Latest / Tomorrow's American Catholic Podcast / The Gifts of Letting Go with Sr. Annie Killian

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The Gifts of Letting Go with Sr. Annie Killian · Tomorrow's American Catholic Podcast

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[music]
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SPEAKER_02: Welcome to Tomorrow's American Catholic.
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SPEAKER_02: This is the official podcast of Tomorrow's American Catholic,
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SPEAKER_02: a journal and publishing platform animated by a central question.
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SPEAKER_02: Who is Tomorrow's American Catholic,
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SPEAKER_02: and how is their understanding of themselves,
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SPEAKER_02: their faith, and their church evolving in time?
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SPEAKER_02: In each episode,
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SPEAKER_02: we speak with a spiritual practitioner who helps us envision new forms
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SPEAKER_02: of Catholic culture and ways of being Church.
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SPEAKER_02: Our guests come from a range of backgrounds and traditions,
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SPEAKER_02: and we seek to proceed in a spirit of contemplative hospitality and synodal dialogue
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SPEAKER_02: where we can learn from one another.
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SPEAKER_02: We thank you for taking some time to listen with us today.
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SPEAKER_02: If you're interested in exploring further,
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SPEAKER_02: You can find additional podcasts as well as our written work at our website,
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SPEAKER_02: tomorrowsamericancatholic.org.
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SPEAKER_02: And now on to today's conversation.
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SPEAKER_02: Sister Annie Killian is a vowed member of the Dominican Sisters of Peace,
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SPEAKER_02: a congregation of Catholic women religious,
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SPEAKER_02: as well as an assistant professor of English at the University of Notre Dame,
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SPEAKER_02: where she teaches courses in medieval poetry and drama.
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SPEAKER_02: Sister Annie holds a doctorate in English from Yale University,
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SPEAKER_02: where she studied 15th century religion and literature with a focus
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SPEAKER_02: on women's writing and church reform.
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SPEAKER_02: She is the author of a monograph,
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SPEAKER_02: Reforming Lyric,
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SPEAKER_02: Poetry and Theology in England,
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SPEAKER_02: 1380 to 1530,
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SPEAKER_02: and is currently at work on a second book,
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SPEAKER_02: Mystical Ecology,
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SPEAKER_02: which will look at the way medieval writers engage with the natural world
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SPEAKER_02: in their theory and practice of contemplation.
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SPEAKER_02: Her writing has appeared in Commonweal,
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SPEAKER_02: Global Sisters Report,
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SPEAKER_02: Christian Century,
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SPEAKER_02: Spiritus, and we should also say recently in Tomorrow's American Catholic.
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SPEAKER_02: Sister Annie also has experience with prison education and nonviolent peacemaking,
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SPEAKER_02: and she currently serves as the vice chair of the Pax Christi USA National Council.
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SPEAKER_02: So Sister Annie Killian, thank you so much for joining us today on Tomorrow's American Catholic.
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SPEAKER_00: Thank you for having me.
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SPEAKER_00: I'm happy to be here.
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SPEAKER_02: Wonderful.
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SPEAKER_02: So as our listeners might know at this time,
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SPEAKER_02: we'd like to begin with a brief overview of our guest's spiritual journey in
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SPEAKER_02: a nutshell.
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SPEAKER_02: So you've clearly had a very diverse background and it seems three major areas
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SPEAKER_02: of focus,
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SPEAKER_02: you know,
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SPEAKER_02: your academic work,
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SPEAKER_02: your life as a vowed religious, and also your work as a peace builder.
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SPEAKER_02: Could you speak a bit about just how these things came together for you
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SPEAKER_02: and your relationship to the church and spirituality in general?
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SPEAKER_00: I grew up in Nashville, Tennessee.
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SPEAKER_00: I'm the oldest of four children.
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SPEAKER_00: My parents are physicians and I think that faith in our home
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SPEAKER_00: and my parents' example has been formative for me from the beginning.
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SPEAKER_00: My mother practiced primary care So she spent a lot of time listening to her patients.
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SPEAKER_00: She was just famous and beloved by her patients
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SPEAKER_00: because she gave them her whole attention and listened to them with such love
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SPEAKER_00: and compassion.
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SPEAKER_00: She used to say that she would find something to love in every single patient
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SPEAKER_00: that she met and thought that no matter what people were able to pay
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SPEAKER_00: or their background, everyone deserved everything.
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SPEAKER_00: Excellent quality care.
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SPEAKER_00: So I think that core principle of Catholic social teaching about the dignity of
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SPEAKER_00: the human person was something that I learned,
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SPEAKER_00: you know, without the language around it from my mom and both my parents.
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SPEAKER_00: And she really was a wellspring of compassion and the face of God's mercy to
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SPEAKER_00: the people that she cared for and to our family.
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SPEAKER_00: I grew up going to Mass,
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SPEAKER_00: but really owned my Catholic faith in college at Yale,
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SPEAKER_00: where there was a wonderful campus ministry at the St. Thomas More Catholic Chapel.
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SPEAKER_00: And I was there while Father Bob Beloyne was still the chaplain.
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SPEAKER_00: And I can't even really tell you how transformative that experience was for me.
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SPEAKER_00: His preaching,
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SPEAKER_00: his deep grounding in the documents of the Second Vatican Council that just came
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SPEAKER_00: through in his preaching.
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SPEAKER_00: He really lived the Vatican II vision of church and
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SPEAKER_00: so was constantly calling forth members of the community to Embrace their vocation
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SPEAKER_00: as the baptized,
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SPEAKER_00: the faithful who are,
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SPEAKER_00: we're all responsible for the church's mission of preaching the gospel.
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SPEAKER_00: So by the time I finished college,
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SPEAKER_00: I had a real sense of whatever,
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SPEAKER_00: I didn't really know what I wanted to do,
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SPEAKER_00: but I also knew that it had to be something about serving the church's mission
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SPEAKER_00: of preaching the good news.
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SPEAKER_00: But I went on from there to graduate studies.
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SPEAKER_00: By that point,
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SPEAKER_00: I had discovered medieval literature and was really fascinated,
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SPEAKER_00: especially by the 14th century,
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SPEAKER_00: where really a lot of the major theologians from the 14th century are women,
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SPEAKER_00: are Catherine of Siena and Julian of Norwich and Bridget of Sweden.
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SPEAKER_00: And all of those figures are, I mean,
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SPEAKER_00: they were living through a time of real chaos in society with epidemics and plague
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SPEAKER_00: and in the church with a papal schism and with wars.
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SPEAKER_00: So they lived through a very chaotic time,
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SPEAKER_00: but that somehow all of that tumult Opened up a space for women to emerge
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SPEAKER_00: as theologians and in pastoral ministry.
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SPEAKER_00: And Catherine really had this peacemaking ministry.
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SPEAKER_00: So I was fascinated by all of this and went on for graduate studies at the University of Oxford.
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SPEAKER_00: And that's where I met the Jesuits.
