U.S. Women Religious to receive Apostolic Visitation

Recently, the Vatican concluded a comprehensive examination of the seminaries and houses of formation for Priests and male religious. Now it has been announced that a similar procedure will take place for religious sisters in the United States. The Associated Press:

The Vatican has begun a first-ever comprehensive study of women's religious orders in the United States, four decades into a steep decline in the number of Roman Catholic sisters and nuns in the country.

The study, ordered by a Vatican congregation in December and announced Friday in Washington, will examine "the quality of the life" of 59,000 members in more than 400 Catholic women's religious institutes, said Sister Eva-Maria Ackerman, a spokeswoman for the study, which is called an apostolic visitation.

For those interested, Cardinal Franc Rode, who will oversee the Vatican-side of things, has a lengthy text on the topic. There is also an official website for the program.

How the process will work:

First, Mother Clare will solicit voluntary input from the superiors general through inviting them to make personal contacts with her in Rome or in the United States. During the second stage, the major superiors in the United States will be asked for information such as statistics, activities and community practices. Selected on-site visits will be made during the third stage. During this time, the sisters will have an opportunity to share with the visitation teams their joys and hopes, challenges and concerns about their lives as women religious in the Church today. The final stage will be the compilation and delivery of a comprehensive and confidential review by Mother Clare to Cardinal Rodé. (PDF file)

My initial reactions:

• Check-ups are always a good thing. Broadly speaking, however, female religious orders have not exhibited the same set of problems as many seminaries and houses of formation for male religious did (particularly in recent decades). Nevertheless, accountability to the Vatican and attentiveness to the needs of and concerns about female religious should yield good fruit.
• The initiative appears well-run at the outset. The website, transparency of the process, etc., are welcome changes of pace from the (sadly) more typical situations of bureaucracy and inneficiency that plague these sort of huge undertakings.

But that's just me. I'd especially be interested to hear what people closer to the process are thinking, especially religious sisters, although obviously many cloistered orders and sisters in their postulancy stage don't always have access to the internet (or time to fritter away on humble blogs like my own). Still, it's worth a shot.