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Reflections on the Centenary of the Bushey Congregation of Dominican Sisters
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 February 2024
Extract
This year sees the centenary of the foundation of the Dominican sisters of Newcastle, Natal (South Africa), now based at Bushey Heath on the outskirts of London. A cause of rejoicing and of thanks to God for all that the sisters have been and done, but also for asking why we should be having such a celebration at all. Why was this religious institute founded only 100 years ago, when the history of the Dominican order as a whole goes back to the 13th century? Throughout the world, there are 158 autonomous congregations of sisters, with 35,000 professed members and 950 novices at the last count, while there is one international institute of the brethren, comprising nearly fifty provinces and forty vicariates, numbering some 7000 men, a thousand of whom are in formation. Why is there so much fragmentation amongst the sisters when the brothers have maintained, relatively speaking, a great degree of unity in their structure? It is not as if there were no sisters before the massive expansion of the numbers of women religious in the 19th century. Marie Poussepin, recently beatified, started what was recognisably a congregation which she put under the patronage of St Dominic 300 years ago. At the time of St Dominic, there were groups of women who were not following a specific rule, some later becoming enclosed monasteries and others, monasteries of the third order. Why is there not the organic connection between the convents of the Dominican sisters today and these forebears, as there is between the medieval convents of brothers and those of today?
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References
1 However, her institute was not recognised by the brethren of the order as Dominican until 1897, a year after the Bushey congregation was founded.
2 Hinnebusch, W. A., The History of the Dominican Order: Origins and Growth to 1500, Alba House, N.Y., 1965, p. 378Google Scholar, hereafter referred to as “Hinnebusch”.
3 I am grateful to Sr. Cecily Boulding OP for pointing this out to me.
4 According to the latest figures, there are 236 monasteries of Dominican nuns, enclosed and contemplative, with over 4000 professed members and some 200 novices: some are under the immediate jurisdiction of the Master of the Order, most are organically linked to the province of the Friars in whose territory they are to be found, all being independent of one another though usually in a regional federation. They trace descent from the nuns at Prouille, the first community that St Dominic founded.
5 In particular, I have made extensive use of two histories: Murray, M. C, From Second to Third Order: Transition in the Ratisbon Family of American Dominican Women from 1853 to 1929, unpublished PhD thesisGoogle Scholar, hereafter referred to as “Murray” Cleary, C., Murphy, E. and McGlynn, F., Being Driven Forward: An Account of a Centenary of Ministry by the Dominican Sisters of Newcastle, Natal, forthcoming, hereafter referred to as “BDF”.
6 Although 1 have not made, nor come across, a careful examination of why women did not make the transition into the mendicant movement, it seems principally due to the particular view of enclosure for religious women that had been developing in the church up to that time. For a good discussion of this, see Tibbets Schulenberg, J., “Strict Active Enclosure and its Effects on the Female Monastic Experience (500–1100), in Nichols, J.A. and Shank, L.T., Distant Echoes, vol 1 of 3 under the general title of Medieval Religious Women, Cistercian Studies Series, n. 71, Cistercian Publications Inc. 1984, pp. 51–86. Even Dominican friars were subject to suspicion because of the “wandering” involved in their apostolate, despite a tradition of enclosure and stability amongst male religious that was much less tight for men than it was for women. See Hinnebusch, p. 138.
7 For example, sisters setting up communities with an active apostolate were often sent to houses of the second order for initial formation, rather than sharing in any formation that the brethren received.
8 Local superiors were not referred to as “Mother”, since daughterhouses were considered to be an extension of the motherhouse and under the authority of the prioress there.
9 Murray, chp II, p. 22.
10 This split is particularly poignant as the Regensburg monastery had originally been a community of beguines that had been encouraged to become an enclosed monastery, probably around 1233. If there had been some way for these women to preserve their religious identity while doing charitable works, in a way not unlike the brethren of the order, perhaps this painful split between Regensburg and Brooklyn could have been avoided. The monastery at Augsburg, the progenitor of all the South African congregations, had also originally been a community of beguines, so the same thing could be said of them. See Hinnebusch, p. 402.
11 Murray, chp II, p. 24–25.
12 Hinnebusch, p. 298.
13 Murray, chp II, p. 25.
14 Murray, chp II, p. 36.
15 More on the importance of geographical distance can be found in the section on centralised constitutions.
16 The Conventual Third Order of St. Dominic and Its Development in England, by “a Dominican of Stone” (who was Sr. Rose), Burns and Oates, London 1923, p.39, hereafter referred to as The Conventual Third Order.
17 Cecily Boulding has pointed out to me that it may be relevant to note here that there were no third order monasteries in England before the reformation and only one second order monastery.
18 Boulding, M. C, Dominican Third Order Sisters: A brief account of the origin and history of the Conventual Third Order, unpublished paper. Further light is thrown on this by Mother Rose Columba Adams, a member of the Stone Congregation and foundress of the Adelaide Dominicans. Mother Margaret, just before going to Rome to gain approval for her congregation, called Adams in, even though she was at the time only one of the junior sisters. Adams wrote: 'she … told me she was going to Rome about the affairs of the Community, and added, “I do not know what tum things may take; but would you not rather be enclosed than cease to be a Dominican?” Of course, I said I would”. Ignorance of the history of uncloistered Dominican women was such that even Mother Margaret at this stage was not sure whether such a life was possible. Brownlow, W., Memoir of Mother Mary Rose Columba Adams, O.P., Burns & Oates, 1895, p. 266Google Scholar.
