A Week to Remember in St. Louis- Barbara Marx Hubbard and LCWR

The Sisters of Saint Joseph and the Leadership Conference of Women Religious have a unique and valued relationship with Barbara Marx Hubbard, the renowned futurist who was the keynote speaker at the historic LCWR meeting last week in St. Louis.  Through her relationship with Sr. Judy Cauley, CSJ, a member of the Congregation of St. Joseph, Barbara has learned lots about us and about religious life.  Barbara honored us when she stopped by at an evening gathering of the Sisters of St. Joseph attending LCWR.

Sr. Judy Cauley, CSJ and Barbara Marx Hubbard

In her presentation at LCWR, many Sisters of St. Joseph took note of her frequent use of “our catch phrases” such as the “more,” not separating ourselves from our “neighbors,” and “generous promises”.  One of her closing statements addressed to LCWR was that “I really see you as pilgrims, pioneers evolving into the more.”

In her LCWR presentation, in an emotionally powerful, upbeat mode, Barbara Marx Hubbard shared her growing understanding of the transformative power of evolving consciousness.  She told us that, "We have come together at the most critical time in the history of humanity...our systems are not sustainable as is...we face radical breakdown or through innovation, creativity and love- a breakthrough. She noted that we can no longer return to our prior pre-crisis state...we will either breakdown or break through- we will evolve or we will become extinct.  Many of us could easily see the connections to the LCWR crisis of the doctrinal assessment.

Barbara reflected back to us the characteristics and capacities that she sees in women religious that manifest the type of leadership that a breakthrough requires.  Characteristics such as deep gospel living in the model of Jesus, engaging mysticism, being faithful in seeking out and meeting unmet needs are ideals for which we strive.   Solidarity with the earth, being whole-makers and risk takers for the sake of the mission are values which we try to live.  Social entrepreneurship, being  faithful to dialogue and discernment,  speaking truth to power, and commitment to seeking the more, what Ilia Delio calls "the God ahead in an ever evolving world”, are capacities we have tried to develop and be faithful to for years.   

In speaking about women religious she said we were “the best seedbed to the evolving church and the world.”  She noted that new things always happen in unexpected places. Further quoting Ilia, she said, "Evolution opens a window to the Divine Mystery." She spoke about the power we have to choose to destroy the world or become co-creators. She gave us three points for consideration:
1) Crisis precedes transformation,
2) Problems are evolutionary drivers- they help us see what is possible, and
3) Nature takes parts and through synergy, the broken parts of systems and fragments can become more than the sum of the parts.

I was especially impressed when she shared that the type of leaders we need today are those who handle the emergencies and facilitate what is the emergent new.

Barbara shared her experience at the Democratic National Convention in 1984 when her name was placed in nomination for the Vice Presidential of the United States.  At the convention she  spoke of her wish to create  a “Peace Room” as well equipped and staffed as the current US “War Room”.  It would be able to map, track and connect what is working in the world to create emergent, loving societies.  She identifies this as the most important speech she ever gave.  She then went on to say that of the hundreds of speeches she has given, her address at LCWR was the second most important.   

She then shared with us that as we cultivate evolutionary leadership, what will emerge is new relationships, new social entrepreneurial forms of service, new centers of communication and new ways for our charisms to thrive.  She encouraged us to turn to one another, to form hubs of co-creativity, to expand our networks for a co-creative society and to trust the co-creative process.  She stated, “The future is the primary dwelling place of the God ahead.”

Throughout her talk, Barbara made frequent references to scripture, especially St. Paul, the work of Teilhard de Chardin and other Catholic theologians.  In the end, she encouraged us to see the recent doctrinal assessment as an act of grace.  “It opens up the more, the potentiality of women and this is precisely what the world needs now,” she said.  “Your deep commitments to your charisms and your generous promises are a global agenda for the evolution of the world,” she added.  She challenged us to make our cooperation and compassion more visible in the world.  We need to overcome divisiveness and move away from fragmented either/or points of view.  She expressed great interest in our processes of self- governance where leadership and direction are found by having the largest possible sharing, including everyone.   Expanding openness of communication, sharing leadership and spirituality is what the world is deeply missing.

It was a wonderfully inspiring and challenging week at LCWR.

