An Essay on Religious Life

I just finished writing an essay entitled "Religious Life in the Post-Vatican II Era." The essay will be published as a chapter in a forthcoming book. In this reflection, I incorporated many of Lonergan's ideas on the cognitional process of knowing and the functional specialties of "Foundations" and "Dialectic" in analyzing the Vatican II/Eucharistic paradigm and the "reform of the reform" paradigm. The role of religious orders is to provide what the German theologian J. B. Metz describes in "Followers of Christ" as "shock therapy" to the church institution when it fails to live the radical demands of the Gospel. Are religious orders fulfilling this prophetic role or have they become "domesticated" to such a degree that they have lost their voice? Are serious questions being asked? Access the essay here.