IHM Community – Feminism and Religion

this we were, this is how we tried to love,

and these are the forces they had ranged against us,

and these are the forces we had ranged within us,

within us and against us, against us and within us.

Adrienne Rich

Last week a colleague of mine forwarded the sad news that Anita Caspary, IHM, had died at the rich age of 95. This was the same day (October 5) that Steve Jobs passed away from his battle with pancreatic cancer. The tension between the two figures was not lost on me. The death of Jobs, an icon of ingenuity and leadership, wonderful husband and father, is mourned throughout the world. The life and legacy of Anita Caspary will be remembered and mourned as well, but by comparison, on a much smaller scale. That’s unfortunate, because the life and legacy of Caspary as an instrument for change in the lives of Catholic women in general, and Women Religious in particular is what legends are made of.

As an IHM sister, Caspary was teacher, poet, author, and president of Immaculate Heart College (1958-1963), but is best known in her role as Mother General Sister Humiliata (1963-1973) of the IHM’s. In Witness to Integrity, Caspary dramatically chronicles the painful struggles and controversies between the IHM sisters and Cardinal Archbishop of Los Angeles, James Francis McIntyre, in which 600 IHM Los Angeles nuns were released from their canonical vows in 1970. Released because of their self-determination in remaining at the center of their religious fidelity and thought by putting into practice The Second Vatican Council’s Decree on Up-to-Date Renewal of Religious life, or Perfectae Caritatis. Addressed to priest and religious, this decree sanctioned the exodus from the middle ages for the sisters by insisting they join the modern world in both dress and discernment of vocation that best utilized each sister’s talents. In an exert put forth from the 1967 Decrees of the Ninth Chapter, the IHM community clarify their position for renewal: Continue reading “Anita Caspery, IHM: Prophetic Icon of Renewal By Cynthia Garrity-Bond”