Live from St. Louis

Update from St. Louis at the LCWR

This morning I attended the pre-meeting, “Innovative Best Practice Forum” prior to the opening of the LCWR conference.  Giving Voice led off this session by talking about the benefit and processes of peer convened and peer led groups for younger members of religious communities.  They spoke of the importance of having a “holding pen” for their struggles, noting that often sisters who are not their age-peers move too quickly to try to solve their problems, which is not always helpful.  Through their peer experience, they cultivate mutuality and explore issues over time in a deeper way.  They find these experiences together with peer led groups help them become more skilled  at seeking more non-peer group mutuality, claiming their place and voice in congregational decision-making processes.  One panel member described her experiences at Giving Voice as a way to “harvest hope with my peers.”

Two religious communities, one from the Sisters of Divine Providence and the other, our Concordia Sisters of St. Joseph, spoke about their models of restructuring governance.  Both groups emphasized involvement of sisters in “conversation circles” to advise the congregational leadership in more significant ways than past leadership models.

Sr. Sharon Casey spoke about her Dominican group’s process in moving towards covenant relationship with another community.  With consultation from Sr. Amy Hereford, CSJ- Carondelet St. Louis, they have discerned their next steps for their congregation.  She noted that they found Amy’s article, “Options for Small Aging Communities” and articles by Ted Dunn to be very helpful.  Then another community further along in the covenant process described how they are entering into a gradual process of building trust and understanding with another religious community to gradually assume responsibility for care for aging members, manage fiscal and legal affairs, and carry out their legacy through sponsored ministries and distribution of assets.  She noted that this covenant relationship allowed them to maintain their identity and international connections and plan their legacy into the future.  It is a gradual process and developing relationship.

After a brief break, attendees went to small table conversations to learn about more innovative best practices.  I attended the Rochester SSJ session on Communal Discernment.  Srs. Mary Lou Mitchell and Eileen Daly spoke about their experience with using communal discernment to make a major decision about health care for their senior sisters.  The process and involvement of all the sisters was very profound and moving.  Using an Ignatian model based on the 30 day exercises and the Sisters of St. Joseph traditions of sharing of the heart and order of the house, the community moved to a decision that felt right for them.  Sr. Eileen noted that “going forward we would probably use a process like this for all major decisions.”  It truly was an example of “Leadership of the Membership.”  Sr. Mary Lou commented that they will “continue to deepen our communal discernment skills, slowing down, not reacting, and taking the time to make the decision.”

It was a great morning.  This afternoon is rather loosely scheduled, with the opening prayer service this evening.  I’ll add pictures when I get home tonight.

Thank You to Our Friends Who Made the New Website Possible

"Being and Acting as One" is really hard work under any circumstances.  The US Federation of the Sisters of St. Joseph now have a tool that provides concrete ways for the sisters, associates and agregees to share their message of unioning love with all through our new website.  Visit us at www.sistersofsaintjosephfederation.org .

This website would not have been possible without the voluntary assistance provided by several of our Congregations.  Two committees provided the muscle we needed to do the heavy lifting on this project.

The first committee was the one that proof read our proposal for the bidders who wanted to build our website. They provided valuable feedback and then evaluated the submissions we received from several companies.  The committee helped us evaluate whether the companies had the technical expertise we were looking for, the experience in creating the type of outcome we needed, and had a competitive pricing structure. 

Barbara Hecht

Jenny Beatrice

Our committee of 5 consisted of two public relations people, Barbara Hecht of the Baden CSJs and Jenny Beatrice from the Carondelet-St. Louis CSJs; our two technical experts, Sasha Josipovic from the Carondelet- St. Louis CSJs and Joe Favazza from the US Federation Office, and me, Sr. Patty Johnson, also from the US Federation Office. 

After reading the proposals and evaluating them, we concluded that the Hopeworks proposal was the one we recommended.  Hopeworks  provides learning opportunities for inner-city Camden, New Jersey youth, The heart of their program is technology training. They train their youth in state-of-the art computer applications: Web site design, geographic information services (GIS), computer networking and repair, and video.  Additionally, for the youth they work with they try to keep them in school and prepare them for good-paying jobs.  Many of the youth they serve are African-American and Hispanic youth between the ages of 17 and 25 who have dropped out of school.

I want to be clear; Hopeworks won the US Federation website development project totally on the merits of their proposal and experience.  They received no extra points for their mission.  They had the unanimous backing of the whole committee.  They were the right group for the job, as you will see if you visit our new website.

Sr. Joanne Gallagher

Dawn Gruba

So, then we had to develop our plan for the site.  Again, a volunteer committee really helped us make the important decisions.  This committee benefitted from the expertise of four professional communicators, Sr. Joanne Gallagher of the Boston CSJs, Stephanie Hall Cabelof from the Erie SSJs, Sr. Rosemary Noonan from Carondelet-Albany and Dawn Gruba from Rochester SSJs.  This group helped to determine the layout, color-scheme, look and feel of the website and type of content we would need.  The expertise of this group was invaluable.