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SPEAKER_00: And was introduced to spiritual discernment for the first time,
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SPEAKER_00: another kind of revolutionary experience in my spiritual life.
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SPEAKER_00: And that was also where I met a community of women religious for not exactly
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SPEAKER_00: the first time,
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SPEAKER_00: but the first time that it really occurred to me that this could be an option for Me
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SPEAKER_00: and actually something that was very attractive.
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SPEAKER_00: So I met some Sacred Heart sisters,
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SPEAKER_00: RSCJ sisters who had a house in Oxford and they invited me to join them for their,
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SPEAKER_00: for once a week for their community meal and prayer.
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SPEAKER_00: And at the time it touched this deep hunger in me for silence and for
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SPEAKER_00: Deeper intimacy with God,
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SPEAKER_00: and they're gathering together to pray every night and have this communal time
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SPEAKER_00: of reflection, but real contemplative quiet.
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SPEAKER_00: But then they also were these kind of normal women,
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SPEAKER_00: but living together and sharing their life in their ministry.
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SPEAKER_00: And I thought, wow, this is a real, who knew?
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SPEAKER_00: This is a wonderful way of life.
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SPEAKER_00: So I both at that point discerned to go on for doctoral studies.
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SPEAKER_00: So I went back to Yale and that is where I met the Dominican Sisters of Peace.
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SPEAKER_00: So I really discerned with the sisters
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SPEAKER_00: and they accompanied me throughout those years of graduate school
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SPEAKER_00: through my mother's death during those years,
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SPEAKER_00: which so a real time of desolation for me.
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SPEAKER_00: My family.
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SPEAKER_00: And yet the sisters accompanied me through that time.
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SPEAKER_00: And by the end of those years in graduate school, I made the decision to enter.
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SPEAKER_00: And so that is how I have become a Dominican Sister of Peace and still in the study
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SPEAKER_00: of medieval literature.
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SPEAKER_02: Wonderful.
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SPEAKER_02: I love that you mentioned...
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SPEAKER_02: Bob Boulogne,
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SPEAKER_02: who I never had the chance to meet,
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SPEAKER_02: but we facilitate a couple of small Christian communities
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SPEAKER_02: through Tomorrow's American Catholic, and he was the key inspiration for those.
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SPEAKER_02: The people that are in our groups learned a great deal from him and speaks still of his.
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SPEAKER_02: I know Patrick knew him.
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SPEAKER_03: And I knew him too, very well.
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SPEAKER_03: I actually knew him before he was at Yale when he was in North Haven.
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SPEAKER_03: And then he went to Yale.
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SPEAKER_03: And then when I started going to St. Thomas More, it was shortly after he had died.
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SPEAKER_03: So sort of a transition there.
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SPEAKER_03: And it was really interesting because there was a lot of people.
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SPEAKER_03: I felt bad for the priest that they brought in because, you know, you're replacing this guy.
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SPEAKER_03: How do you do that?
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SPEAKER_03: But he was such a wonderful person.
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SPEAKER_03: And he certainly had an influence on my life as well.
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SPEAKER_00: We had a big program for small church communities at the center.
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SPEAKER_00: And so I got involved with one of those my first year of college
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SPEAKER_00: when I was very homesick and very lonely.
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SPEAKER_00: And
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SPEAKER_00: what was so revolutionary about it for me was I had just never been taught
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SPEAKER_00: or never realized that the Bible is...
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SPEAKER_00: It is God speaking to us in our lives about how we're called to be in the world
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SPEAKER_00: and not just about how I treat being nice to my brother or sister,
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SPEAKER_00: but really about what I am supposed to do with my life and being about the justice
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SPEAKER_00: and peace of the reign of God.
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SPEAKER_00: It was profoundly spiritually transformative.
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SPEAKER_03: You talked about,
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SPEAKER_03: I think you were at Oxford,
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SPEAKER_03: I think you said,
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SPEAKER_03: and you sort of got much more into being contemplative, but now you're very active.
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SPEAKER_03: And so it's a discussion I've often had.
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SPEAKER_03: I mean, I was the executive director at the Franciscan Action Network for 10 years,
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SPEAKER_03: so I was an activist.
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SPEAKER_03: And I left because I kind of decided that I had to kind of get back in touch
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SPEAKER_03: with my contemplative side.
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SPEAKER_03: And I have a good friend who's very contemplative,
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SPEAKER_03: and we're trying to create a new movement of Contemplative activists
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SPEAKER_03: and combine them with activist contemplatives.
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SPEAKER_03: So how do you mix and match being contemplative and being activists?
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SPEAKER_03: Because I've often found that it's hard.
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SPEAKER_03: You know,
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SPEAKER_03: I worked in D.C.
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SPEAKER_03: with wonderful people that were activists, faith people, you know, people you know.
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SPEAKER_03: And I've also been associated with a lot of contemplatives
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SPEAKER_03: and it seems like they don't cross the bridge together sometimes.
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SPEAKER_03: So give us wisdom.
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SPEAKER_00: Well, I think it's a struggle for all of us, I'm sure.
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SPEAKER_00: But that is what I love about the Dominican charism and tradition in particular,
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SPEAKER_00: because we are very, our roots are a contemplative monastic.
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SPEAKER_00: St. Dominic was an Augustinian actually before he Sort of created a new order.
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SPEAKER_00: So he was very rooted in praying the hours and communal prayer,
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SPEAKER_00: ecclesial prayer, and then going out into the preaching mission.
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SPEAKER_00: So I think that that awareness that, and I feel it in myself, that I'm never...
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SPEAKER_00: As joyful or energetic in ministry if I haven't had that time of centering
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SPEAKER_00: and being quiet with God.
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SPEAKER_00: For me, it is first thing in the morning,
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SPEAKER_00: but it also at the end of the day to come back to that place of rest.
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SPEAKER_00: And it seems so important to me when we are in this culture,
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SPEAKER_00: Not only in the workplace,
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SPEAKER_00: but social media where we're constantly getting notifications and news stories.
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SPEAKER_00: So we're overloaded.
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SPEAKER_00: But then also in our political climate where the strategy of this administration is
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SPEAKER_00: to just kind of blitzkrieg of new policies all the time.
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SPEAKER_00: So you feel that constantly there's a new catastrophe.
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SPEAKER_00: Falling upon us,
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SPEAKER_00: that it really seems to me part of the work of resistance to this,
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SPEAKER_00: to capitalism,
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SPEAKER_00: to fascism,
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SPEAKER_00: to be very rooted in contemplative quiet and rest so that we can be in touch
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SPEAKER_00: with spirit who is moving us toward life and solidarity and flourishing.
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SPEAKER_02: Can you speak a bit,
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SPEAKER_02: Sister Annie,
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SPEAKER_02: about some of the structure of liturgical and prayer life of the Dominican Sisters
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SPEAKER_02: of Peace,
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SPEAKER_02: just your day-to-day,
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SPEAKER_02: how that kind of contemplative impulse is developed with your community?
