Reflections on the 2021 LCWR Assembly and Ritual of Repentance
by Sarah Bradley
At this year’s LCWR Assembly, a few more guests than normal were wandering the virtual “conference halls” of the gathering. Taking advantage of a digital platform, LCWR leaders invited over 300 guests as full participants, believing that diverse stakeholders would “enrich the conversation about where religious life is being called.”
Along with other organizations like Giving Voice and the National Black Sisters Conference, the Nuns & Nones team was honored to take part in these illuminating conversations. Under an overarching theme of “Creating Space for the Future,” the conference hosted three days of thoughtful conversations ranging from grief, to justice, to visioning.
As our Nuns & Nones “delegation” reflected on our time at the LCWR Assembly, all nine of us found the same moment to be most exemplary of the future of religious life: On the first day of the conference, Sr. Elise García, OP, LCWR President, invoked her fellow sisters to be “Prophets of Communion” by reckoning with and dismantling the white supremacy of Catholic institutions and religious communities, and repairing the long and still-present legacies of racial harm.
In a formal ritual of repentance, all three members of the LCWR triumvirate presidency (Srs. Jayne Helmlinger, Elise García, and Jane Herb) and Executive Director, Sr. Carol Zinn, each made a formal acknowledgement and apology for the crimes of colonization, genocide, and slavery. Candles flickered and a solemn silence filled the screen as each LCWR leader stepped forward, one by one.
“Before God and all who have been grievously harmed through the generations by Papal Bulls that sanctioned the African slave trade, which led to the chattel slavery of 12 million Black people, and the colonization of Native peoples and land, resulting in the genocide of up to 20 million Indigenous, I, Elise García, President of LCWR and a Dominican Sister of Adrian, Michigan, — on behalf of our conference and members — acknowledge these sinful acts of our church, offer a profound apology, and pray for forgiveness,” said García, followed by the three other statements, in front of over 800 Catholic sisters and guests on Zoom.
Much of the 45 minute Presidential Address was a practice in truth-telling, drawing a direct line from the first slave ships in 1619 to the murder of George Floyd by police, and admitting how this history has enabled white institutions and communities to materially build wealth and power.
“We, as Americans, have cheated ourselves of the full truth of our history, ignoring or eluding the painful stories that inextricably interweave and form the full fabric of our lives,” Sr. García said, “We need to face the full truth… and begin the hard work of sorting out [the] implications.”
In the virtual audience, our nine-person delegation sat in front of our screens, text messages firing back and forth, many of us in tears. What we were witnessing was a hopeful signal toward true healing and transformation.
Why was this so moving to a group of outsiders, the vast majority of whom are non-Catholic?
For starters, none of us had ever seen anything like it. Here in front of us was a powerful and revered body of leadership, humble enough to recognize and apologize for the generational harm it caused.
“It just felt so important,” recalled NYC organizer Gina Ciliberto, “My first reaction was ‘I’m so happy this is happening.’ So much of the church has refused to acknowledge any of this in a public way. It was just like, ‘ahh, finally.’” In a world so desperately in need of healing, what might happen if this ritual weren’t a singular instance, but a greater call within the Church, and a model to promote in other communities and churches?
"This is what true religious/spiritual leadership looks like,” remarked Nuns & Nones delegate Adam Horowitz, “It was powerful to witness LCWR leadership take a prophetic stand and model to the rest of the community what's possible and needed.”
It also felt like the visceral embodiment of the conference’s theme, “Making Space for the Future.”
After the ritual, the room felt spacious and grounded, as if Spirit had opened the window and a breeze was blowing through. In small groups, sisters discussed the ritual with great force and energy. Nuns & Nones delegate Katie Gordon recalls a sister saying, “We have nothing to lose when we know our history and know our God.”
Delegate Brittany Koteles went on to reflect, “By modeling the first step of repair, the ritual has modeled the true strength of religious life: not numbers, not even ministries -- but a spiritual surrender to love and to truth that transcends the limitations of institution. This moment in religious life is a teacher to us all: on one hand, examining, letting go of, and grieving long-familiar structures; and in the same breath, orienting the mystic heart toward the call of justice.”
But much awaits on the journey: in a time of climate emergency, a rising racial wealth gap, and growing political dysfunction, spiritual and material reparations is not only the ‘good’ path; it is the necessary path for survival. The “Spirit call within a call” to address settler colonialism, white supremacy, and extractive capitalism is also the clarion call from today’s climate and social justice movements.
If we follow the mystic impulse that Sr. Elise names as “laying down permanent capabilities for creative communion,” we see that it can only lead us to this work of repair and renewal. In our hands lies the unfinished work of our lineages -- but also, the god(s) we serve.
For many of us, that work will look like letting go and giving space for the new. In an unfinished, co-created universe, and after 500 years of domination and extraction, our entire world is in an evolutionary moment of “letting go,” especially for those who come from colonizing lineages.
To witness this year’s assembly, and sisters’ continued and profound process of “letting go” of familiar forms, is a teacher. And when paired with the impulse of healing and reparations, that process of letting go doesn’t point to an end -- it points to a beginning.
As “monks of a different kind,” inspired by both sisters and modern movements, we heed the same “Spirit call.” To sisters, our companions in spiritual community, we say: Thank you. Keep going. We are with you.
Together, may we boldly ‘create space for the future.’
Sarah Jane Bradley is a member of the Nuns & Nones organizing team.
We also tip our hats to N&N local organizer Gina Ciliberto for her piece in Sojourners, also offering reflections on the meaning of this ritual, and what future steps might solidify its significance.