Vatican II: 40
years later
In religious life, a chance to choose again
By CAMILLE
D’ARIENZO
When people from every nation came
to the World’s Fair in Flushing Meadows Park in New York City’s
borough of Queens in the early ’60s, the Vatican came, too, in the words
of Pope Paul VI, carved into the exterior of the Vatican Pavilion. People who
had never heard of an encyclical, much less read one, perceived with wonder and
admiration the effect of John XXIII’s open window policy.
The inscription read: “Let the world know this: The church
looks on the world with profound understanding, with sincere admiration, with
an intention not of conquering it, but of serving it; not of destroying it, but
of appreciating it; not of condemning it, but of strengthening and saving
it.”
When my eyes first took in this cataclysmic statement, I wore the
traditional habit of the Sisters of Mercy. Surrounding me were my 40 delightful
seventh-grade students whom I had led, via a short ride on the No. 7 subway
train, to the excitement that was the World’s Fair. The words carved in
stone transferred easily to my heart, even though I knew embracing them would
change my life. Members of religious congregations had been trained to renounce
the world the pope addressed. “The world, the flesh and the devil”
were woven from the same cloth.
There was little in our formation that encouraged appreciation of
different religious faiths. Even members of other religious congregations were
seen as separate creations, not potential collaborators and co-ministers.
Laypeople were to be treated respectfully, but kept at a distance.
But even as my open heart welcomed those prophetic words, I could
have not envisioned that I, a few days before the first anniversary of the
destruction of the Twin Towers, would accompany a laywoman to a mosque 12
blocks from ground zero. Entering that sacred place, I removed my shoes and
covered my head and sat in the back with the women. After an hour of
instruction and prayer of the kind I’d welcome from my own tradition, I
was invited up front to bestow a blessing in the name of the Catholic church.
My companion, Patricia McCann, had invited me to this ecumenical event. The
fact that I know her from 1010 WINS Radio, an Infinity Broadcasting Station
that delivers “All news all the time,” along with my weekly
commentaries, is another sign of the distance we’ve traversed since the
Second Vatican Council.
What would my mistress of novices think of that? The night before
our first profession, she warned us to refrain from sharing our presumably
limited wisdom. “You are to take your place at the bottom of the table and
learn from your elders. Keep your mouth closed for 25 years.”
Three years before that time expired, I was opening my mouth,
every Sunday, as one of the station’s three religious commentators.
Listeners to my broadcasts are an estimated half million. On the last Sunday of
this November I’ll mark 29 years of unbroken Sundays. My ears and eyes
were opened, too as, with many of my religious sisters I studied the signs of
the times and chose those mentors who seemed most closely aligned with the
teachings of Jesus. “Religious life,” I recalled from my days as a
novice, “is not something, but Someone.” So wrote Fr. Edward Leen in
In the Likeness of Christ.
Before the World’s Fair folded its many tents, my superiors
had removed me from the classroom I loved and assigned me to a new venture
called “Educational Television,” a pilot program of the Brooklyn
diocese. A school superintendent, Fr. Michael Dempsey, had gathered master
teachers from about 10 separate congregations of women and men and a staff of
lay professionals. Gone were the distinctions, the separations. We worked
together in our separate areas of expertise, breathing life into an educational
pioneering venture. Friendships were formed and, in three separate cases, they
led to marriage.
While working in television, I accepted an invitation from Don
Zirkel, editor of the Brooklyn Tablet, to write for that paper on a
regular basis.
This widened world was a kind of training field for my experiences
as a doctoral student in communications at the University of Michigan. I first
saw the campus in the summer of 1966. There were so many nuns in religious garb
that some professors likened it to Notre Dame. By the second summer I wore a
modified habit and by the third carried only its memory in my suitcase of
simple, contemporary dresses. The academic community, professors, their spouses
and students enthusiastically embraced all stages of my metamorphosis.
The erudite professor who taught us the history of broadcasting
had a perspective quite different from that of my high school teacher. Sister
revered Sen. Joseph McCarthy as the saint who kept atheistic communism at bay.
