Saturday, September 11, 2010

Order Dismissed from Ave Maria University

From Living His Life Abundantly International:

by Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Journalist

Mother Anna, Mother Superior of the Servant Sisters, with the community of Sisters at Ave Maria. Back row, left to right: Sr. Kathryn Shea, graduate of AMU, Mother Anna and Sr. Mary Donovan, AMU student. Front row, left to right: Sr. Maria Elena, Superior of the AMU Servant Sisters community, and Sr. Grace Silao.
Inappropriate conduct by the superior of the Home of the Mother religious order that has been serving students at Ave Maria University (AMU) for several years has caused the administration and local diocese to dismiss the order from the campus.

The Ave Herald is reporting that Sister Maria Elena, the nun who was supervising the University’s program to help women discern a religious vocation, was apparently involved in some kind of “immoral conduct” last spring with a female student.

Apparently the nun responsible for the behavior was abruptly recalled to Spain, where the Home of the Mother (Hogar de la Madre) order is based, last year. However, the order did not report the incident to the University, nor did they follow Vatican-prescribed procedures for reporting such incidents...

According to the Herald, the Home of the Mother group has been on the AMU campus since the 2004-2005 academic year. Its nuns, familiar for their all-white habits, have been running the university’s Women’s Discernment program, which helps young women determine if they have a calling to the religious life. The order is a Vatican-sanctioned “Public International Association of the Faithful” but is not an approved religious order like the Franciscans or the Dominicans.

1 comment:

Fr. John Mary, ISJ said...

This is very sad...and it makes the rest of the "new Communities", esp. those with charisms that do not "fit" into the present schema of Canon Law and Church life, look "suspect"...
For more discourse that is not acc'd to the press releases out of AM, there is a link that gives some "dish" (I'm not a gossiper, but it does give further info on this situation):
http://fumare.blogspot.com/2010/09/amu-terminates-relationship-with.html
My real concern is with those who attend AM and the parents and future attendees, that they get the real picture.
Thanks for posting this, V.