Reimagining Consecrated Life in a Changing World

Abstract

This address was given at the inauguration of the Center for the Study of Consecrated Life at Catholic Theological Union on February 12, 2015. It looks back at the conditions that led to the founding of different religious institutes throughout history, and then turns to the present. The current challenges include living in a postsecular society, dealing with pluralism, and looking to the new “peripheral” situations a postsecular, pluralist, and globalized world are creating. It closes with a vision of the church that will be needed to sustain religious institutes in this changing world.