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SPEAKER_00: Yes, we have our own office book called Dominican Praise that was translated by some
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SPEAKER_00: of our sisters who are scripture scholars to have inclusive language.
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SPEAKER_00: It's a very beautiful prayer book.
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SPEAKER_00: And I mean, it depends on the community and people's ministry schedules.
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SPEAKER_00: So I've lived in different houses where we would pray together twice a day.
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SPEAKER_00: In other houses, we pray together once a day.
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SPEAKER_00: But there's also there's you gather together,
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SPEAKER_00: but then you also have your personal prayer time in the morning, in the evening.
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SPEAKER_00: In my ministry, I usually attend mass here on campus during the day.
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SPEAKER_00: And living in community, we share meals together.
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SPEAKER_00: So, you know, depending on how many people are in the house, you swap off who is cooking.
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SPEAKER_00: And that time of sharing life and debriefing the day,
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SPEAKER_00: I always find that it's helpful to have people reflect back to you when you had
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SPEAKER_00: a difficult encounter during the day or you're feeling...
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SPEAKER_00: Angry about something that happened or sad about something that happened,
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SPEAKER_00: that having the support of a community to listen and help you think things through,
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SPEAKER_00: to pray with you over,
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SPEAKER_00: especially when there are students or clients who are struggling.
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SPEAKER_00: And so often in our ministry,
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SPEAKER_00: we feel helpless about what can you Do with people who are facing real challenges,
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SPEAKER_00: but to hold them in prayer together is very powerful.
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SPEAKER_00: I mean,
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SPEAKER_00: that's what I felt so strongly about the sisters during my mother's illness and
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SPEAKER_00: after her death,
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SPEAKER_00: that knowing that all of these women were holding me in prayer was deeply consoling
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SPEAKER_00: in a way I hadn't experienced before, but I think it's the only way
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SPEAKER_01: It's interesting.
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SPEAKER_01: I read your article, Reflection on My First Profession.
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SPEAKER_01: And it was a powerful and yet easily accessible piece.
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SPEAKER_01: You know, it was easy to just jump into it.
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SPEAKER_01: And interestingly, I had dinner with a Dominican sister last night.
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SPEAKER_01: Over the weekend,
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SPEAKER_01: had a conversation with, I think, a Dominican sister you may know, Kathleen Toot.
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SPEAKER_00: Yes.
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SPEAKER_00: Yes.
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SPEAKER_01: She said hello.
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SPEAKER_01: But it was interesting in my conversation with,
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SPEAKER_01: her name is Debbie Lynch,
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SPEAKER_01: with Sister Debbie,
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SPEAKER_01: you know,
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SPEAKER_01: a lot of the conversation was around concern,
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SPEAKER_01: you know, in their community, that it's such an aging community.
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SPEAKER_01: And the different kinds of needs that people have in terms of housing,
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SPEAKER_01: and I don't have to tell you, on and on.
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SPEAKER_01: So I just wonder, you're obviously young, vibrant.
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SPEAKER_01: Do you see that as a concern in the community?
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SPEAKER_01: Or do you see a lot more young people coming in than we see here in the Northeast, let's say?
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SPEAKER_00: That is a wonderful question.
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SPEAKER_00: It's a sacred time in vowed life right now.
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SPEAKER_00: I feel it's so precious, this time that...
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SPEAKER_00: We have so many generations of women.
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SPEAKER_00: And I feel that,
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SPEAKER_00: you know,
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SPEAKER_00: it's a limited time because we do have sisters who are going home to God,
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SPEAKER_00: as my prioress likes to say.
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SPEAKER_00: And I feel that it's a privilege to be in community with these women
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SPEAKER_00: who have led such remarkable lives of Ministering to God's people and caring
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SPEAKER_00: for God's creation and to receive their stories and to learn
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SPEAKER_00: from their wisdom is such a gift and a blessing.
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SPEAKER_00: And at the same time, everything is changing utterly.
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SPEAKER_00: It's a very profound change that we're going through and a great mystery
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SPEAKER_00: about how it is Where exactly we are headed and how it's unfolding.
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SPEAKER_00: But isn't that true about for all of us,
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SPEAKER_00: for the Christian journey that we are living into unfolding mystery and on our way
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SPEAKER_00: to deeper communion with God?
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SPEAKER_00: And it's a future that we can't even imagine.
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SPEAKER_00: And I think That is actually part of the witness that we offer to the world at this point.
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SPEAKER_00: What is dangerous or where violence can come from is when we try to cling
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SPEAKER_00: the world as it is,
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SPEAKER_00: or we try to control a future that looks like the past that we've always known.
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SPEAKER_00: To be able to let go of that control And say, we really don't know where it's headed.
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SPEAKER_00: And by any kind of standards of capitalist growth and,
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SPEAKER_00: you know,
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SPEAKER_00: building and success metrics, religious life is not, you know, it's failing.
19:37
SPEAKER_00: It's dying.
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SPEAKER_00: We're hospicing our institutions and a form of life.
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SPEAKER_00: So we're living through the Paschal mystery.
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SPEAKER_00: But somehow I feel that that is going to bring us closer to God and we're going
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SPEAKER_00: to meet God on that path.
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SPEAKER_00: And Spirit is guiding us and accompanying us through it.
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SPEAKER_00: And I feel we're not the numbers that we used to be,
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SPEAKER_00: but I love the women who are entering religious life and we're
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SPEAKER_00: on this journey together.
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SPEAKER_00: And it is a beautiful life.
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SPEAKER_00: It's a beautiful witness of giving all that we are and all of the gifts
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SPEAKER_00: that we've received for the life of the world.
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SPEAKER_00: So that is a beautiful thing to be doing.
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SPEAKER_00: And it's exciting.
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SPEAKER_00: It's an adventure to discern together what that life will look like Going forward
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SPEAKER_00: when we are smaller,
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SPEAKER_00: but you know,
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SPEAKER_00: we're still the leaven, we're still the seed, and God is still calling us.
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SPEAKER_00: So our task is to be faithful to the call.
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SPEAKER_01: I was just going to say that it's interesting.
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SPEAKER_01: I enjoyed that reflection so much.
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SPEAKER_01: And in there,
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SPEAKER_01: you describe your first profession,
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SPEAKER_01: you compare it to a caterpillar dangling on that thin Silky, but sturdy thread.
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SPEAKER_01: And, you know,
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SPEAKER_01: in a way,
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SPEAKER_01: it seems to me that you can continue to use that metaphor that in a way it's
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SPEAKER_01: a metaphor for faith in general, isn't it?
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SPEAKER_00: It is.
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SPEAKER_00: Yes.
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SPEAKER_00: I once actually very early on in my discernment was talking to a sister
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SPEAKER_00: about There are all these questions and uncertainty and will I ever sort of know
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SPEAKER_00: where it is that I'm called to be and have clarity about my path?
