cistercian TOPICS
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O.C.S.O. Decentralization and the Search for Identity: 1946-1985 A Review Essay
[1]
By
Armand Veilleux, o.c.s.o.
[2]
On July 6, 1987, Sister Colette Friedlander, a Cistercian
nun from the monastery of Laval, France, brilliantly defended
her doctoral dissertation in Canon Law at the Institut Catholique
of Paris. The title was "The Constitution of the Cistercians
of the Strict Observance from 1946 to 1985: Legislative Evolution
and Functioning of the Institutions". The present publication
is a photostatic reproduction of the manuscript of the dissertation. It is a pity that the defense of that thesis was only
a few months before the Mixed General Meeting (meeting of all
the abbots and abbesses) of the Cistercian Order of the S.O. that
was held in Rome in December of 1987, and that brought to completion
the long work of the revision of the Constitutions of the Order.
If Sister Colette's work had been published before that meeting,
her clear historical presentation and her elaborate juridical
analysis would have been extremely useful to all the Capitulants.
On the other hand it can be regretted that her work could not
have been completed a year later and include the study of the
decisions of that Meeting which concluded twenty years of legislative
work. Sister Colette's study covers the period from 1946 to
1985 and is divided into two main sections. The first one, studying
the period of 1946 to 1969, is called "Towards Decentralization".
The second one, studying the period of 1969 to 1985, is called
"Institutions in Search of their Identity". The choice
of 1969 as the watershed date is understandable and almost seems
obvious, due to the importance of the decisions made at that
Chapter and of the documents published, in particular the Declaration on Cistercian Life and the Statute on Unity and Pluralism. One
may wonder, however, if 1967 would not have been as adequate,
or perhaps more so, since it was in 1967 that the process for
the renewal of the Constitutions began. The year 1946 has been
chosen as point a quo because it was the
date at which the General Chapters were resumed after World War
II, and also the time when desires for decentralization began
to be expressed. The year 1985 was obviously imposed as point
ad quem by the time when the dissertation
was finished and presented. By that time the large effort of renewal
of the Constitutions, begun in 1967, was brought almost to an
end by the General Chapters of Holyoke (1984) and El Escorial
(1985); but, as I have mentioned above, the final touch of the
Constitutions of both men and women was made by the Mixed General
Meeting at Rome in 1987 and sent to the Holy See for approval.
A first response received from the Holy See let us foresee that
a definitive approval will be given soon. A little intellectual gymnastics is required to follow the structure of
the first part that describes the evolution from 1946 to 1969.
It is divided into three sections: the first one (pages 25 to
104) is called "The Juridical Status Quo in 1946". It
begins with a short presentation of the original Cistercian legislation
as found in the Carta Caritatis. Then comes
a short history of the Constitutions of 1924 (monks) and 1926
(nuns), and a presentation of three Constitutions. The second
section is a short description of the life of the Order from 1926
to 1969: under three suggestive subtitles: a) Expansion and Internationalization;
b) Renewal of Cistercian Spirituality and Cistercian Studies;
c) Cultural Changes and Evolution of Mentalities. The third section
(pages 117 to 369) is called "Institutional Reaction"
and is obviously the central piece of the first part of the dissertation.
The author now divides this period in three parts (leaving aside
1926-1929): 1) 1930-1951: "burying one's head in the Band"
(la politique
de l'autruche), corresponding to the generalates of
Dom Herman Joseph Smets and Dom Dominique Nogues; 2) 1951-1964:
"renovation vs. novelty", corresponding to the generalate
of Dom Gabriel Sortais; 3) 1964-1969: "to decentralize in
order to unite": corresponding to the first years of Dom
Ignace Gillet's generalate. All the aspects of Cistercian law during that period are studied, especially
the system of filiations and the power of the Abbot General. A
general conclusion is that there has been in the Order during
this period a profound movement of decentralization, although
no significant changes were made to the structures of the Order.
The changes were more of an ideological order, consisting in a
reinterpretation of the principle of unity of observances. That
decentralization was in favor of the local communities rather
than Regions (in any case, the Regional Conferences came into
existence only at the very end of this period, and no doubt as
a result of that movement of decentralization). The author thinks
that some changes had a more serious juridical consequence, those
concerning the General Chapter and its "Vicar", the
Abbot General. She sees a departure from the juridical fiction
that had kept the Abbot General as abbot of Cîteaux, and in the
fact that the General Chapters were no longer held at the Abbey
of Cîteaux. In the first part was mainly a description of a juridical situation (following
the plan of the Constitutions), the second part is a description
of a situation in continuous evolution. For this reason, it is
almost as much a description of the life of the Order as it is
an analysis of the evolution of its law. And, of course, it was
a little early to write that history. If the official documents
are sufficient to write a history of the evolution of the laws
and structures of the Order, they cannot alone be a foundation
for an understanding of the evolution that these laws and structures
represent on a deeper level. When the history of the Order during
that period is written-certainly not before a few decades-many
sources other than the official documents will have to be used.
