The Prague Post Online: News: New convent gives hope for faith

December 1st, 2008

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New convent gives hope for faith

As some religious orders flourish, others decline at alarming rate

By Kimberly Hiss
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
September 3rd, 2008 issue

MICHAEL HEITMANN/The Prague Post

Catholic Archbishop Miroslav Vlk blessed the foundation stone of the Poličany convent, which he celebrated as a "small, spiritual fortress."

MICHAEL HEITMANN/The Prague Post

Nuns at the isolated Trappist monastery spend their days praying and singing, as well as gardening and raising animals.

Poličany, central Bohemia

Watching a procession of Trappist nuns follow Cardinal Miroslav Vlk across a windy field to the site of their new convent, it was hard to believe the Czech Republic is considered the most atheist country in Europe. The 16 sisters — wearing white robes and chanting in thirds — had nearly doubled their numbers since arriving from Italy a year before. They’d already outgrown their convent house in Poličany, central Bohemia, and were now participating in a ceremony to break ground on an adjacent one.

“We feel it is God who wanted our convent to be built and it is going to be Him again who will guide the construction,” said Sister Miriam after the Aug. 15 dedication service. “It obviously requires our cooperation.”

Cardinal Vlk, the archbishop of Prague, officiated the ceremony and has great enthusiasm for the expansion. “It is very important in our country, which is in such a drought, to set up these oases of spirituality,” said his spokesman Aleš Pištora, adding that the cardinal considered the new convent a “small spiritual fortress.”

Despite such a positive development, the state of traditional religion in the Czech Republic remains drought-like indeed. The Czech Bishops’ Conference recently released statistics showing the number of religious professionals to be falling sharply. There are currently 1,775 nuns in the country (as opposed to 2,647 in 1995). There has also been a decline in the number of monks, with a current total of 785 (down from 959 in 1995).

Such a decrease is hardly surprising when put in the context of the country’s socialist past.

“Communism definitely had some kind of influence on the current situation,” Pištora said. “The cruel persecution of believers after 1948 is well known.”

The success of the Trappist sisters stands in sharp contrast with the current struggles of other communities such as the School Sisters of St. Francis in Prague, which is still feeling the fallout of that persecution.

When Franciscan Sister Ludmila Pospíšilová entered the order in 1977, she had to do so in secret. At the time, religious activities could only be held in the church, and even then were under constant surveillance by secret police. Many sisters left the faith in fear, but others formed underground communities, living together in apartments, dressing in street clothes and working in various caregiver positions.

“Only a few people in the church knew what we were doing,” Sister Ludmila, now secretary for the Conference of Convents, said from her house near I.P. Pavlova. “Some sisters couldn’t even tell their families.”

By the 1980s, there were a number of secret Franciscan communities in Prague, whose members were gradually discovered and subjected to interrogation. Sister Ludmila remembers waiting “all day, every day” to be called for questioning.

But everything changed with the 1989 revolution. “I remember the first time I could put on a habit,” Sister Ludmila said. “For me, freedom is wearing my habit because my real identity for years was a secret.”

The Franciscan sisters came out of hiding, reclaimed convents and started re-connecting with other communities across the country. And there was a sudden influx of novices — Sister Ludmila’s congregation had 10 at one time, all enthusiastic about the possibility of leading a spiritual life.

But there were also problems.

“Nobody was ready for freedom,” said Sister Ludmila, explaining that, because the secret communities hadn’t been able to communicate, they’d all developed different practices that were difficult to reconcile. The influx of novices led to a problematic generation gap in the community, and additional novices throughout the 1990s turned out to lack commitment and later left the order.

As for the general public unused to seeing nuns in habits, some had negative, even prejudiced reactions. “In communism, many people abandoned their faith,” Sister Ludmila said. “So the youngest people didn’t even know it was possible to believe in God, or that normal people go to church, instead of just crazy people.”

A slow decline

Nationwide, there are currently only 29 novices among all 72 Catholic convents. While the low number is due in part to a longer postulancy (a training period meant to select out girls unable to commit), the main reason for the crisis is the aging population.

“Every year there are fewer and fewer of us,” Sister Ludmila said. “And it’s because our older sisters are dying.” In the 1990s, she had to record the deaths of 12 sisters in one year. So far in 2008, the convent has lost three. At times, they’ve had to hold two funerals at once.

And the aging population weakens the order in other ways. When elderly sisters are sick and bedridden, it’s the young sisters who care for them.

“So when a young woman is thinking about joining, she must consider that for many years she will have to take care of her dying sisters,” Sister Ludmila said.

As for potential novices to offset such losses, Father P. Jan Balík, a Prague 10 vicar and previously the director of the Youth Department of the Czech Bishops’ Conference, puts the low number in a larger context.

“The main reason can be seen in the overall European demographic situation — fewer children are being born,” he said. “If there are no children, there will be no priests, no nuns.”

He also worries that the mindset of Czech youth is incompatible with the choosing of a religious life.

“Young people are constantly attacked by a vast number of offers and do not feel the need to have one specific profession,” he said. “To become a priest requires a decision for life, and that is what young people fear.”

A welcome exception

Within this context, the growth of the Trappist convent is a much-needed success. The original nine sisters had come from the Italian monastery Vitorchiano at the invitation of Cardinal Vlk, and now lead lives of simplicity at their isolated hilltop convent, the expansion of which will be completed in two years.

“We are obedient to our superiors; we live in separation from the world; we live in loneliness and quiet; we make our living by manual work,” Sister Miriam explained in an e-mail. As for the community’s daily routine, “we usually sing psalms, pray and read liturgical texts, and obviously we work, especially manually.” Their work consists of growing fruits and vegetables and raising animals.

Pištora points out that the growth of their convent fits into a surprising new trend. “It is interesting to see that young people are becoming attracted to strict orders like the Trappists,” he said. “It looks like a boom is expected in these strict, contemplative orders.”

Regarding the reasons for her community’s growth, Sister Miriam said there can only be one. “It is God who decides this. It is Him who calls the new girls to join the monastic way of life.”

As far as the future of the struggling Franciscan community, Sister Ludmila offers few solutions, instead pointing out that her sisters have been saved by miracles in the past.

In the ’90s, their then Prague 2 house was in desperate need of repairs totaling an impossible 1 million Kč. Out of the blue, a woman stopped by, asking for a sister who had cared for her sick husband years before. The woman had recently been given some property and wanted to repay the kindness, and was happy to donate the 1 million Kč.

Sister Ludmila looks to such miraculous episodes when thinking about the future of hers and other religious communities. “We have to trust our Lord that He will help us,” she said. “I think this is the only hope we have.”

— Hela Balínová contributed to this report.

Kimberly Hiss can be reached at news@praguepost.com

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