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SPEAKER_00: I really want clarity so badly.
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SPEAKER_00: And her response was, Well,
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SPEAKER_00: wouldn't that be boring if you had it all figured out for the rest of your life?
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SPEAKER_00: There's a great sense of adventure and possibility that comes from living
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SPEAKER_00: with uncertainty and living the questions as the Rilke's letter to a young poet,
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SPEAKER_00: that we live the questions.
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SPEAKER_00: Not that it's not challenging, but to try to embrace that.
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SPEAKER_01: It also seems like a call to creativity.
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SPEAKER_00: Yes.
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SPEAKER_00: Flexibility, creativity.
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SPEAKER_01: Something new.
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SPEAKER_02: Occasional creativity, yeah.
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SPEAKER_00: Experimenting, trying things out.
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SPEAKER_03: I'm 72 and I'm still asking that question, will I ever have clarity?
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SPEAKER_03: So I don't think it's going to come in the future for you.
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SPEAKER_03: I didn't agree with that.
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SPEAKER_03: I spent a year working with the Franciscan Federation,
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SPEAKER_03: which as you know,
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SPEAKER_03: and it was myself and Sister Margaret Kearney and Brian McLaren who And we did
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SPEAKER_03: a whole project on helping them reimagine who they were going to be going forward.
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SPEAKER_03: It's exactly everything you just talked about.
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SPEAKER_03: It was just a fascinating experience for me.
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SPEAKER_03: And one of the things that they were really talking and reflecting
23:01
SPEAKER_03: on was how do they build up their lay community and get more and more people engaged
23:08
SPEAKER_03: in the lay community and almost carry on their charisma through
23:12
SPEAKER_03: the lay community that's engaged in it.
23:14
SPEAKER_03: And I'm assuming that your communities are doing the same thing.
23:18
SPEAKER_00: Yes, we've had,
23:19
SPEAKER_00: we call them associates,
23:21
SPEAKER_00: Dominican associates for at least since the 80s,
23:26
SPEAKER_00: and maybe even earlier than that, who are, and partners in mission.
23:31
SPEAKER_00: So the Dominican charism is much bigger than just the sisters,
23:34
SPEAKER_00: you know,
23:35
SPEAKER_00: it doesn't, it certainly doesn't depend on us, so we don't need that burden.
23:39
SPEAKER_00: We're just part of the Dominican family.
23:43
SPEAKER_00: And we have wonderful associates and partners who are in our schools and working
23:49
SPEAKER_00: in our founded ministries,
23:50
SPEAKER_00: but also just embracing the Dominican charism of preaching,
23:55
SPEAKER_00: truth, contemplation in whatever work they do.
24:00
SPEAKER_03: Do you think that the charism of the Dominican men is different than the charism of
24:04
SPEAKER_03: the Dominican women?
24:05
SPEAKER_03: And I'm asking that question because I know,
24:07
SPEAKER_03: you know, as I said, I spent a lot of time in Franciscan world.
24:11
SPEAKER_03: And There's not a lot of difference in the charism between the men and the women there.
24:15
SPEAKER_03: And I think,
24:16
SPEAKER_03: and a lot of them will say that's because St.
24:18
SPEAKER_03: Clair was the person who actually started the Franciscans and did all the work
24:22
SPEAKER_03: to get it started and going.
24:23
SPEAKER_03: Francis might have had the idea, but Clair did the behind the scenes work on it and all.
24:27
SPEAKER_03: And is there,
24:28
SPEAKER_03: I don't know,
24:29
SPEAKER_03: was there a St.
24:29
SPEAKER_03: Clair and the Dominicans that carried that on or are your charisms similar
24:34
SPEAKER_03: or do you think they're separate?
24:35
SPEAKER_00: That's a wonderful question.
24:38
SPEAKER_00: It's the same charism.
24:39
SPEAKER_00: I think we maybe express it differently or live it out differently.
24:45
SPEAKER_00: Interestingly,
24:46
SPEAKER_00: Dominic,
24:47
SPEAKER_00: before he gathered a community of men, he was,
24:54
SPEAKER_00: I don't even think founded is the right word,
24:56
SPEAKER_00: but he was supporting a community of women.
24:59
SPEAKER_00: So it was actually a house of women in Pruy in the south of France who were the first...
25:05
SPEAKER_00: Who we look back to as our foundresses of Dominican women.
25:12
SPEAKER_00: Yes, part of the difference perhaps is that our charism is about preaching.
25:18
SPEAKER_00: And so for...
25:21
SPEAKER_00: The friars, there's an obvious way to do that within Catholic institutions.
25:29
SPEAKER_00: And for women, we understand it as preaching with our lives.
25:33
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think we do have a very impressive history of women who have been involved
25:37
SPEAKER_00: in preaching from the pulpit or public preaching.
25:43
SPEAKER_00: In hospital chaplaincy and campus ministry,
25:47
SPEAKER_00: or you think back to Catherine of Siena and her preaching tours.
25:50
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there have always been women preaching,
25:54
SPEAKER_00: but we have a very expansive understanding of that the way that we live is
25:59
SPEAKER_00: the holy preaching and comes from sharing the fruits of our contemplation
26:06
SPEAKER_00: in our teaching and our caregiving and in our justice work.
26:11
SPEAKER_00: Those are all expressions of our preaching charism.
26:15
SPEAKER_01: I wondered,
26:16
SPEAKER_01: because when I read about holy preaching,
26:18
SPEAKER_01: you know,
26:19
SPEAKER_01: something that really the order, I mean, it's kind of inherent, right, in the order.
26:24
SPEAKER_01: And I just wondered,
26:25
SPEAKER_01: given the recent response to the German bishop's conference request for permission
26:30
SPEAKER_01: for laity, but women, you
26:36
SPEAKER_01: How did you feel about that?
26:38
SPEAKER_01: And how does it or does it affect what you do?
26:43
SPEAKER_00: I remain hopeful that there will be more opportunities for lay people,
26:49
SPEAKER_00: and that includes religious sisters, to preach in Catholic spaces.
26:55
SPEAKER_00: I have a deep love for good preaching.
26:58
SPEAKER_00: I think that goes back to Father Bob Boulogne, who was such a wonderful preacher.
27:04
SPEAKER_00: And I think Catholics have a hunger for to hear the word broken open in
27:12
SPEAKER_00: a life-giving message,
27:15
SPEAKER_00: a message that challenges us,
27:16
SPEAKER_00: a message that sends us forth to work for the reign of God.
27:23
SPEAKER_00: And the more voices that we have reflecting on the word and preaching at liturgy,
27:33
SPEAKER_00: the more More flourishing the community will be.
27:39
SPEAKER_00: So I remain hopeful.
27:41
SPEAKER_00: And there are actually very exciting things happening here in South Bend.
