Memoirous

Who Would She Be?   When Sister Corita contemplated a step away, she had to completely re-imagine her identity, who she was and who she would be. She had been a member of the Immaculate Heart of Mary for 32 years, since 1936 when she decided after high school to go into the order. Her devotion was such that she had to give her all. During her time at Immaculate Heart College she thrust her whole self into teaching. Many of her former students could testify as to the amount of work she piled on them as if her class was the only one they were taking. Her assignments ranged from visiting gas stations and grocery stores to observe signage to helping create installations for the New York World’s Fair and a walk-thru exhibit at the World Council of Churches Assembly in Uppsala, Sweden. And, of course, there was the Mary’s Day Parade where the class printed banners, programs, etc for the ceremony. This last move would be a great leap. For so long she had been a teacher-nun, a si...

Change is coming, a time to leave   During the process of Vatican II, Corita and her community embraced change, not just for change-sake, but to become more relevant to the students and broader community they served. If change was needed to bring the message of Christ to their constituents in this turbulent time, then they were for it. The sisters voted overwhelmingly to pursue Vatican II renewals, such as eliminating the habit and compulsory daily prayer. Archbishop James McIntyre was not happy. From that moment on he sought to restrict the order and banned them from teaching. He gave them an ultimatum to abandon what he saw as leftist tendencies or dispense with their vows. Another vote. Three-quarters of the sisters left to form their own order, Immaculate Heart Community, an ecumenical community for both men and women of all faiths. Prior to this Sister Corita took a sabbatical at the invitation of a friend and spent the summer of 1968 in Cape Cod. There, away from the in...

 Stay and Fight?   The early Sixties would later be known as a hotbed of creative and artistic experimentation—indeed, ushering in an era of radical priests and nuns. Sister Corita had started a series of masterclasses at Immaculate Heart featuring some of the most ingenious voices in the arts, visual, literature, and music. The lectures and conversations of the Great Man series (notice how this was titled purposely not to stir up controversy) featured Charles Eames, John Cage, Alfred Hitchcock, Buckminster Fuller, and Father Daniel Berrigan. It is this enduring friendship with the Vietnam War critic and activist that doomed Sister Corita. Los Angeles Cardinal James McIntyre who served from 1948 to 1970 would later be described in a Washington Post obituary as “one of the Catholic Church's most conservative and controversial prelates.” He was a Nixon man, a John Birch supporter, a staunch anti-communist, and even his own allies and fellow priests had to kindly ask him ...