My Michigan professor considered him “a diabolical megalomaniac who
conducted ruthless witch hunts.”
My association outside the academic community included one
homeless teenager who, without documentation, became and, at 52, remains my
adopted son.
My studies completed, my dissertation on the life work of CBS
reporter-commentator Eric Sevareid accepted, I took a teaching position at
Brooklyn College in September 1973. There were at least as many yarmulkes as
crosses visible on students there and I learned to cherish a broad, diverse
student body. For most of my time I was the only woman and the only Catholic on
the faculty of the TV/Radio Department. There, as in every other phase of my
life, I acquired friends who remain part of my life.
In the ashes of the ’60s, from the assassinations of Martin
Luther King, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy and his brother Robert; in the
losses from the exodus from the priesthood and religious life, recommitment and
consecration were of the essence. We all had a chance to choose again.
Women religious leaders were emerging. The late Columbus, Ohio,
Dominican, Sr. Marjorie Tuite, became a disturbing prophet demanding that nuns
measure themselves by their fidelity to the gospel. Along with Sam Easley, a
wise, quiet black man, she conducted workshops on racism and social justice.
She expanded her purview to include techniques for winning justice for women in
church and society. I watched and reported on her, even as I learned. When she
invited me to go with her delegation to El Salvador on the first anniversary of
the deaths of four North American churchwomen, I did. Next it was Nicaragua.
Then Honduras. But we never got off the plane in Tegucigalpa, being forbidden
by the Honduran president to enter his country. His advisory called us all --
laywomen and nuns -- “Maryknoll whores of the Jesuit persuasion.” His
condemnation and our laughter couldn’t drown out the insistent sound of
Marjorie’s “three most important questions: Who lives? Who dies? Who
decides?” The sisters with whom I’ve shared community these many
years have tended to these questions in light of their own outstanding
ministries.
In her own voice, Benedictine Sr. Joan Chittister repeated the
challenges and set the direction for so many of us. Other women from different
communities continue to offer direction.
Jesuit priest-poet Daniel Berrigan inspired us by his constancy,
his creative demonstrations against nuclear weapons and warmongering -- above
all, by his rootedness in the sacred scriptures. What I learned from him is
that social justice efforts are not to be a competitive game. The passions of
the spirit are not about winning converts or judging others. Everything is
about being faithful. Pax Christi is one of the national organizations that
clings to that vision of nonviolence.
Soon after my 60th birthday I was named president of my regional
community. As I left Brooklyn College, I feared my world would narrow. Instead,
I entered a more expansive arena. In 1991 my own regional community had joined
the Institute of the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas. What beauty and wisdom
resides there!
Three years later I was elected to the presidency of the
Leadership Conference of Women Religious. How enriched I was by those strong
women and the challenges we faced together!
As the 1990s were drawing to a close, a man was locked in a prison
cell many miles away entered my world. Facing an execution date, David Paul
Hammer, #24507-077, who had read of my opposition to capital punishment, asked
me to find him a spiritual guide for the remaining weeks of his life. When the
approach Christmas 1998 rendered that task undoable, I went to see him myself.
Now, with two stays of execution behind him, he has become my godson and
friend. He has taught me about the value of freedom, the existence of those who
wait in prison and the power of redemptive love. I’m working hard to win
him life in prison without parole and to put an end to capital punishment. I
know if I have to watch his execution in the federal penitentiary in Terre
Haute, Ind., it will be the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
My recent golden jubilee celebration brought together about 200
people from the various walks of my life. We shared memories, music, laughter,
food and liturgy. How different from my expectations of 50 years ago. How
wonderful to have lived with the openness of Vatican II.
Let the world know this: Together we are privileged to share a
journey. Many of you give witness by your lives to the motto I wear in my
silver ring: “He [Jesus] went about doing good.” The apostles are
still in action.
Sr. Camille D’Arienzo is a member of the Brooklyn Regional
Community of the Sisters of Mercy.
National Catholic Reporter, October 4,
2002
|
