Travel the Italy of today in 2010 and you will see many properties such as this (i.e. former convents, monasteries and general houses) now leased to or sold to hotel chains.
This is just one sad example, seen in Rome: http://www.veioparkhotel.com/.
The chapel is closed, no longer used, and the entrance is bricked up with concrete blocks. See it for yourself on the Via Cassia.
There are just no vocations in Italy.
The countless convents are now filled with a bear minimum of aged Italian sisters and some young ones, coming in large part from the Third World.
This is what contraception and abortion bring - no vocations and a desire for always more money.
It is very lamentable that so many convents throughout Italy are closed, abandoned or converted to hotels. As a regular visitor of Italy I always feel so much sorrow when you see how many historic churches are closed and deconsecrated or uncared crumbling away. The decline of catholic christendom in Europe is unmissable.
ReplyDeleteConvent after convent has been turned into a "casa per ferie" because it spells MONEY.
ReplyDelete"This is what contraception and abortion bring - no vocations and a desire for always more money."
ReplyDeleteThis is very faulty reasoning. Contraception and abortion are not the reasons why Italian convents have no vocations. The rampant secularism , materialism, and hedonism of modern times-imported throughout the world largely by the USA beginning in the late 1950, and now taken up by Europe of today), plus the wholesale discarding of Catholic culture, tradition, and the Holy Mass (Tridentine Latin Mass) at Vatican II turning the Catholic Church into a spiritual wasteland, are the reasons for no Italian vocations....not abortion or contraception. That is rationalizing.
Fact is that most religious Orders of nuns in Italy and elsewhere before Vatican II had adequate numbers of vocations (and some were bursting with vocations), before Vatican II. The period between 1918-1958 was probably the period of greatest expansion of religious Orders of nuns in Italy, France, Germany, Spain....and the USA as well.
It was not uncommon for some of the larger USA Orders of nuns before Vatican II to have 300 young girls in training in the Motherhouse.
Likewise, in Rome, in the 1950's, it was not uncommon to hear of Roman Motherhouses of world-wide Orders having 300-400 sisters in residence.
Some monasteries of cloistered nuns in Rome in the 1950's had as many as 12 novices....unheard of today, when 1 novice is considered a blessing.
Large Orders of habitless Italian nuns (or those that wear short grey dresses and small veils, etc) which once , 60 years ago, wore beautiful long habits of infinite variety have Motherhouses in Rome built to accomodate 250-300 nuns, but today have only 20-30, and in some of the worse cases, as few as 15-16 nuns.
Many Motherhouses in Rome of once large and flourishing Italian Orders (in the 1950;s), today have been sold. Same for many monasteries of men.
At least 50 Orders of Italian nuns, and a dozen Orders of priests/brothers, have gone extinct in Italy since the liberal disaster of Vatican II. The median ages are in the high 70's.
Same in the USA. Nearly all USA Orders of habitless nuns will be extinct in 1 years....and the magnificent legacy of the wonderful sisters they once were 50-60 years ago will be gone too.
It is not the fault of abortion or contraception....because the numbers of vocations in their 100's and thousands are still there....if only they had a Holy Mass which was spiritually enriching and touched the soul as the Tridentine Latin Mass does.
The present disaster of the Novus Ordo, and Vatican II in general is to blame....not abortion or contraception.
To use that as an excuse is ridiculous.
I'm surprised to see it in this blog.
I blame it largely on the sex-mad, materialistic culture. Where I live there is an old convent that has been converted(sorry, no pun intended)to an apartment complex for artists. The religious order that once owned the place has "gone modern". I saw a picture of a "sister" who transferred to this order, and not only was she not wearing a habit, she was also wearing earrings!( a pet peeve of mine- nuns in earrings). I'm not as hard shelled as some Trads, but I still like my padres in cassocks, my Sisters and Brothers in habits. "Nuf said.
ReplyDeleteI have a cousin who is a member of a teaching order of Dominican Sisters in the USA. When my unmarried uncle recently passed away, several of his nieces and nephews met at the funeral home to plan his funeral. It happened to be St. Valentine's Day and my cousin, the Sister, arrived at the funeral home wearing a red suit and heart earrings! I agree with you Denita, "I still like my padres in cassocks, my Sisters and Brothers in habits."
ReplyDeleteYes a decline in the sacred and liberalism in the Church has contributed to the drop in vocations, but contraception and abortion has done its part as well. It is more difficult to encourage vocations form a society where the majority of families have only two children. That is why there is still a higher number of vocations in third world countries where there are larger Catholic families such as Nigera, Kerala and Vietnam. May Our Immaculate Mother interecede for our society to return to Christ and for the smoke of Satan to leave the Church. God bless the Pope!- Br Louis Mary OFM conv
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