Stephanie Hall Cabelof

Sr. Mary Rose Noonan

The adult/youth team from Hopeworks that worked on our project was Terran and Zjustyn.  They were easy to work with, flexible, and responsive to our suggestions.  Technology changes every day.  I was very impressed when they reworked a few pages to incorporate new and better technology that just became available.

Zjustyn and Terran

Last but surely not least is our administrative assistant at the US Federation Office and our new webmaster, Joe Favazza.  It was Joe’s expertise that helped us at every major decision point.  He researched all the tools that we are using on the website to ensure that they would achieve the goals that we set and were cost-efficient.  As my eyes would glaze over as he tried to explain a decision we had to make, he would patiently start over and try to explain it in a more basic way so that I was making informed decisions at every turn. 

Joe Favazza, Administrative Assistant and Web Master

And now on to the future.  We have several feature pages which be updated with new content on a regular basis.  Several people have volunteered to serve on the editorial boards for those sections:

•  Justice and Peace Editorial Board: Marie Elaina Perales, Orange, and Esther Pineda, Concordia
• Becoming a Sister: Jill Underdahl and Jean Marie Gocha, Carondelet
• Archivists from each Congregation will be suggesting sisters to be featured on our history page.
• We are looking for two or three people who might be willing to serve as the editorial board for the spirituality section. 

Who is Representing us at Rio

Here is the list of Sisters who are representing us at the UN Conference- Rio+20

Nombre-Name	Pais-Country	Congregación-Congregation
Gertrudes Balestieri	Brazil	Chambery
Maureen Finn	USA living in Brazil	Rochester
Joan Atkinson	Canada	London
Rita Bosch	Argentina	St. Joseph Argentina
Maria Ines Coelho	Brazil	Chambery
Eliete Dal Molin	Brazil	Chambery
Patricia Anne Day	Australia, living in Perú	Australian
Anari Felipe	Brazil	Chambery
Orfila Carmelita Gobbi	Brazil	Chambery
Linda May Gregg	Canada	Toronto?
Lucia Hertz	Brazil	Chambery
Marisa Elena Santino	Argentina	St. Joseph Argentina
Olga Manosso	Brazil	Chambery
Griselda Martínez-Morales	NGO-UN  (México)	Lyon
Arzila Portile	Brazil	Chambery
Elizabeth Rangel-Reyes	México	Lyon
Luiza Rodrigues	Brazil	Chambery
Rosane Steffenon	Brazil	Chambery
Rita Tessaro	Brazil	Chambery
Helena Tums	Brazil	Chambery
Suzanne Marie Wilson	Canada	London

Summary of Congregations of St. Joseph Statement for Rio+20

Twenty-two Sisters of St. Joseph representing Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, Peru and the United States are attending the Rio+20 conference sponsored by the United Nations.  This conference will evaluate the progress made over the 20 years ago since the first historic global plan to address climate change occurred in Rio.  World governments will hopefully renew their commitments to a “green economy” and sustainable world development.

Our delegation’s most important message to the UN is that at the heart of the climate change      discussion and decision-making  must be a commitment to an ethical framework for sustainable  development.  In its six page statement, our delegation states that sustainable development is an ethical challenge which urges all nations and peoples to act on their ‘common but differentiated   responsibilities’ to care for the earth, protect human rights and eradicate poverty.  Together, we must answer a fundamental ethical question:  Will we choose human transformation or earth  devastation?

We live on a finite planet.  We are liquidating the earth’s natural assets to fuel our consumption.  In system after system, demand is overshooting supply.  Current agricultural practices account for 30% of global greenhouse gas emissions.  Climate change is already responsible for forcing some 50 million additional people to go hungry and driving 10 million additional people into extreme poverty.  As climate change worsen, migration will    become a growing issue. 

We believe that developed countries need to take the lead in changing their patterns of production and consumption while developing countries maintain their development goals even as they move toward sustainable practices. 

Our experience causes us to have deep concerns about human rights, which are fundamentally related to access to natural resources such as clean air, water and land.  The ethical task is to ensure that the trajectory of the Green Economy is clearly in the direction of building     sustainable, local economies which protect and enhance earth’s systems while meeting the needs of humanity,   especially earth’s poorest peoples.