In this section, the interpretation of why this or that orientation
was chosen and what influence it had on the Order is, therefore,
necessarily more subjective, although it is always presented with
care and discretion. It is very significant that the author begins this second part with a section
on "The Unity of the Order". This, indeed, has been
a constant preoccupation of everyone in the Order during those
years, even when quite opposite proposals were put forward and
contradicting solutions were presented to the same situations.
This section on the Unity of the Order concentrates rightly on
the General Chapter of 1969, and analyzes well the dynamics that
led to the elaboration of the two documents, Declaration on Cistercian Life and
Statute
on Unity and Pluralism. The rest of this second part
(pages 451 to 662) studies the functioning of the institutions
of the Order during that period. In presenting these, the author
has chosen to follow the order that corresponds to her basic thesis:
that is, that the system of filiation
is the fundamental structure of the Order. She therefore
studies (in the following order) what happened to the local autonomy,
the filiation, the regions, the General Chapters, the permanent
commissions of the Order, and the Abbot General. Interestingly
enough, the subsection on filiation includes the treatment of
foundations, incorporations, changes of paternity, role of the
Father Immediate, Regular Visitations, administration sede vacante, election and
resignation of titular superiors, change of status of a sui juris house,
all the questions relative to the Father Immediate of Nuns, including
the effects of the rescript of 1979 and the Code [of Canon Law]
of 1983, participation of the abbots of daughter-houses in the
election in the mother-house, help to daughter-houses and transfers,
plus a few other things. Although regrouping so many questions
under the topic of the filiation
seems to reinforce the thesis of the primordial importance
of that institution in the juridical tradition of the Order, some
other order of presentation might probably have made things clearer. Somewhere in her dissertation Sister Colette says that the influence of
canonists at a meeting is in inverse ratio to their number! A
good example of that was the overwhelming influence of Father
Jean Beyer, S.J., at the General Chapter of 1969. He explained
to us that the Rule of St Benedict and our Charter
of Charity could be considered our primary legislation and
that our secondary legislation could consist of the declarations
on those documents. He also thought there would probably be no
need for presenting to the Holy See our secondary legislation,
and if they asked for it someday, we could simply present a compilation
of the decisions (or declarations) made over the years. That seemed
attractive, and it is why we chose at that Chapter not to rush
into constitutional work, but to deal at each subsequent Chapter
with the questions that would appear more urgent at the time.
This explains why the Commission for the Constitutions did not
do much work for several years, since the mandate given to it
was at first simply to decide about the format in which the Constitutions
would be written later on. It also explains why the writing of
our Constitutions beginning with Project I in 1980 was largely
a compilation of legislation already voted on. Of course, need
for new decisions arose when time came to make a final formulation.
In the light of all this it might have been more revealing of
the real evolution in the life of the Order if the evolution of
the legislation in the Order had been presented following the
order in which the various questions were raised at successive
General Chapters. In comparison with the extensive and detailed character of Sister Colette's
work as a whole, the treatment of the new Constitutions seems
rather brief. Of course, it can be explained by the fact that
their final redaction was not yet voted on at the time of her
presentation of the dissertation. Nevertheless, it seems to me
that the General Chapters of Holyoke and El Escorial were so important
in the history of the Order during these past few years that they
would have deserved a treatment as detailed as the one given
to the Chapter of 1969. In the final preparation of the Constitutions, at the time of Holyoke and
after, several points on which there was a great diversity of
opinions in the Order were called "hot points" (les
points chauds). Sister Colette has singled out one of them for special
treatment at the end of her book: collegiality.
It is difficult to know exactly why, of all the hot points,
this one was chosen. Her presentation of the various positions
is fair enough, but it was much too early to write a history of
how that question surfaced in the Order, how and why it generated
so much interest and heat, how it was that a very sober formulation
of the principle of collegiality was voted almost unanimously
at the two Chapters of Holyoke and El Escorial only to be strongly
debated again during the following years. A huge amount of documents (position papers, minutes of Regional Meetings, private
correspondence, etc.) will have to be carefully studied. And,
most of all, the ashes still need to cool a little more! The book ends with a useful glossary of monastic terms,
but unfortunately there is no analytical table [index]. A very
detailed Table of Contents helps us, however, to find our way
through this monumental work that is an extremely valuable contribution
to the history of the Order, and especially to the history of
its law during the last four decades. Holy Spirit Abbey 2625 Highway 212 S.W. Conyers, GA 30208 U.S.A.
[1]
This
is a review of Sr Colette Friedlander, O.C. S.O., Décentralisatlon
et identité cistercienne 1946-1985. Quelle autonomie pour les
communautés? (Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 1988), pp. 724, Paper
280 F.
[2]
Fr
Armand Veilleux, O.C.S.O., has been Abbot of Holy Spirit Abbey
since 1984. Previous to that he was Abbot of Mistassini in Canada,
where he made his monastic profession. He completed his doctoral
work on Pachomius at Sent' Anselme in Rome, which has since
been published in three volumes of Cistercian Publications at
Kalamazoo. |
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