Trent

How did a company of women committed to apostolic service of the poor end up as cloistered nuns? Between the death of St. Ursula and the approval of her rule, the Council of Trent met and issued the following directive for religious women:

The holy council, renewing the constitution of Boniface VIII*, which begins, “Periculoso,” commands all bishops by the judgment of God to which it appeals and under threat of eternal malediction, they make it their special care that in all monasteries subject to them by their own authority and in others by the authority of the Apostolic See, the enclosure of nuns be restored wherever it has been violated and that it be preserved where it has not bee violated; restraining with ecclesiastical censures and other penalties, every appeal being ser aside, the disobedient and gainsayers, even summoning for this purpose, if need be, the aid of the secular arm. The holy council exhorts all Christian princes to furnish this aid, and binds thereto under penalty of excommunication to be incurred ipso facto all civil magistrates. No nun shall after her profession be permitted to go out of the monastery, even for a brief period under any pretext whatever, except for a lawful reason to be approved by the bishop; any indults and privileges whatsoever notwithstanding. Neither shall anyone, of whatever birth or condition, sex or age, be permitted, under penalty of excommunication to be incurred ipso facto, to enter the enclosure of a monastery without the written permission of the bishop or superior.
Twenty-fifth Session, Chapter V

*In 1298 Boniface VIII promulgated his celebrated Constitution "Periculoso” in which he imposed the cloister on all nuns. According to this law all egress was forbidden to them. In 1566 Pope St. Pius V urged the following of Boniface's law and imposed the cloister even on the third orders.

St. Angela Merici

St. Angela Merici (1474-1540) was one of the women who pioneered a new form of ministry for religious women in a time when the choice for women was marriage or enclosure in a convent. In her youth, moved by the poverty and ignorance of her neighbors in northern Italy she began to provide simple religious education to their children. Other women joined her and in 1533, at the age of 50, she set about formalizing this community of women. Two years later, twenty-eight women prepared to consecrate themselves to the service of God under the patronage of St. Ursula, the Company of St. Ursula, or Ursulines.

Angela had developed a simple rule for the community but did not envision them as nuns; they did not wear a habit and did not take vows. They continued to live in their homes. Such an association of women was a novelty and generated concerns. Four years after her death Pope Paul III approved a constitution for her community.

Twenty-eight years later, in 1572, Pope Gregory XIII, at the insistence of Saint Charles Borromeo, the Cardinal Archbishop of Milan, declared the Ursulines a religious order under the Augustinian rule. In most cases, especially in France, the sisters adopted enclosure and took solemn vows. They were called the "religious Ursulines" as distinct from the "congregated Ursulines" who continued to follow the original plan.

In mid-19th century United States, the education of young women was focused on developing virtues such as piety, modesty, subservience, and gentleness. French, drawing, dancing and music were also common in the curriculum. It was an education aimed at preparing young ladies for motherhood, and education that, according to Bishop John England of Charleston, SC., "was precisely the type of education that prepared young ladies for heaven."

However, religious women, who had already estamblish over one hundred academies for young ladies,  began to introduce science, Latin, and mathmatics, what were known as "the masculine branches of learning," into the curriculum of their schools for young women.

Religious women and bishops

“An even greater challenge (than giving attention to the so-called ‘masculine branches of learning’) was the lifestyle of the very nuns who supposedly were its exemplars. They resided in a self-governing community of women and were confident, independent and authority figures to many. Consequently they were compelled to protect their way of life from clerical interference…


“Resenting challenges to episcopal authority, especially from laywomen and women religious, bishops tried to obtain unquestioned obedience form nuns. Sometimes they established their own religious orders with special vows of obedience. They also forced communities to separate from their motherhouses, intervened in elections, diverted funds, and even drove recalcitrants from their diocese. Occasionally convents were placed under interdict, supervisors excommunicated or deposed, and sacraments denied. The hierarchy generally shared the belief of Bishop Celestine de la Hailandière that to oppose a bishop was to revel against God and that the least priest in a diocese had more power over sisters than their superior general.”

from The Encyclopedia of American Catholic History

An Little Known Story

Considering the contributions that religious women have made to the development of the Catholic Church in the United States, it is somewhat surprising how little is known of those contributions. In an effort to provide a picture of those contributions an exhibit entitiled "Women and Spirit, Catholic Sisters in America" traveled across the country these past several years. It is available on DVD from www.womenandspirit.com. 

More recently, KQED Plus aired a progam, Question of Habit, that contrasted to depiction of Catholic nuns in contemporary culture with the lives of actual women religious, both historical and current. Needless to say, our current cultural depictions have little to do with the reality of the lives and work that these women have done and continue to do.