The Nun in the World: A Transnational Study of Catholic Sisters and the Second Vatican Council

This symposium aims to unite three burgeoning areas of scholarship in religious history: the examination of the “lived history” of the Second Vatican Council; an analysis of the Roman Catholic Church as a transnational actor in global history; and efforts to develop a comprehensive understanding of Catholic women’s religious institutes through the lens of the history of gender and voluntarism during one of the most transformative moments in their collective history. At the Council, religious communities were urged to seek renewal by examining the original charisms of their founders and by subjecting their life and ministry to prayerful scrutiny. This search for renewal prompted most communities to implement a variety of structural changes and to reconceptualize their mission within a church now open and receptive to “the joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties” of the age.

A crucial element of this symposium is its dual focus on the local and the transnational. By virtue of their multinational structures and missionary organizations, women’s religious congregations offer a particularly fruitful way to present the Roman Catholic Church as a networked global organization transcending (or challenging) the post-war nation state. Participants are encouraged to think about relationships between daughter houses, sister houses and motherhouses, especially when they crossed national boundaries.

Situating the work of women religious, both apostolic and contemplative, within Catholic Social Teaching as well as the secular fields of philanthropy and social work, we hope to re-contextualize the prayer lives, charitable activities, and social activism of Catholic sisters within national histories of citizenship and civil society.

Funding

Funding for this symposium is provided by the Global Collaboration Initiative at the University of Notre Dame.