27:47
SPEAKER_00: Our own sister,
27:48
SPEAKER_00: Mary Catherine Hilkert,
27:50
SPEAKER_00: has been involved in recommendations to the Vatican
27:56
SPEAKER_00: about lay preaching opportunities.
27:59
SPEAKER_00: There's a new program out of That's a partnership between Discerning Deacons and St.
28:05
SPEAKER_00: Mary's College called Proclaim,
28:09
SPEAKER_00: that is a formation program for women in ministry to be preaching,
28:18
SPEAKER_00: for lay preaching.
28:20
SPEAKER_00: Boston College now has a preaching certificate as well.
28:25
SPEAKER_00: So I think there's more and more support and formation and the opportunities will open up.
28:35
SPEAKER_02: And Catholic Women Preach is a great resource on that one.
28:40
SPEAKER_02: Every week there's such high quality and it just shows,
28:44
SPEAKER_02: as you say, the more voices reflecting, the more flourishing we're going to have.
28:47
SPEAKER_01: And I think there's something about I mean,
28:49
SPEAKER_01: I know myself as a woman,
28:51
SPEAKER_01: I crave women's voices because our experiences in the world are different than
29:00
SPEAKER_01: a man's.
29:00
SPEAKER_01: The way that oftentimes that we look at the world,
29:03
SPEAKER_01: the lens that we look through is a different lens.
29:05
SPEAKER_01: And so it is something that I certainly,
29:10
SPEAKER_01: I'm certainly behind that effort to kind of move in that direction.
29:15
SPEAKER_02: And I thought, yeah,
29:15
SPEAKER_02: Father Radcliffe,
29:16
SPEAKER_02: the Dominican,
29:18
SPEAKER_02: your brother Dominican,
29:19
SPEAKER_02: his reflections at the Synod were, to me, my favorite parts of the Synod.
29:23
SPEAKER_02: I just contextualized it and all that you got all this Vaticanese and kind of
29:26
SPEAKER_02: the legalistic language,
29:28
SPEAKER_02: which there's a place for that,
29:29
SPEAKER_02: but he came and just Broaden the imagery,
29:32
SPEAKER_02: which might lead to the next question,
29:34
SPEAKER_02: Sisterani,
29:34
SPEAKER_02: because I know that your academic work is focused on literature and lyric poetry,
29:38
SPEAKER_02: which is a big interest in all of ours.
29:40
SPEAKER_02: There's kind of two threads I'd like to hear your reflections on.
29:43
SPEAKER_02: You're a medievalist,
29:44
SPEAKER_02: and when you were describing medieval times,
29:48
SPEAKER_02: time of plague and disruption and potential schism,
29:51
SPEAKER_02: and it seems like there are some resonances with the times we're living through now.
29:55
SPEAKER_02: What kind of parallels do you see in your study and in the time both in the church
29:58
SPEAKER_02: and the world we're living in now?
30:01
SPEAKER_00: Well, there are both similarities and differences.
30:05
SPEAKER_00: I think one of the beautiful things about being Catholic is our sense of a living tradition.
30:11
SPEAKER_00: And we can always look back to our tradition,
30:15
SPEAKER_00: both to see what didn't work well or where the church has sinned or done harm,
30:21
SPEAKER_00: and also pearls of wisdom to reach back for and learn from.
30:29
SPEAKER_00: And so the women theologians from this period,
30:33
SPEAKER_00: Catherine and Julian, are deeply inspiring to me and deeply consoling.
30:40
SPEAKER_00: And I think many people have looked to those writers for guidance,
30:47
SPEAKER_00: for their images of God, really, for their understanding of God.
30:54
SPEAKER_00: What I...
30:56
SPEAKER_00: Find helpful to think about looking back to the church in
31:01
SPEAKER_00: that period is really how decentralized it was.
31:07
SPEAKER_00: And I think the synod process is trying to push us away from a modern view of
31:17
SPEAKER_00: the church as the pyramid, the hierarchy we need to be
31:23
SPEAKER_00: Listening to the Pope about everything, which, you know, I love Pope Leo.
31:26
SPEAKER_00: I think he's doing a great job.
31:28
SPEAKER_00: He's talking a lot about nonviolence.
31:29
SPEAKER_00: So he's a wonderful leader.
31:32
SPEAKER_00: But I think, yes,
31:33
SPEAKER_00: to be moving back toward or moving toward a more decentralized kind of structure so
31:41
SPEAKER_00: that local communities have feel that they can exercise creativity and
31:49
SPEAKER_00: Experiment with things like, can we have lay preaching at different opportunities?
31:55
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of room for local communities to see what the needs are,
32:01
SPEAKER_00: what are the gifts among the people, and think of creative ways to respond to that.
32:08
SPEAKER_00: So that's, I think, something that always inspires me about the medieval church.
32:14
SPEAKER_00: I also find what has been Resonating with my students actually
32:20
SPEAKER_00: in teaching recently is going back to Franciscans and Dominicans.
32:25
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the mendicant movement started in the medieval period and real critiques
32:32
SPEAKER_00: of institutional wealth that results in urban poverty,
32:39
SPEAKER_00: in impoverishing members of the community.
32:42
SPEAKER_00: So when I was teaching the morality plays this last academic year,
32:47
SPEAKER_00: The students really caught on to these critiques of luxury and accumulating wealth
32:56
SPEAKER_00: and the sense in these medieval works that there are limits to private property
33:03
SPEAKER_00: and really universal destination of goods.
33:07
SPEAKER_00: And we have to provide for every member of our society.
33:14
SPEAKER_00: That there's a very strong critique of wealth in medieval literature
33:20
SPEAKER_00: that feels germane to the moment that we're living in when we now have
33:26
SPEAKER_00: the world's first trillionaire.
33:28
SPEAKER_03: If you look at people like Saint Francis of Assisi or Peter Waldo just before him
33:33
SPEAKER_03: and people like that,
33:34
SPEAKER_03: that really talked about living in poverty,
33:37
SPEAKER_03: but not from the perspective of going hungry and things like that,
33:40
SPEAKER_03: but just sharing everything.
33:42
SPEAKER_03: And then there's enough for everybody,
33:44
SPEAKER_03: which was, you know, it's kind of the message Jesus gave us.
33:47
SPEAKER_03: We forgot that message, but it is what Jesus gave us.
33:51
SPEAKER_00: Or there are very ingenious ways to try to reconcile Christianity with wealth
33:56
SPEAKER_00: and riches when the Bible is very critical and in our tradition.
34:02
SPEAKER_00: It's always,
34:02
SPEAKER_00: we're always trying to live it out and you have to be coming up with creative ways
34:09
SPEAKER_00: of doing that.
34:10
SPEAKER_03: The other thing that we sort of twist ourselves around and
34:13
SPEAKER_03: the whole issue we were talking about women being preachers,
34:16
SPEAKER_03: and we seem to have forgotten the fact that when Jesus was resurrected,
34:20
SPEAKER_03: Jesus chose to first appear to Mary Magdalene.
