Bishop Perry explained.
It now goes to the Congregation for Saints’ Causes, he said. Once the congregation’s members “approve it, then the prefect of that congregation takes the case to the pope,” he added.
If the pope approves it, Father Tolton would be declared venerable, the next step on the way to canonization. The last two steps are beatification and canonization. In general, two approved miracles through Father Tolton’s intercession are needed for him to be beatified and canonized.
Six historical consultants ruled unanimously on the Tolton “positio,” compiled by a team in Rome led by Andrea Ambrosi, based on hundreds of pages of research completed in Chicago.
While working on the document, Ambrosi’s team asked Bishop Perry why it took so long to open a cause for Tolton, who died in 1897.
“We told them that African-Americans basically had no status in the church to be considered at that time. Some people didn’t think we had souls. They were hardly poised to recommend someone to be a saint,” Bishop Perry said. “And then in those days there were hardly any saints from the United States proposed.”
The fact that the historical consultants approved the “positio” unanimously is a positive sign, he said. The cause is scheduled to go before the theological commission in February 2019.
Two miracles through Father Tolton’s intercession have been sent to Rome.
“We’re hoping and our fingers are crossed and we’re praying that at least one of them might be acceptable for his beatification,” Bishop Perry said.
Born into slavery, young Augustus fled to freedom with his mother and two siblings through the woods of northern Missouri and across the Mississippi River while being pursued by bounty hunters and soldiers. He was only 9 years old.
The small family made their home in Quincy, Illinois, a sanctuary for runaway slaves.
Growing up in Quincy and serving at Mass, Augustus felt a call to the priesthood, but because of rampant racism, no seminary in the United States would accept him.
He headed to Rome, convinced he would become a missionary priest serving in Africa. However, after ordination he was sent back to his hometown to be a missionary to the community there.
He was such a good preacher that many white people filled the pews for his Masses, along with black people. This upset the white priests in the town, who made life very difficult for him as a result. After three years, Father Tolton moved north to Chicago to minister to the black community, at the request of Archbishop Patrick Feehan.
Father Tolton worked tirelessly for his congregation in Chicago, to the point of exhaustion. On July 9, 1897, he died of heat stroke while returning from a priests retreat. He was 43.
Since the cause was opened, Bishop Perry and his team have given more than 170 presentations on Father Tolton around the country. They also have received inquiries about the priest from Catholics in the Philippines, Germany, Australia, Italy, France and countries in Africa.
People receive Father Tolton’s story well, Bishop Perry said.
“There’s also the element of surprise. … People always presume that we had black priests,” he told the Chicago Catholic, the archdiocesan newspaper.
Father Tolton did not speak out publicly against the racist abuse he encountered from his fellow Catholics. Rather, throughout his ministry, he preached that the Catholic Church was the only true liberator of blacks in America.
“I think people generally are touched by his story, especially regarding his stamina and perseverance given what appears to be a different mood today. People don’t accept stuff thrown in their faces anymore,” Bishop Perry said.
(Duriga is editor of the Chicago Catholic, newspaper of the Archdiocese of Chicago.)

Vatican issues new rules for contemplative nuns

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By Carol Glatz
VATICAN CITY – The Vatican released an instruction with new norms for contemplative orders of nuns, encouraging cooperation among their monasteries and outlining procedures for communities left with only a few members.
The document, “Cor Orans” (“Praying Heart”) is a follow-up instruction on implementing Pope Francis’ 2016 document “Vultum Dei Quaerere” (“Seeking the Face of God”), which issued new rulings and mandates for monasteries of women around the world. The aim of both, the Vatican said, is to safeguard the identity and mission of contemplative women religious. The pope charged the Vatican Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life with creating the new instruction, which seeks to fill the legislative gaps left since Pope Pius XII’s apostolic constitution “Sponsa Christi,” from 1950, and facilitate carrying out the mandates in “Vultum Dei Quaerere.” The instruction was released by the Vatican May 15 and went into effect immediately.
Archbishop Jose Rodriguez Carballo, secretary of the congregation, told reporters one of the most significant changes is requiring a monastery or contemplative community of women religious to have at least eight professed religious women in order to maintain their autonomy. If that number drops to five professed religious, they lose their right to elect a superior, the Vatican congregation is informed of the situation and an ad hoc commission is formed to name an administrator, he said.
The outside intervention is meant to assess whether the community’s difficulties are “temporary or irreversible” and, if temporary, help them overcome the problems so as to avoid their suppression, the archbishop said.

A nun holds a copy of “Cor Orans,” a new instruction for contemplative women religious, during a news conference for its release at the Vatican May 15. The instruction concerns the life, autonomy, supervision and formation of contemplative women religious. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

The instruction also details the roles, rights and responsibilities federations will have.
Pope Francis’ new ruling included a mandate that all monasteries are to be part of a federation with the aim of facilitating formation and meeting needs through sharing assets and exchanging members; however, a monastery can request an exception from the Vatican.
The new instruction said monasteries have one year to comply until the dicastery assigns them a federation or other form of association.  
Father Paciolla said the documents do not change the autonomy of the monasteries or the purpose of a federation, but are meant to bring “balance” to how they can better work together.
The aim, Father Paciolla said, is to open up another channel of communication with the Vatican and foster dialogue and communion when it comes to oversight.
Archbishop Rodriguez Carballo said the instructions, like Pope Francis’ document, are built on the responses received from a questionnaire sent to all contemplative women religious a few years ago.
(Editor’s note: Because these rules are so new, it will take some time to review them to see how they might apply to local communities, including the Carmelite community in the Diocese of Jackson.)