
The Real Legacy
of Vatican II : the Renewal that
Became a Requiem
and the Death of Two Monasteries
after Vatican II
The Death of Two
Monasteries in
Andover, MA
... and a
Renewal
that
became a Requiem

THE REAL
LEGACY OF VATICAN II
A Pictorial
History ... and a Sober Reminder
The
Franciscan Seraphic Seminary and the
Poor Clare Monastery
blankly face each other on one single street in Andover, Massachusetts
click on any image
to expand it
Francis,
repair My house
which, as you can see, has fallen into ruin
From the Statue of St. Francis at the entrance to the
Franciscan Seraphic Seminary in Andover Massachusetts
(donated by St. Leonards Church in Boston which itself
has been closed as part of the Reconfiguration
of the Churches in the Archdiocese of Boston)
|
The
magnificent Franciscan Seraphic Seminary and Monastery, and
the Poor Clare Monastery,
face
each other across a quiet street in Andover, Massachusetts.
The Franciscan
Seminary was built around 1940, the Poor Clare Monastery in 1959
the year that Pope John XXIII (on January 25, 1959) called for
a general council of the Church, in what has subsequently been called
an Aggiornamento for updating the Church in light of its contemporary
cultural and social milieu.
The following
brief pictorial history of two erstwhile thriving institutions filled
with vocations is a silent testimony that needs little comment.
The enormous
Seraphic Seminary is now a Retreat and Conference Center
for a variety of programs, non-religious, inter-denominational,
social and, as the name implies, retreats. A handful of people,
mostly lay, staff the largely empty building. Not one Franciscan
habit is seen by a visitor.
Across the
street, the expansive and once lovely Poor Clare Monastery built
in 1959 is in a state of complete abandonment and ruin. It is unoccupied.
Not one Nun. A private investor has acquired the property
for a commercial enterprise.
It is a deeply
disturbing pictorial, for in the plaque on the statue in the picture
above, one sees a list of names, benefactors, who had ultimately
made a very poor investment in the very best of faith. We cannot
avoid seeing a reflection of our own faith and a catastrophic failure
to authentically understand and respond to it. These sacred places
were built, and thrived, on the faith of our fathers and fell
into ruin and emptiness through an attempt to articulate that faith
on the terms of the world, in the mistaken belief that if we become
like the world, the world will become like us. It calls us to question
many things, troubling things, from a vision of renewal to the
reality of vacancy; of the tremendous hemorrhage of vocations, and
renounced vocations following a terrible miscalculation, an astonishing
misunderstanding, in the breathless pursuit of contemporaneity,
of accommodating the Church to the world, and finding, in the end,
that not only the have the seminaries and monasteries been emptied,
but the pews as well.
The pictures
speak for themselves.
We can only
stand back in astonishment and ask, Who will rebuild the Church
that St. Francis rebuilt ... and which we have let fall once again
into ruin?
If we do not,
no one will.
Geoffrey K.
Mondello
Boston Catholic Journal
Comments? Write us:
editor@boston-catholic-journal.com
A Nuns Response
An
abandoned, disused, Poor Clare Monastery,
Fallen into ruins ... Its hours of Glory Passed.
It
walls and halls wrapped in silence.
The death of a Community.
And yet for the time appointed
it carried on the light of Christ.
To Faith, all things are possible,
all things have their purpose if we do but believe.
Behold, the universal mystical body of Christ,
In many lands, new communities are being planted
It is their hour of Annunciation.
In yet other areas young women enter the House of the Lord
and are espoused to Christ,
Jesus is born anew.
To some is given the witness of Christ's mission.
And to so many, in war torn countries,
in areas scourged with aids, and even communities,
struggling with internal conflicts,
The Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ
is being lived and prayed through daily.
And to some at this moment of time,
by their very silence
speak of the dead Christ,
Laid in the arms of Mary,
Mother of the Church
The Pieta.
This is Christ's Pascal Mystery
being enacted in the Universal Church.
