Religious congregations work together

By Tanya Connor | The Catholic Free Press

WORCESTER – Nearly 50 women from at least seven religious congregations celebrated 30 years of collaboration Sunday.    
A Mass and informal reception were held at Christ the King Parish for the 30th anniversary of the Religious Collaborative Planning Coalition.
The RCPC started as a school project that led to a grant-funded study. It has remained a means of bringing together sisters from different congregations.
 Venerini Sister Carmen Capriole unwittingly started the ball rolling in 1989 while working on her master’s degree in gerontology. She chose to study women religious – because she is one and because “there wasn’t, at the time, anything written about them” – she said.
“I was looking at something local – if we could collaborate with the different orders for health care” and longterm care for the elderly, she said. Some congregations were just taking care of their own sisters, while others had licensed facilities. The congregations didn’t do things together in those days like they do now, she said.
A 1996 Catholic Free Press article recounting RCPC’s history says Sister Carmen sent a questionnaire to congregations that had sisters in the Worcester diocese. One question asked whether respondents would be willing to come together.
On Sept. 12, 1989, that gathering was held, and RCPC was born.
At the meeting an interest in having religious congregations work together to address their retirement and health-care issues developed, hence the original name of the organization: Retirement Collaborative Planning Committee, the article says.
Sister Carmen said that in addition to her master’s from Springfield College, a second study was done. In 1992 RCPC received a $25,000 grant from the Tri-Conference Retirement Office, which ran the annual Retirement Fund for Religious collection. A feasibility study coordinator was hired to look into a collaborative plan for inter-congregational living.
But the idea of a shared facility wasn’t embraced by older sisters, according to the CFP report.
Since then, however, many of the congregations’ large houses have closed and elderly sisters needing care have been sent to other facilities, most outside the diocese, some housing laity and sisters from different congregations.
A report about the collaborative project said it also focused on ongoing education and enrichment, and beginning new ventures together.
So the name and focus of RCPC changed. Now called the Religious Collaborative Planning Coalition, it would provide spiritual, educational and social events to bring the congregations together.    
“We began to see there was a desire for some kind of connection” among religious women, said Sister Julia Ciccolini, a Presentation Sister of the Blessed Virgin Mary, who is now RCPC’s chairwoman. “We learned how to pray and play together.”
With the different congregations contributing, they could pay speakers for mornings of prayer, to help them examine community life and social justice, among other issues.
The coalition also organized social gatherings, using the lake-front properties of some of the congregations. Over the years the congregations sold those properties and the number of sisters able to go to gatherings dwindled, Sister Julia said.
So now the collaborative organizes one annual morning of prayer with a speaker, and the Knights of Columbus organize two annual social gatherings for the sisters.
“It’s a way for us to continue to build strong relationships among religious women,” Sister Julia said. “A lot of us are facing major decisions” as congregations. By communicating with each other they see they are not alone.
“We truly need each other,” said Sister Paula Kelleher, a Sister of St. Joseph and interim episcopal liaison to religious. “We all know each other” – aided by RCPC.
“Every time we have something, every community gets an invite,” said Sister Carmen, still an RCPC member.
Members meet to plan, and later to evaluate, the morning of prayer, said coalition member Sister Rena Mae Gagnon, a Little Franciscan of Mary.
“Congratulations are in order – to all of you who have served not only your own religious communities but the wider community for so very long,” Msgr. Thomas J. Sullivan, Christ the King’s pastor, said in his homily for RCPC’s 30th anniversary Mass. “The contributions of religious women to this diocese, the nation and the world has been nothing less than incredible.”
He noted that in the last half-century there has been diversification of sisters’ ministries, but he focused on their work in education.
“Women religious of the United States almost single-handedly built the greatest educational system in the history of the world,” he said.
He told of being educated by sisters and said his listeners are grateful for the sisters who came before them.
He also talked about themes from the Scriptures – how God called Israel to love him because he loved them, how Jesus assured the apostles of God’s continuing love and how love involves laying down one’s life for others.
“God chose you and I for our special vocations,” Msgr. Sullivan said. “We fulfill our vocations the best when we do so in love.”