Hundreds of members of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious and guests convened for the organization’s annual assembly Aug. 11-13, which was as much a retreat as a meeting.
On the assembly’s opening day, Dominican Sister Elise García, now past president of LCWR, gave a presidential address that chastised the church, its bishops, vowed religious and institutions for participating in “our nation’s perduring sin of racism.”
She and other LCWR leaders acknowledged “these sinful acts by our congregations and institutions” and offered “a profound apology.”
“We as Americans have cheated ourselves of the full truth of our history, ignoring or eliding the painful stories that inextricably interweave and form the full fabric of our lives as African Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans, Euro Americans, Latinx Americans,” García said.
“There is a direct through line of oppression and white supremacy in our history, from the first enslaved Africans disembarking the White Lion, an English privateer ship, in Hampton, Virginia, in late August of 1619 to the murder of George Floyd on a street corner in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in late May of 2020,” she said. “We need to know this.”
Sister García’s address reflected the reckoning LCWR, its member congregations and sisters across the United States are undertaking in regard to their role in the country’s systemic racism and grappling with their own failures.
“We as women religious are absolutely called to this work,” Sister García told Global Sisters Report in an interview before the LCWR assembly. “It’s fundamental to who we say we are, and the first step is to revisit our history, all our collective history and our specific history. We have to admit and recognize the ways we have been complicit in this.”
In addition to working to eliminate racism, LCWR and its members also are looking to the future of religious life. This has been a common theme at recent LCWR assemblies.
On Aug. 12, in her keynote address to the 2021 assembly, Sister Mercedes Casas Sánchez of the Daughters of the Holy Spirit of Mexico wove together wisdom from poets, popes and philosophers in a literary and mystical reflection on what the future may hold.
Though religious life today can feel frail, “we are not starting from scratch,” Sister Casas reminded attendees, offering Pope Francis’ warning that they ought not “give in to the temptation of numbers and efficiency.”
Through its first Lifetime Achievement Awards, LCWR celebrated the lives and ministries of three sisters who in their decades of religious life have advocated for those on the margins: Sister Joyce Meyer, of the Sisters of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary; Sister Amata Miller, of the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary; and Sister Helen Prejean, a Sister of St. Joseph of Medaille.
Sister Meyer is a member of the board of directors of the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation and is GSR’s international liaison. (The Hilton Foundation is a major funder of GSR.)
Sister Miller is an economist who has taught countless sisters and students about economics as a tool for social justice.
Sister Prejean is well-known for her tireless advocacy to abolish the death penalty, made famous in her book “Dead Man Walking” and the movie of the same name.
Sister Meyer reflected on her decades of traveling the world, including once riding on the back of a motorcycle in Vietnam disguised as a Vietnamese woman and the time she dressed as a Muslim woman to visit a sisters’ school in Afghanistan that taught children with disabilities.
“I remember it with great joy, mostly,” she said. “We were all together, defying the darkness — and sometimes the suffering — that surrounded us.”
Sister Prejean said if she has achieved anything, it has been because of her fellow sisters and the Holy Spirit.
“God bless our sisterhood. I love that we are free agents of the Gospel in the world,” she said. “I don’t do anything apart from the sisterhood.”
Asked how she got into economics, Sister Miller said she remembers “with horror” the day her mother superior assigned it to her. She didn’t like math and just wanted to go back to teaching elementary school.
However, she had grown up with a passion for social justice, so she “learned how to teach economics as economic justice and social justice.” She said young sisters and economists must seize this moment as more and more people question capitalism.
“But after all these years, it looks like maybe I was the right woman in the right place at the right time,” Sister Miller said. “I’m humbled by the award.”
The three officially received the awards on the final day of the assembly; the awards had been announced last year, but the presentation was pushed back in hopes they could be given out in person.
Also on the final day of the assembly, LCWR bid adieu to Sister Jayne Helmlinger, a Sister of St. Joseph of Orange, California, who ended her time in the presidential triumvirate. She served as president-elect 2018-2019, as president 2019-2020 and as past president 2020-2021.
“We’re deeply grateful for your thoughtful approach to every conversation, for your thorough reflection on every matter that came before us,” said Sister Carol Zinn, a Sister of St. Joseph of Philadelphia, who is LCWR’s executive director. “We thank you for your listening ears, your listening heart, your deep, contemplative spirit.”
In a column for GSR, Sister Helmlinger reflected on the highlights of her three years in LCWR leadership, almost half of which was spent navigating the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Our collective response to the mounting needs of our brothers and sisters were met with ingenuity, creativity, daring and grace,” she wrote.
“Networks formed over the decades were accessed to assist our brothers and sisters from around the world — and often accomplished through emails, phone calls and virtual meetings,” she added. “It brought home to all of us the fragility of life and the importance of the ministry of presence.”
The LCWR presidency now passes to Sister Jane Herb of the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. In interviews with GSR, Sister Herb’s friends and former co-workers described her collaborative approach to leadership, which also could have its roots in the years she spent playing sports, then coaching.
“What she tries to do is listen, to take the experience she has and what’s happening and see how it all fits together,” said Sister Marianne Gaynor, who joined the leadership team of the Immaculate Heart of Mary sisters in 2018.
Sister Herb also is not shy about addressing problems, Sister Gaynor said: “She doesn’t let things simmer too long. If there’s something she needs to address, she usually addresses it pretty directly. But she tries to hear both sides, basically saying, ‘Where are we going with this?'”
Joining the presidential triumvirate for 2021-2022 is the new president-elect, Sister Rebecca Ann Gemma, of the Dominican Sisters of Springfield, Illinois. She is prioress of her community and has been a member of LCWR for 16 years.
She also was a founding member of the Springfield Dominican anti-racism team and has been working in anti-racism at the community level for almost two decades.
“The work doesn’t get easier, it gets harder, because we recognize our relationships with people of color aren’t what they should be,” she told GSR in a Q-and-A after her June 28 election. “You can hide a lot, but when you are in a real relationship and accountable to other people, there’s no hiding.”
The third member of the triumvirate is Sister García, who begins her third year in LCWR leadership, now serving as past president.
Next year’s assembly is currently planned as an in-person event in St. Louis. This year’s gathering was supposed to be in Orlando, Florida.
The assembly closed with a song that opened the virtual gathering: “Heaven knows where we are going, but we know we will get there.”
Hackenmiller is managing editor of Global Sisters Report. Dan Stockman, GSR national correspondent contributed to this story.
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