The Vatican instruction Cor orans, published on May 15, which contains instructions for the life of cloistered nuns, is “the death” and “the end of the contemplative monastic life”.
This is the assessment of an unnamed New Rite Carmelite writing on RemnantNewspaper.com (May 27).
The document asks for the appointment of federal abbesses or "presidents" who oversee federated monasteries. It wants to introduce shared initial formation programmes for postulants and novices, ongoing formation courses for professed nuns, and interconnected funds.
This means that the autonomy of the monasteries is suppressed and the authority of the superior is removed. The single monasteries are financially not independent anymore, and the specificities of each house have no right to exist.
The nun comments, “There are no options in this document, no choices, no recourse. It’s all being done to us.”
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