Rejoice, for many Sisterhoods have risen out of the ashes of war,
famine
and adversity,
They proclaim the Risen Life of Christ!
A Poor Clare
Colettine Nun
Editors Reply
...
to some at this moment of time, by their very silence [they] speak
of the dead Christ ...
Yes. Eloquently.
Poignantly ... they speak of a Christ Who is no longer alive in
our midst, in our lives, in our vocations, in our homes, in our
societies, in our governments yes, a Christ Who is dead to us
... and Who no longer has a place, a purpose, in our lives.
Yes, they
speak of a Gospel, an evangel, that has become so distorted, so
detached from its Kerygma, that it has evolved into something
largely social; a call, not to conversion and God, but to social
consciousness" and the world;
Let us look
soberly, objectively, at the aftermath of this transvaluation:
-
Devastated seminaries, some so distorted, so
detached from their charism, that they have evolved into something
largely social; a call, not to conversion and God, but to
social consciousness and the world
-
Devastated
seminaries
-
Devastated
monasteries
-
Devastated
Religious Orders
-
Dead
Religious Orders
-
Absence
of vocations
-
Rampant
homosexuality in the clergy and seminaries
-
Bishops
in defiance of the Holy See
-
Priests
in defiance of Bishops
-
Laity
in defiance of Priests
-
Closed
Churches
-
Vacant
pews
-
Empty
confessionals despite being re-anointed Reconciliation
Rooms
-
Habits
and Clerical Collars as artifacts
-
Dissident
theologians in contempt of the Church that pays them to
teach contra Fide (against the Faith)
-
Catechists
who know little more than the catechumens.
-
Jesus
Christ in the Most Blessed Sacrament evicted from the Altar
and relegated as an embarrassment to obscure niches in remote
corners of the Church
-
The
sterilization of the Church through the removal of sacred
statuary and art in favor of unadorned walls, fake organ
pipes, and insipid banners.
-
The
total abandonment of 2000 years of Sacred Music and Chant
in favor of irksome and distracting pop music, guitars,
pianos, drums, trap sets, flutes, and fiercely competitive
divas.
-
We
no longer recognize sin ... we only have faults and failings
(sin uniquely pertains to God, faults and failures
to social and market deficiencies).
-
Our
children no longer know the most basic tenets of the Catholic
Faith
-
Neither
do our adults.
The litany
is endless and in the end pointless. If what we have arrived
at after 2000 years is a dead Christ in our midst even if
He is alive in other continents less affluent and enlightened,
and even thrives there
here, in
this place, in
this time,
our own faith is a smoldering wick ... because we did not have
the conviction to pass on the torch and those who passed it
to us, first snuffed out the flame.
Letters to the Editor:
Praised be
Jesus Christ! I was stunned by the photographs on the site of the
Franciscan Seminary and Poor Clare Monastery in Andover. It is not
that I am unaware of these sad happenings: however, your pictures
and captions paint a poignant scene of too many of our once vibrant
religious communities ... the departures, the demise and the inevitable
disrepair of the properties.
What can we do, for as you say, who will affect a reversal of the
present conditions and the rebuilding, renovating of these holy
grounds leading to a renewal in Religious life and the Priesthood,
if we don't!
When I entered the School Sisters of Notre Dame in 1962, there were
102 postulants, 78 went on to the novitiate and the entire Motherhouse
was home to over 500 women. I recently saw pictures of some of the
changes that have been made to the Motherhouse; the chapel, once
so grand, reflecting the glory of God, had been completely redone,
no pews, comfy chairs and no kneelers. And I do realize that most
of the sisters at the Motherhouse are elderly, nevertheless, it
was a shock to me!
What can we do? Bring our dear little sisters from Ty Mam Duw
to Massachusetts to begin a new foundation? Wouldn't that be
lovely for us? These now deserted or converted buildings are so
large that to begin again would require an enormous amount of money
to fix and maintain even if there were nuns, priests or brothers
to inhabit them. But nothing is impossible with God, I read recently
that five of Mother Angelica's Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration
are establishing a foundation in Arizona!