34:23
SPEAKER_03: Jesus could have chosen to appear to anybody he wanted, Peter, John,
34:26
SPEAKER_03: any of them,
34:27
SPEAKER_03: but he chose Mary Magdalene and he commissioned Mary Magdalene to go out and spread
34:30
SPEAKER_03: the good news, which to me says he's telling her to go preach.
34:34
SPEAKER_03: Right.
34:35
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
34:35
SPEAKER_03: I mean, that's kind of what he's saying to her.
34:37
SPEAKER_03: And so we twist it all around about why women can't preach when it's right there in
34:42
SPEAKER_03: the beginning of Christian history.
34:45
SPEAKER_02: I guess just as a follow-up on your academic work,
34:48
SPEAKER_02: Cestrani,
34:48
SPEAKER_02: and this is more if you could just comment on rather than a direct question,
34:51
SPEAKER_02: but you mentioned earlier the Bible as a site of revelation and kind
34:55
SPEAKER_02: of discerning communally how the Bible,
34:57
SPEAKER_02: you know, speaks to each of us in our own individual lives.
34:59
SPEAKER_02: And I think For me personally,
35:01
SPEAKER_02: a lot of that comes through the beauty of the language,
35:04
SPEAKER_02: the heightened poetics of the language.
35:06
SPEAKER_02: And you study poetry,
35:07
SPEAKER_02: you teach, you disseminate this poetic tradition through your preaching as well.
35:11
SPEAKER_02: Can you just talk about the relationship between lyric poetry and spirituality
35:15
SPEAKER_02: and preaching and just why it's, I mean,
35:18
SPEAKER_02: maybe I don't mean to impose my own beliefs,
35:20
SPEAKER_02: but I think the church,
35:21
SPEAKER_02: sometimes we forget that and we're kind of lacking in that exalted,
35:25
SPEAKER_02: not just exalted, but just poetic language that honors the riches of our symbolism.
35:30
SPEAKER_00: Yes, your poetry is such a wonderful resource for us,
35:36
SPEAKER_00: great spiritual nourishment and consolation.
35:42
SPEAKER_00: I think what I love about poetry is its ability to...
35:47
SPEAKER_00: To move me beyond myself.
35:50
SPEAKER_00: That seems like one of the great struggles of the spiritual life,
35:55
SPEAKER_00: to get beyond ourselves and our self-interest,
36:00
SPEAKER_00: to have something that is ecstatic,
36:02
SPEAKER_00: that lifts us or moves us beyond our narrow self-interests.
36:11
SPEAKER_00: Poetry for me has that,
36:15
SPEAKER_00: it's immersive,
36:16
SPEAKER_00: it shifts us from a kind of rational mode of thinking and trying to control
36:25
SPEAKER_00: the world or understand the world or accumulate knowledge and power
36:31
SPEAKER_00: and instead shifts into being moved by the sound
36:39
SPEAKER_00: Poetry, you don't even necessarily need to.
36:42
SPEAKER_00: I find this with students that they're so concerned about understanding what this means.
36:48
SPEAKER_00: When, you know, I'm always encouraging them, just experience it.
36:52
SPEAKER_00: Let the sound overwhelm you and see what you feel, what associations arise.
37:01
SPEAKER_00: Just let it move you beyond yourself.
37:06
SPEAKER_00: I...
37:07
SPEAKER_00: Made several retreats at Taizé during those years of my discernment.
37:13
SPEAKER_00: And what is so powerful about Taizé prayer,
37:16
SPEAKER_00: this is the ecumenical monastery in France that really has a very,
37:24
SPEAKER_00: one might say simplified or essentialized version of the office of the morning
37:32
SPEAKER_00: and evening prayer.
37:35
SPEAKER_00: They'll have a psalm reading,
37:37
SPEAKER_00: they will have a scripture reading,
37:39
SPEAKER_00: but really they do a lot of singing that is about repeating a refrain,
37:47
SPEAKER_00: almost like a mantra,
37:50
SPEAKER_00: and singing several songs of that repeating the refrain that is sort
37:55
SPEAKER_00: of shifting your consciousness to Into a more contemplative,
38:01
SPEAKER_00: open space that then leads you into a period of silence.
38:10
SPEAKER_00: And all of that prepares you to be more receptive to an encounter with God.
38:18
SPEAKER_00: So that's different than poetry.
38:20
SPEAKER_00: It's about song, but a similar power to poetry.
38:26
SPEAKER_00: Yes, shift our consciousness and our state of awareness to be receptive and quiet
38:34
SPEAKER_00: and open to God's presence.
38:39
SPEAKER_01: Taize is such a great combination of those elements because I've always felt
38:45
SPEAKER_01: that music and art, you know, visual art has that same connection.
38:51
SPEAKER_01: Power to move you when you don't really know why.
38:56
SPEAKER_01: I just, that sense that, wow, this is somehow important.
39:01
SPEAKER_01: And to just sit there with it.
39:03
SPEAKER_01: At our church,
39:04
SPEAKER_01: Patrick was telling you about that we went to,
39:06
SPEAKER_01: we always used Taizé a lot during Holy Week and during Advent as well,
39:11
SPEAKER_01: because it would just carry people somewhere.
39:15
SPEAKER_01: And like you said, open, just open it up.
39:19
SPEAKER_03: I'm going to move you in a little different direction now,
39:22
SPEAKER_03: if it's okay,
39:23
SPEAKER_03: because you've been talking a lot about more the contemplative side,
39:27
SPEAKER_03: but you are an activist.
39:28
SPEAKER_03: You're the vice chair of Cox Christie.
39:30
SPEAKER_03: How does your spirituality and your activism play out?
39:33
SPEAKER_03: How does that work?
39:34
SPEAKER_03: That kind of come together.
39:35
SPEAKER_03: And is your activism centered on your spirituality?
39:38
SPEAKER_03: I mean, let me,
39:39
SPEAKER_03: before you answer that question,
39:40
SPEAKER_03: let me just say that I've been in jail with a couple of your sisters.
39:43
SPEAKER_03: I won't tell any names or anything, but I've been in jail with a couple of them.
39:47
SPEAKER_03: So I know that the Dominican Sisters for Peace are a very activist organization.
39:52
SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's wonderful.
39:54
SPEAKER_00: Yes, spirituality is at the center of it because it's a spirituality of nonviolence.
39:59
SPEAKER_00: And...
40:01
SPEAKER_00: Which also for me is very connected to our Dominican charism of truth.
40:06
SPEAKER_00: That in Gandhian nonviolence, satyagraha is about clinging to truth or clinging to life.
40:15
SPEAKER_00: Dr. Martin Luther King translated it as soul force, this clinging to life.
40:21
SPEAKER_00: And we believe in a God of life.
40:25
SPEAKER_00: Who delights in creation and desires our flourishing.
40:31
SPEAKER_00: So our work for peace and justice comes from that it's a struggle to cling to life
40:38
SPEAKER_00: in a world that is dealing death and building weapons of mass destruction.
