Before there were curial congregations, there were various authorities. There were monastic communities. There were Benedictines. Two recent events remind us of the importance of both the traditional understandings of authority and the spiritual wisdom required to exercise them in today’s church.

* The first event is the decision of Sister Christine Vladimiroff, O.S.B., prioress of the Erie Benedictines, to refuse an order from the Vatican’s Congregation for the Consecrated Life to prohibit Sister Joan Chittister, a member of her community, from participating in the Women’s Ordination Worldwide Conference in Dublin, Ireland, at the end of June.

In a statement defending her decision and that of the community, the prioress wrote: "After much deliberation and prayer, I concluded that I would decline the request of the Vatican. It is out of the Benedictine, or monastic, tradition of obedience that I formed my decision. There is a fundamental difference in the understanding of obedience in the monastic tradition and that which is being used by the Vatican to exert power and control and prompt a false sense of unity inspired by fear. Benedictine authority and obedience are achieved through dialogue between a community member and her prioress in a spirit of co-responsibility. The role of the prioress in a Benedictine community is to be a guide in the seeking of God. While lived in community, it is the individual member who does the seeking.

"Sister Joan Chittister, who has lived the monastic life with faith and fidelity for fifty years, must make her own decision based on her sense of church, her monastic profession, and her own personal integrity. I cannot be used by the Vatican to deliver an order of silencing...."

* The second event is the decision of Archbishop Rembert Weakland, O.S.B., to proceed with the renovation of Milwaukee’s Saint John’s Cathedral, despite the efforts of Cardinal Jorge Medina of the Congregation for Worship to stop it. The story has been much in the news and can be found at www.jsonline.com. In a four-page letter to pastors, deacons, and parish directors of the archdiocese, Weakland wrote the following on July 5: "I insist unequivocally that Cardinal Medina of the Congregation for Worship has not proven that I broke any liturgical norms or canons in making the decisions that were rightfully mine to make as the local bishop of this church. I stand by that statement...I must, for the good of the diocese, in this local church, defend the position that the right of the local bishop to make judgments in this diocese cannot be compromised over something as trivial as a matter of taste or opinion. I will defend my decisions as being not only liturgically correct, sound, and beneficial, but also as being my prerogative to make. I do so, not out of stubbornness, but because, at this particular moment of history, it is my obligation to insist on the rights and duties of a local bishop in the Catholic Church."

Amen.