While we commit ourselves to personal changes that will reduce our consumption patterns and  support a “green economy”, we also know that we must advocate for systemic changes at a local, national, and global level.  We recommend that governments:

·         End subsidies for large, export-oriented agricultural and resource extractive industries

·         Ensure that trade agreements  protect the environment and address climate change

·         Incorporate gender analysis into governmental policy development– women produce half the world’s food, yet typically earn much less than men

·         Create mandatory standards and regulations within all sectors of the green economy

·         Ensure greater transparency and strict regulation on financial speculation especially with regard to carbon markets as well as food stock exchanges, future markets for food and agriculture

Message from Griselda at Rio+20

Hi everybody! Greetings from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.  I arrived yesterday morning to this city that is welcoming thousands of people around the world who will participate in one way or another in the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development.
 

The climate here is "winter" with 18 to 25 degrees!  So far, the experience is of people being very friendly, attentive, kind and helpful.  We have some limitations due to language differences.

The delegation of Sisters of St. Joseph (22) is hosted in two different houses, with considerable distance between them.  The house where I am will have 11 CSJs, who have been arriving little by little.  Today we are 7. There are other religious organizations hosted here also.

Yesterday was the day to explore ways and times to reach the Rio Convention Center, where the sessions and side events official UN Conference will be held. It's an adventure! It takes at least 2 hours to get there by bus.

We have obtained our authorization passes and tickets which will be required in the following days. The process was very quick, in and out.  Those arriving in the days closest to the conference will have more time in line waiting their turn.

There will be another meeting space for the civil society, “the People's Summit” where we will also be present.  It is closer and only took a bus.  We discovered that route today. We were able to do some exploring of the civil space site and some of the city.

We had the opportunity,  not planned to be in an alternate event with a painter and sculptor! haha He was unique and very in tune. His art was something like the seeds of change, women and the environment through art. It was something different that made us realize that we come to this conference with a different perspective.  We live it from a different path. We say enough of control, , manipulation, exploitation, use and abuse, of all living things.

I think these two days we had time to locate and explore. Hopefully during the following days we do not lose the ability to let ourselves be surprised by the day to day, so unplanned.

The photos .. ha ha ha will try to upload! They are the first we have taken, of course we will share between us which we take, but that takes time and we walked in the street all day yesterday and today.

Rio+20 and the Congregations of St. Joseph

Twenty-two Sisters of St. Joseph will take a compelling message to the    United Nations Rio+20 Conference of Sustainable Development. Our message is that at the heart of the climate change discussion and decision-making must be a commitment to an ethical framework for sustainable development.  Sr. Griselda Martinez Morales, our UN-NGO Representative says, “The Congregations of Saint Joseph, present in more than 50 countries, affirms our commitment of collaboration for human  development that includes the whole of the person, that creates an interdependence of the human family, allowing them to live fully and in harmony with all creation.”

The Rio+20 Conference will focus on two themes:

·         A green economy in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication, and,

·         Creating the international structures to promote sustainable development.

The Sisters of St. Joseph message at the Rio+20 Conference is strong and clear.  It is based on our global experience with the people who suffer most when the world exploits the environment for economic gain.  Sr. Griselda  states, “Rio+20 presents a moment of opportunity in the wake of the past decades which have seen economic crises, social disparities with one fifth of the population consuming 80% of the Earth’s  resources, and environmental disasters including food scarcity, water  shortage, loss of biodiversity and natural disasters.”

She goes on to say, “The three pillars of sustainable  development: the economic, the social and the   environmental, and the inter-relationship between them, all point to the urgent need for a new paradigm – a green economy – one that strikes a harmonious balance between social and environmental rights and sound economic principles. The Global Family of St. Joseph will join with other religious NGOs at the United  Nations and people of faith to present this perspective at Rio+20.”

Beginning today, our delegation will have the opportunity to participate in meetings, conferences, and forums both within the United Nations and with the civil society organizations (CSO).  More and more, NGOs and other civil society organizations (CSOs) are indispensable UN system partners and valuable UN links to civil society. CSOs play a key role at major United Nations Conferences like Rio+20.  NGOs are consulted on UN policy and program matters.

Sr. Griselda acknowledged that, “Only by the simple act of getting to know and connecting with people and organizations from all over the world, can we bring about these needed changes.  Our presence here is itself a witness as well as a great richness for us!  We will continue to live our charism of relationship and interdependence.” The Sisters of St. Joseph delegation will be sharing its statement  regarding the care of the environment, and that urges us to act locally, nationally and internationally, and advocate with our  governments so that they implement effective measurements for a sustainable development.  Sr. Griselda closes by    saying, “We will try to be in touch with you by sending pictures, comments,  experiences during the Conference.”