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We discuss a recent effort of institutional resistance in the context of the 2008–2011 Apostolic Visitation of U.S. women religious motivated by Vatican concerns about perceived secularism and potential lack of fidelity among Catholic sisters. We examined the process of and women’s responses to the Visitation to shed light on the institutional work associated with productive resistance and the role of identity and emotions in transforming institutions.

At a time when the male leadership can be blamed for leading the church to a state of crisis – a time when the voices of women are needed more than ever – even the modest roles accorded to female clerics have come under attack. The specific reasons for the investigation are unclear (or, more probably, not public), but the suspicion, clearly, can be put in the crassest terms: too many American nuns have gone off the reservation.

– Lisa Miller, Female Troubles, Newsweek, May 27, 2010

At a time when the male leadership can be blamed for leading the church to a state of crisis – a time when the voices of women are needed more than ever – even the modest roles accorded to female clerics have come under attack. The specific reasons for the investigation are unclear (or, more probably, not public), but the suspicion, clearly, can be put in the crassest terms: too many American nuns have gone off the reservation.

This article draws on my doctoral research into the expansion of the Catholic educational mission in New Zealand in the years from 1945 to 1965. The project utilised archival and documentary sources and interviews with thirty three Catholic educators: twenty one female religious from the Sisters of Mercy, Dominican Sisters and the Religious of the Sacred Heart and twelve male religious from the Marist Brothers, Christian Brothers and the Society of Mary (Marist Priests) and two former diocesan directors of Catholic education.

This chapter argues that feminist inquiries and activism must be pursued considering women’s marginalized position within a religious institution in Canada in the 21st century. Drawing on Canadian Catholic nuns’ unique accounts of their experiences with the Roman Catholic Church, this chapter brings nuance to the complicated power dynamics navigated by women religious to show how women remain excluded and exploited in various ways in their own religious institutions. We point to the institutionalized Roman Catholic Church’s long-standing control over women’s reproductive rights, as well as its ongoing prohibition and recent criminalization of women’s ordination. We also address recent structural dynamics at play by drawing attention to a recent Vatican investigation and ongoing surveillance of women religious in North America under newly established church doctrine. We view these recent tactics as evidence of the Vatican’s renewed commitment to existing gender hierarchies within the Church. Feminist intervention is especially important considering this deepening patriarchal power and how, by extension, the church is regressing rather than progressing towards gender equality, even while it shows evidence of shifting attitudes on other social issues. This chapter also underscores the implications of a global religious institution for women in Canada.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the prestige of the Doctor of Ministry (DMin) among Roman Catholics in leadership positions, who may be a potential market for this degree.

In a mail survey employing a comparative rating scale, respondents rated the prestige of the DMin relative to six other doctorates: PhD, EdD, PsyD, DBA, MD, and JD.

Ratings were provided by 184 priests, 73 deacons, and 95 directors of religious education (69 lay, 26 sisters). The DMin carried the least prestige with priests and the most with religious educators, particularly the sisters. In all groups, the DMin fared best on prestige when compared to the professional doctorates (DBA, EdD, PsyD) and worst relative to the traditional degrees (MD, JD, and PhD). When submitted to a cluster analysis, three groups emerged, corresponding to negative (46 percent), neutral (38 percent), and positive (16 percent) impressions of the prestige of the DMin. The majority of the priests (44 percent) were in the negative cluster whereas the largest proportion of deacons (45 percent) and most lay religious educators (71 percent) fell into the neutral cluster. In contrast, the largest proportion of the religious educators who were sisters by background went into the positive cluster (40 percent). With the exception of the sisters, the percentage of each group falling into the positive cluster was quite small and approximately the same size across the remaining three groups (16 percent, 15 percent, and 13 percent). A discriminant analysis of the clusters identified two discriminating functions; the primary function involved perceptions of the DMin relative to the traditional degrees (MD, JD, and PhD), whereas the very minor second function involved how the DMin is perceived in comparison to the newer practice doctorates (EdD, DBA, and PsyD).

The response rate was low.

Currently, owing to its low prestige, the DMin probably does not have a sizable potential market among Roman Catholic priests, but it may appeal more to religious educators.

The DMin may be subject to the same concerns and prejudices as raised about other professional doctorates.

Roman Catholics are a non‐traditional audience for the DMin. This degree's perceived prestige was not previously studied in this emerging market.

The present study investigates the relationship between servant and authoritarian leadership, and leaders’ third-party conflict behaviors in followers’ conflicts, thereby contributing to integrating knowledge on leadership styles and leaders’ third-party conflict behaviors. This study aims to investigate leadership and conflict management in a context hardly studied: local religious communities or convents within a female religious organization.

