Interculturality, Leadership and Vows: Liability or Richness

Sr. Patricia Murray, IBVM

A recent Vatican document notes the enormous change that has occurred where “female congregations have passed from almost entirely monocultural contexts to the challenge of multiculturalism.” 

The face of religious life reflects a “labyrinth of cultures.”

Younger male and female  religious live in multi-cultural communities or participate in networks of communion and mutual support that are “culturally, ethnically, theologically and ecclesiologically diverse.” This recent evolution within and across many congregations “has made the challenge of integrating different cultures even more acute.”

The same document notes that some institutes now find themselves in a situation that is hard to manage. On the one hand, a few dozen elderly members who are tied to the classic and sometimes altered cultural and institutional traditions, and on the other side a large number of young members from different cultures who tremble, who feel marginalized and who no longer accept subordinate roles.

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