40:46
SPEAKER_00: But the grounding in that spirituality of nonviolence,
40:51
SPEAKER_00: of clinging to truth and life and being faithful to the God of life,
40:58
SPEAKER_00: that has to be the kind of groundswell, the motivation.
41:03
SPEAKER_00: And so for Pax Christi,
41:05
SPEAKER_00: our big concerns are that peace building is about Creating a world,
41:12
SPEAKER_00: this is Dorothy Day,
41:13
SPEAKER_00: creating a world where it's easier for people to be good and
41:17
SPEAKER_00: to have their needs met.
41:20
SPEAKER_00: So it is sinful how much we invest as a world,
41:26
SPEAKER_00: especially in this country,
41:29
SPEAKER_00: in militarization and weapons of war from,
41:33
SPEAKER_00: we have a long history of commitment to nuclear disarmament and
41:37
SPEAKER_00: And now we're seeing militarization at our borders,
41:41
SPEAKER_00: in our streets,
41:43
SPEAKER_00: that results in mass incarceration,
41:48
SPEAKER_00: that results in migrant detention, mass deportations.
41:53
SPEAKER_00: So working against all of these ways that degrade human dignity,
42:00
SPEAKER_00: that separate families,
42:03
SPEAKER_00: that make it harder for people to Live dignified lives in safety.
42:11
SPEAKER_00: So we have a lot of our local chapters right now
42:13
SPEAKER_00: that are standing vigil outside detention centers from Delaney Hall in New Jersey,
42:20
SPEAKER_00: across the country.
42:22
SPEAKER_00: Very concerned about the military budget, Pentagon spending.
42:28
SPEAKER_00: Just trying to spark imagination about what else we could do with all of the money
42:35
SPEAKER_00: that is going toward building weapons that could be put toward education
42:42
SPEAKER_00: and health care and care for our planet.
42:46
SPEAKER_00: All of those things that support the flourishing of life.
42:52
SPEAKER_03: How would you advise people if somebody called you up and said or sent you an email
42:57
SPEAKER_03: and said, I want to get involved.
43:00
SPEAKER_03: What would you suggest to people?
43:02
SPEAKER_00: I think starting locally, every local situation is different.
43:09
SPEAKER_00: That for Pax Christi,
43:12
SPEAKER_00: for Dominican Sisters of Peace,
43:15
SPEAKER_00: that where we are,
43:18
SPEAKER_00: getting involved in where we are and then being connected to this wider community.
43:22
SPEAKER_00: National network so that we're coordinating and working together.
43:26
SPEAKER_00: So here in Indiana,
43:29
SPEAKER_00: we have a statewide mutual aid network for families that have had a parent deported
43:36
SPEAKER_00: or sent to detention,
43:39
SPEAKER_00: trying to support those families and meet their immediate needs,
43:44
SPEAKER_00: offer legal counsel, accompanying people.
43:48
SPEAKER_00: Where we are.
43:50
SPEAKER_00: So for me,
43:52
SPEAKER_00: that's been the attraction to prison ministry and prison teaching of trying
43:59
SPEAKER_00: to accompany my neighbors who are being held in,
44:05
SPEAKER_00: who are incarcerated and also separated from their families and caught in
44:12
SPEAKER_00: a violent system as well.
44:15
SPEAKER_00: A sister said the other day that there are so many needs in the world,
44:20
SPEAKER_00: it can start to feel overwhelming.
44:22
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
44:23
SPEAKER_00: So your job is to figure out where your passion is and then meet that one need.
44:32
SPEAKER_00: And that's helpful because especially right now,
44:35
SPEAKER_00: it does feel that there are so many needs all at once.
44:40
SPEAKER_00: So to...
44:42
SPEAKER_00: Find out what's going on locally.
44:44
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
44:44
SPEAKER_00: I think what is really exciting right now is the real revival of local organizing,
44:51
SPEAKER_00: community resistance at the grassroots level that has emerged.
44:59
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the groundwork has been laid,
45:01
SPEAKER_00: but it really has responded to the moment that we're living in.
45:07
SPEAKER_00: And it always feels like We're not doing enough and we're being overpowered
45:12
SPEAKER_00: by this administration.
45:14
SPEAKER_00: But there are so many ways right now to get involved in local organizing and action.
45:22
SPEAKER_03: And let me follow up that with the third leg of the stool,
45:26
SPEAKER_03: which is how do we get people more involved in,
45:30
SPEAKER_03: you know, I hate to say charity, but, you know, soup kitchens.
45:34
SPEAKER_03: And, you know, from my perspective, and I always tell people that's activism.
45:39
SPEAKER_02: And so doing,
45:40
SPEAKER_03: you know, I mean,
45:40
SPEAKER_03: I always,
45:41
SPEAKER_03: even when I was running an organization in DC,
45:44
SPEAKER_03: I volunteered in soup kitchens there because that's where a lot of the action
45:48
SPEAKER_03: and activism is.
45:49
SPEAKER_03: So how do we get people to understand?
45:52
SPEAKER_03: You have to have all three of those.
45:54
SPEAKER_03: You have to have the contemplative side.
45:56
SPEAKER_03: You have to have the activist side,
45:57
SPEAKER_03: but you also have to be caring for the people at the same time.
46:02
SPEAKER_03: Right.
46:03
SPEAKER_03: So give us the answer to that in, you know, two minutes that we can change the world around.
46:07
SPEAKER_03: Right.
46:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, I'm always kind of struggling to figure it out myself.
46:12
SPEAKER_00: But it does seem to me that the personal encounters that happen through
46:17
SPEAKER_00: the direct service or,
46:22
SPEAKER_00: you know,
46:23
SPEAKER_00: at the local level,
46:25
SPEAKER_00: meeting your neighbors,
46:26
SPEAKER_00: your actual flesh and blood neighbors, and what are their needs?
46:31
SPEAKER_00: What are your needs in a kind of I love the like mutual aid That we all have needs
46:39
SPEAKER_00: and we all have gifts.
46:40
SPEAKER_00: It's similar to synodality as well,
46:43
SPEAKER_00: that every local parish has both needs and we have gifts to contribute
46:49
SPEAKER_00: to one another.
46:50
SPEAKER_00: And recognizing our interdependence,
46:55
SPEAKER_00: that we need one another and we all have the power and ability to help one another
47:01
SPEAKER_00: as well.
47:02
SPEAKER_00: So it's been exciting to get involved here with We Make Indiana
47:07
SPEAKER_00: that has been focused on mental health resources,
47:12
SPEAKER_00: getting public investment in a crisis center so
47:15
SPEAKER_00: that its first responders have training to respond to mental health emergencies,
47:23
SPEAKER_00: really focused on stopping evictions at this moment.
47:27
SPEAKER_00: So there are so many needs.
47:30
SPEAKER_00: But finding what you are passionate about and what is happening at the local level,
47:35
SPEAKER_00: I think, is the place to start.