19 As quoted in Suenens, Cardinal, L. J., The Nun in the World: Religious and the apostolate, trans Stevens, G., London, 1962, p. 39Google Scholar. See also Tibbets Schulenberg, op. cit.
20 Boulding, op. cit., p. 4.
21 See Suenens, op.cit., pp. 40–41.
22 St. Vincent de Paul, Correspondences, Entretiens, Documents, vol. IX, p. 533, Librairie Lecoffre, Paris, 1923, trans, in Suenens, op. cit, p. 41–42.
23 Leo XIII, “Constitutionis Conditae a Christo”, Codicis luris Canonici Fontes, ed. P. Gasparri and J.C. Serédi, vol. HI, Rome 1925, n. 644, pp. 562–566. It was only with the revision of the Code of Canon Law in 1983, which abolished all differences between vows except for temporary and perpetual, that their vows were given the same recognition as those of the brethren and nuns. Secular institutes were not recognised as an entity until 1947.
24 The Conventual Third Order, p. 60.
25 The Conventual Third Order, p. 59.
26 One cannot help a wry smile on reading in The Conventual Third Order, “Father Bernard was not slow in recognising Miss Matthews's [sic] valuable personal qualifications …” p. 59. Although she was obviously a competent organiser with many talents, was her most “valuable qualification” that she agreed with him rather than the foundress?!
27 The Conventual Third Order, p. 60.
28 Murray, chp. VI, p. 22.
29 In answer to a request from the Jersey City community for clarification of their status, the master deemed that they could not be a second order house because houses of the second order had to have enclosure and solemn vows. They also could not have a network of houses as a quasi‐congregarion, since having general chapters and moving sisters between houses would not be ‘in harmony with the spirit of enclosure’. Murray, chp. VI, p. 22.
30 Murray, chp VI, p. 12.
31 Itself founded from Second Street; see under the next heading.
32 BDF, chp II, pp. 5–6.
33 Sr. Aquina, “The Break with King William's Town”, Each for All, n. 23, March 1976, p. 45.
34 Aquina, op. cit., p. 47–48.
35 Aquina, op. cit., p. 49.
36 A cleric appointed by the bishop to represent him. He had great powers, including the ability to depose a prioress.
37 Murray, chp VI, p. 24.
38 Hinnebusch, pp. 233–242, describes the interventions in the workings of the men's order by outside authorities. What is striking is how the friars had the possibility under canon law to defend themselves against such impositions, and how rarely they occur in comparison to what happened to the sisters.
39 Murray, chp VI, p. 31.
40 This development is considered further under the section on constitutional centralisation.
41 Murray, chp VI, p. 34.
42 Murray, chp VI, pp. 15–16.
43 Murray, chp.II, p. 30 and chp. VI, pp. 18–20.
44 Murray, chp. VI, p. 19.
45 Sr Martin‐Marie, “The Oakford Foundation: Mother Gabriel Foley”, Each for All, n. 23, March 1976, p. 51.
46 BDF, chap V, p.8.
47 As a comparison, the Zimbabwean sisters mentioned above received £10 per sister per annum during the same period. In reality, they were receiving salaries from the BSA company for their work as nurses, but the Jesuits had managed to arrange things such that the sisters' salaries were paid to them and from this they gave the sisters a small allowance, keeping the rest of the money for their missions. It took until the sisters' chapter in 1969 for the allowance given to them to be increased substantially to the princely sum of £120 p.a., more or less what the Dominican friars were getting from the Newcastle Dominicans in the 1920s.
48 BDF, chp IX, p. 6.
49 See, for instance, Tillard, J. M. and Congar, Y., eds., Unam Sanctum, vol. 62, Les Editions du Cerf, 1967, pp. 119–120. Tillard, while commenting on Perfectae Caritatis, argues that constitutions for women religious need to be different from men's. The reason he gives for this is that women are more authoritarian and focused on tiny details than men.
50 Murray, chp VI, p. 25.
51 BDF, chp. II, pp. 6–7.
52 Murray, chp IV, p. 17.
53 Murray, chp IV, p. 18. One of the problems the sisters had was that it was unclear what was the nature of their authority. Only priests have the “power of governance” in a general sense. One model put forward was to say that superiors in a non‐clerical religious institute had “domestic” power, on the model of the power of parents in a household. This model worked well when it was applied to one monastery, but when authority needed to be exercised across thousands of miles and diocesan boundaries, it was less easy to apply. This may well have held up the development of provinces among the sisters, but I have not had the opportunity as yet to investigate this influence.
54 BDF, chp.III, p. 2.
55 Murray, chp II, p. 10 and chp IV, p. 2.
56 Information supplied by Sr Cecily Boulding OP.
57 In order to be recognised as “Dominican” by the Sacred Congregation for Religious, the sisters must be recognised by the Master of the Order. What they do not need to do is to make this recognition the basis of their unity which they can work towards amongst themselves.