In reality, I think we must continue to pray, fast, sacrifice for
the renewal of religious life. I have great hopes for our Holy Mother
Church with Benedict XVI at the helm. I truly feel that his papacy
(and, please God, let it be a long one with good health for our
Holy Father) will be a springtime for the Church.
Do you think that we can ever go back to those days of certainty?
Clocks don't run backwards, but I think we can take the good, solid
foundation of Truth and one brick at a time ... like St. Francis,
rebuild. I would be interested in more of your thoughts on this
matter.
I want to again compliment you and our sisters in Wales on a magnificent
website. There is a wealth of information there, and I sense a growth
the context of the articles. The world is hungry for the truth whether
they are aware of it now or not, but I have great hopes that the
time will come when they will be eagerly, if not frantically, searching
... and the site in there! ... all for Jesus and souls!
Thank you and may God reward you for your work for the kingdom.
In the Hearts of Jesus and Mary
CG
Editors Reply:
Dear CG,
Thank you for your letter. I grieve with you also ...
But I also have hope! I was in Rome when Pope John Paul II died.
I sat in the square praying with, among, hundreds of thousands.
... and of the many around me, what struck me most were the Religious
that I saw, both men and women: Roman cassocks, full Priestly attire,
full habits and all on young, young,
men and women. All! And so, so many! It
was stunning! The bright, young, cheerful, eager faces, of those
young women and men, filled my heart with joy and great, great hope.
The men were manly and of all races and nations. The women were
lovely and chaste. It was medicine to my heart.
It also caused me to deeply question America,
the Catholic Church in America which is effete and anemic.
There probably were American priests and nuns in St. Peter's
Square but I would not have known them, for most do not wear Clerical
suits or Religious Habits. It is so sad. So very sad. They seem
to have lost their vocation, or to hide it in shame the shame
of association with Christ and His Church. BUT
only the Americans. Not the Europeans, the Asians,
the Africans, the Indians all were Christ's Priests or Brides
CLEARLY.
Immediately I was struck by the fact that the spiritual
is a deeply lived reality to them. They appear to understand that
their mission is spiritual, to bring Christ to the world
.... not to bring social justice, equal rights, women's rights,
animal rights, rent-control, etc, to the world. That is for laymen
and laywomen. America and increasingly, Europe is, in a word,
ashamed of Jesus Christ, and therefore of His Church. They are not
... correct ... to the world, and do not pander to the "sensitivities"
of every depravity possible. They want heaven on earth and each
to be a god unto themselves and, as gods, to make the world accord
with their own desires, and a reflection a perverse image, if
you will of themselves.
A renewal is at hand. A genuine
renewal. Not the largely superficial renewal" following Vatican
II ... a mere rearranging of furniture, a wholesale trashing of
Church art, liturgy, and teaching, a large-scale burning of Habits
and Clerical Collars. The Church in America did not change its heart,
only its clothes. It did not renew its zeal for Christ but translated
it into zeal for the world. It did not renew God's image in man,
but largely erased it.
I truly believe this is changing. I think that Catholics have grown
spiritually sick and realize that the medicine they have been offered
will not heal them. They are looking for depth they are beginning
to look beyond the contemporary furniture and a changing of clothes
that had nothing to do with a changing of hearts. They are spiritually
starving ... and a new generation is finding its way to the true
Christ, the true Church, the real Gospel. We are sick of the world.
The world has made us sick. Why attempt to make the Church in its
image? These young people appear to see this, to know this they
go beyond the superficialities (and there are so many) ... unlike
their parents. Perhaps they have simply looked around and
saw what has resulted in the world, in their parent's lives, in
schools, and in governments as a result of such a tremendous defection
from Christ and His True Church.
May our children bring us
where we have been unable to bring them.
God keep you.
Editor
Boston Catholic Journal
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