We invite you to preview Review for Religious vol. 3, no. 2!

Review for Religious 2:2 Cover

The latest issue of the print journal is out! It features a variety of articles, including:

  • a scholarly retrospective on sociology and religious life;
  • reflections on whether communities enable abuse or facilitate healing;
  • articles on effective eldercare for women religious, the Benedictine charism and integral ecology, contemplation in Aquinas, plus book reviews!

You may preview the issue by downloading the table of contents, reading the sample article, or previewing excerpts from all the articles below.

Excerpts From Volume 3, No. 2

This paper will provide an overview of some of the characteristics that portray a religious community as a center for enabling addictive behaviors that prevent the community from bringing healing and hope to its members. I will then offer several strategies that can be employed to ensure the community’s role as a center for healing for brothers and sisters suffering from addictive behaviors.

Ignatius Perkins, OP, Religious Communities: Are They Centers for Enabling or Centers for Healing?

Today, the tradition of Benedictine monasticism can offer a similar help to the ecotheological vocation: by which I refer to disciplined attempts to care for our common home that find deliberate direction from the Gospel. In this essay, I will argue that a distinctively Benedictine vision of the ecotheological vocation—by rooting care for creation in concrete, particularized actions—can ensure the integrity of local nature and local community in a way that allays the concerns of a figure like Wendell Berry.

Lucas Briola, Grounding the Ecotheological Vocation: The Benedictine Contribution

I spent the past summer re-reading and reflecting on the books, book chapters, articles, and research reports, dating back to 1983, in which I have applied my discipline of sociology to Catholic religious life. I hope that both my works and this reflection will help some permutation(s) of religious life to survive and thrive in the twenty-first century—if they do, it is more the work of the Holy Spirit than my own.

Patricia Wittberg, SC, Sociology and Religious Life: A Retrospective

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of different features of a pilot program aiming to improve eldercare capability in congregations of women religious in the United States by Save Our Aging Religious’s (SOAR!’s) Pathways to Wellness program. The program took place between 2022 and 2024 and included 29 U.S. congregations which were divided into three tiers.

Jonathon L. Wiggins, Michal J. Kramarek, and Felice M. Goodwin, Effectiveness of Features to Improve the Eldercare Capability of 29 Congregations of Women Religious in the United States, between 2022 and 2024

This essay aims to establish an alternative portrait of Martha as an exemplary figure of a contemplative in action. Such a portrayal develops in Dominican spirituality, particularly in the thought of Meister Eckhart and Thomas Aquinas. Eckhart regards Martha as superior to Mary, for “she was so grounded in being that her activity did not hinder her.”4 My purpose, however, is to explore the foundations for this positive portrayal in Aquinas, especially in his commentary on the Gospel of John.

Zane Chu, Figuring the Contemplative in Action: Aquinas on St. Martha