47:38
SPEAKER_01: The other thing that strikes me about all of this is,
47:41
SPEAKER_01: and Sister Annie,
47:43
SPEAKER_01: you've talked about it in some of your writings,
47:45
SPEAKER_01: is the way in which community is essential.
47:50
SPEAKER_01: It's an essential community.
47:52
SPEAKER_01: You know, to lift somebody up when their faith is in the pits, that happens to all of us.
47:58
SPEAKER_01: And in terms of activism,
47:59
SPEAKER_01: right, to get involved in something locally, it's hard to be, I think, a free agent.
48:06
SPEAKER_01: You know,
48:07
SPEAKER_01: like there's a lot of,
48:09
SPEAKER_01: and I think it's one of the challenges,
48:11
SPEAKER_01: there's a lot of talk about, you know, like I'm spiritual, but not religious.
48:16
SPEAKER_01: And it's,
48:17
SPEAKER_01: and I'm glad people are,
48:19
SPEAKER_01: but it's hard to,
48:21
SPEAKER_01: It's hard to navigate your spiritual journey alone,
48:27
SPEAKER_01: and it's hard to be a lone activist.
48:30
SPEAKER_01: So I think it's interesting because when I read what you said about community,
48:36
SPEAKER_01: I was sort of thinking of it very literally.
48:38
SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm with these other sisters.
48:43
SPEAKER_01: But in a sense,
48:44
SPEAKER_01: just from this conversation,
48:45
SPEAKER_01: it seems to me that that's really a much we can define community.
48:49
SPEAKER_01: Living in community in a much larger way.
48:53
SPEAKER_01: That's important, yeah.
48:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think our current economic system inculcates this self-perception
49:03
SPEAKER_00: of individuality, individualism, autonomy.
49:07
SPEAKER_00: We value being autonomous and self-sufficient when the truth Of like the deep truth
49:17
SPEAKER_00: about being human is that we are interdependent and we need one another.
49:21
SPEAKER_00: And we can't thrive without those social bonds and solidarity.
49:31
SPEAKER_00: So I think we're learning that lesson at this moment.
49:36
SPEAKER_02: Well, I know we're kind of getting to the top of the hour.
49:38
SPEAKER_02: And Sister Anna, we'd love to hear your thoughts.
49:40
SPEAKER_02: As you know, the name of our journal is Tomorrow's American Catholic.
49:42
SPEAKER_02: And We like to hear our guests,
49:44
SPEAKER_02: just what that phrase might conjure for them, your hopes for the church.
49:48
SPEAKER_02: And I would just reflect something back to that you said earlier about this witness
49:52
SPEAKER_02: to uncertainty when you were talking about the challenges of valid religious life
49:56
SPEAKER_02: and kind of the organizational structures.
49:58
SPEAKER_02: I think that's happening in the wider church too.
50:01
SPEAKER_02: We're kind of in, we need this witness of uncertainty to take that leap.
50:03
SPEAKER_02: We don't quite know what the future looks like.
50:05
SPEAKER_02: It might be much smaller and much more scattered like salt and how we have
50:10
SPEAKER_02: to Not be afraid of that bridge.
50:12
SPEAKER_02: So thank you for raising that witness and just any type of hope
50:16
SPEAKER_02: for Tomorrow's American Catholic you'd like to share with us.
50:19
SPEAKER_00: It is a wonderful question to reflect on.
50:23
SPEAKER_00: I hope that as a church,
50:28
SPEAKER_00: we embrace the spirituality of nonviolence following the nonviolent Jesus
50:36
SPEAKER_00: and Pope Francis certainly was promoting nonviolence.
50:40
SPEAKER_00: Pope Leo has talked a lot about disarming peace,
50:46
SPEAKER_00: disarming our own hearts,
50:47
SPEAKER_00: and then looking out to disarm nations, and it's connected.
50:54
SPEAKER_00: It all is on a spectrum.
50:56
SPEAKER_00: It begins with not doing violence to ourselves and our neighbors,
50:59
SPEAKER_00: and then stopping violence on a larger scale.
51:05
SPEAKER_00: There's such a rich tradition of peacebuilding in our church history to embrace that
51:14
SPEAKER_00: at this time.
51:16
SPEAKER_00: So I'm hopeful on that score.
51:19
SPEAKER_00: And we've talked about more roles for women in the church, opportunities for lay preaching.
51:27
SPEAKER_00: I'm hopeful that communities,
51:30
SPEAKER_00: whatever gets decided at the Vatican by the bishops,
51:34
SPEAKER_00: that In our local communities,
51:36
SPEAKER_00: in our local gatherings,
51:39
SPEAKER_00: schools,
51:40
SPEAKER_00: parishes,
51:41
SPEAKER_00: that we can be creative about hearing from more voices reflecting on the word.
51:50
SPEAKER_00: And yes,
51:51
SPEAKER_00: I think it is a time to be letting go of some of our structures
51:58
SPEAKER_00: that are no longer serving us.
52:01
SPEAKER_00: I think part of the Religious life of our letting go is about also deciding what
52:09
SPEAKER_00: to do with some of our land and buildings.
52:14
SPEAKER_00: And this is where the you all had a piece recently on nuns and nuns that is now
52:20
SPEAKER_00: the land justice futures work,
52:24
SPEAKER_00: working with communities and Dominican Sisters of Peace have been in this process
52:28
SPEAKER_00: and.
52:29
SPEAKER_00: To be thinking about how do we turn over land with an eye toward justice for those
52:38
SPEAKER_00: who have been historically displaced from the land or disenfranchised?
52:44
SPEAKER_00: Can we return the land to tribes or farmers who will steward it with real care
52:53
SPEAKER_00: for its restoration?
52:55
SPEAKER_00: So there are things about letting go that are, there are gifts to it as well.
52:59
SPEAKER_00: And the church is the largest landowner globally.
53:04
SPEAKER_00: So there are real, you know, that's a real opportunity.
53:07
SPEAKER_00: Letting go isn't only about diminishment,
53:11
SPEAKER_00: but there are gifts and opportunities that come along
53:14
SPEAKER_00: with how do we make decisions oriented toward justice and healing with the resources
53:23
SPEAKER_00: that we no longer need.
53:25
SPEAKER_02: Letting go is not always about diminishment.
53:27
SPEAKER_02: That's a really good insight to remember.
53:29
SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
53:31
SPEAKER_03: Thank you so much, Sister Annie.
53:32
SPEAKER_03: This was wonderful.
53:33
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
53:33
SPEAKER_00: This was a lot of fun.
53:35
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
53:35
SPEAKER_03: It's also, for me, somebody like you gives me hope.
53:39
SPEAKER_03: I've been at this for a long time.
53:40
SPEAKER_03: So when I see somebody like you that's full of energy and spirit, it gives me hope.
53:45
SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
54:04
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54:08
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54:32
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