Threshold Winter 2011

Sister Serves as Secretary for International Benedictine Conference
by Mary Rardin, OSB

For the past two years, S. Mary Rardin has had the opportunity to serve as secretary for the Communio Internationalis Benedictinarum (CIB), an international organization of Benedictine women leaders representing all the women’s monasteries associated with the Benedictine Confederation. She has found it to be a very enriching experience to meet, pray, and work with nuns and sisters from around the world. And it has enabled her to travel to Europe for meetings at Benedictine monasteries in Portugal, Spain, Croatia and Rome.

It actually took about 33 years for Benedictine women around the world to gradually come together to form the CIB. It began in 1968 when the Abbot Primate wanted to develop a Conference of Benedictine women superiors that was similar to the Congress of Abbots.

Initially some Benedictine abbesses and prioresses met as two separate commissions with the Abbot Primate and were invited as guest observers to the Congress of Abbots’ meetings. It wasn’t until 1984 that representatives from the two separate commissions first met together and discussed the possibility of a joint meeting. This First International Symposium of Benedictine nuns and sisters met in Rome in 1987, and began a process of dialogue and subsequent meetings over the years which slowly broke down the barriers of perceived differences and misunderstandings between nuns and sisters.

In 1999, after further sharing and listening, everyone was finally able to recognize the common monastic values in the different styles of monastic life and the nuns and sisters decided to form a united, common identity as Benedictine women. In 2001, when all the delegates went to Kenya to meet and experience African monastic life, the international network of Benedictine women was formally named and the “Communio” was born.

Since then CIB delegates from 19 regions around the world, along with delegates from several international missionary congregations, have met yearly as a Conference. Every four years, there is a much larger Symposium that meets in Rome at Sant’Anselmo.

The 6th International CIB Symposium took place this September with 110 Benedictine women from around the world, led by the CIB Moderator, Sister Judith Ann Heble, OSB, from Lisle, Ill. The theme of this year’s Symposium was “Benedictine Women – Witnesses of Hope.” Despite the universal experience of declining numbers of vocations in almost every area of the world, hope is still very much alive as Benedictine women look at new ways to share God’s Word and the values found in living the Rule of St. Benedict.

In her role as CIB secretary, Sister Mary has worked closely with the moderator, assisting her in many of the CIB activities, including writing the minutes of all the meetings of the Administration Council, the conferences and the symposium, as well as preparing a yearly newsletter, updating the entire CIB Handbook this year, coordinating the flow of information among sisters and others working on CIB projects, coordinating the travel and visa logistics for all the meetings, obtaining and managing translations of all the documents from the various translators, and maintaining the CIB archives. Also, she has assisted with the creation of the new CIB website over the past two years and coordinated the acquisition of most of the site’s materials in six different languages.

In addition to her work for the CIB, Sister Mary has continued her regular work as a family medicine physician in a number of small, rural Kansas towns. For the past four years, she has worked with the Docs Who Care staffing company based in Olathe, Kansas, providing 24-hour emergency department coverage along with taking care of patients in the rural hospitals and/or outpatient clinics.

S. Mary Rardin and S. Escolastica work on a translation during the CIB meeting in September in Rome.