The authors collected quantitative survey data from 453 religious sisters, measuring their perception of leaders’ behaviors. These religious sisters live in local religious communities within a Catholic Women Religious Institute based in Nigeria (West Africa) and in other countries across the globe.

Results show that servant leadership relates positively to leaders’ third-party problem-solving behavior and negatively to leaders’ avoiding and forcing. Moreover, authoritarian leadership relates positively to leaders’ third-party avoiding and forcing behaviors.

This study expands theory development and practices on leadership and leaders’ third-party conflict behaviors. The authors associate servant and authoritarian leadership with leaders’ third-party conflict behaviors: avoiding, forcing and problem-solving, in followers’ conflicts. The authors offer practical recommendations for religious leaders on servant leadership and leaders’ third-party conflict behaviors.

Young women who entered the Dominican Sisters in the years before the Second Vatican Council3 lived in semi‐enclosure and took vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. As women religious they engaged in a life of teaching and prayer that was underpinned by notions of sacrifice and self‐effacement. In order to understand the teaching experiences of these women it is necessary to first understand something about the history of Catholic education in New Zealand and the context in which the New Zealand Dominican Sisters lived and worked.

The purpose of this paper is to encourage historical research on the educational work of Catholic Sisters in Australia which includes the Sisters’ perspectives.

Reflecting on the experiences of research projects which sought Sisters’ perspectives on their lives and work – from archival, oral and narrative sources – the authors discuss challenges, limitations and ethical considerations. The projects on which the paper is based include: a contextual history of a girls’ school; a narrative history of Sisters in remote areas; an exploration of Sisters’ social welfare work in the nineteenth century, and a history of one section of a teaching order from Ireland.

After discussing difficulties and constraints in accessing convent archives, issues in working with archival documents and undertaking a narrative history through interviews the authors suggest strategies for research which includes the Sisters’ voices.

No one has written about the processes of researching the role of Catholic Sisters in Australian education. Whilst Sisters have been significant providers of schooling since the late nineteenth century there is a paucity of research on the topic. Even rarer is research which seeks the Sisters’ voices on their work. As membership of Catholic women’s religious orders is diminishing in Australia there is an urgent need to explore and analyse their endeavours. The paper will assist researchers to do so.

This paper aims to report the process and results of strategic level renewal of an organization from two perspectives: a senior leader from within and an independent process consultant engaged to facilitate the organization's process. The organization is an active, not monastic, international congregation of Roman Catholic religious sisters.

The congregation has carried out a review of direction approximately every six years of its 164 year history. The 2010 review took a whole systems approach to increase active involvement of every single member and to address external and internal organizational challenges including diminishing resources in two provinces and growing and complex needs.

The paper concludes that the process met most of the needs of the organization in addressing global issues of change and gained commitment from its members to make major changes in its strategic and operational decision making. One part of the paper describes and reflects in depth on the experience and meaning of the series of events and interventions in the organization's systems.

It is suggested that leaders can learn much from case studies arising from well outside their normal fields. This is because creativity and innovation is stimulated when encountering difference and leaders' and organizations' values can be strengthened through questioning and refinement.

This is an original analysis combining practical spirituality in an historical context, and complexity theory and development practice as applied to an organization to meet precise needs at a specific time.

This paper aims to investigate how do Muslims, Christians and Kaharingan adherents conduct interreligious relations among them in their everyday lives in Central Kalimantan; why do these religious communities observe interreligious relations as such; and what makes this model of interreligious relations.

The corpus for analysis comes from in-depth interviews with 20 persons, which took place between August and October in 2016 in Palangka Raya city and Kotawaringin Timur Regency in Central Kalimantan Province, Indonesia. The informants were selected from groups believed to be lay members and elites of Muslim, Christian and Kaharingan communities using snowball sampling technique facilitated by local research assistants. These informants are mainly mainstream Muslims, Christians and Kaharingan adherents.

The way to peaceful and co-existence life lived by religious communities in Indonesia is closely related to its rich treasures and precious tradition of cultural heritage: Indonesian communalism, Indonesian community spirit as seen in terms such as “tradisi hidup bersama,” “semangat kebersamaan” and “satu keluarga.” Instead of emphasizing the divisive differences among communities with various religious backgrounds, Muslims, Christians and Kaharingan adherents in Central Kalimantan create “third spaces,” common grounds shared by these religious communities at individual, institutional and societal levels.

Based on empirical findings, this research argues that the practices of peaceful and co-existence life lived by diverse religious communities in Indonesia relate to their particular social-cultural contexts of rich treasures and precious tradition of cultural heritage in the forms of Indonesian communalism and community spirit. Instead of emphasizing the divisive differences among themselves, various religious communities in Central Kalimantan create third spaces, common grounds between them and are shared by them at individual, institutional and societal levels.