USD Magazine, Spring 1995

of keeping the names their orders had chosen for them. Many also shed their often-cumbersome habits in favor of street clothes. "The habit was simply the widow's outfit at the time our foundress started the community," notes Sister Irene Cullen '61, R.S.C.J., an associate in USD's campus ministry office, about her own order's habit. "Then it became stylized. For most of us in the United States, it didn't make sense to wear the habit anymore." Also during this period, nuns were able to venture more freely into the world to minister outside of convents and Catholic institutions, and to invite friends into the convent as well. "When people looked at the internal structures of the reli– gious community, they found that many of the things they thought were essential to religious life were not," says Plovanich, a former nun. "It was a really big idea to realize that we could have visitors into our dining room; that if parents came to visit, they could stay right in the area where the sisters live. It changed the whole character of religious life." Even more important to the future, nuns began to expand their ministries. While they had historically founded and staffed the network of Catholic schools and hospitals across the United States, nuns started exploring missions outside of the classrooms and hospital wards. For those who pursued this challenge, the new ministries often were better expressions of their individual talents. They began opening community clinics for the indigent and disenfranchised, they got involved in politi– cal issues that concerned justice, they became lawyers and doc– tors, and they embraced counseling, campus ministry and pas– toral outreach work, to name a few. Mirroring changes in the secular world, women in the church - both religious and lay - began to hold positions of increas– ing authority. In fact, some diocese administrations today have women chancellors, the second position of authority. Such examples are still the exception rather than the rule, however, and a stained-glass ceiling looms above. When some nuns began leaving their traditional roles as teachers and nurses, naysayers were convinced that the system of hospitals and schools they established years before - the work upon which their orders were founded - would collapse. But the system is still very much alive because lay people have filled the roles vacated by the religious community. The nuns point out that while the system has indeed changed, what remains is stronger because of those very changes. In these Catholic institutions, the lay people are not merely employees, but they become imbued with the spirit of the community that founded the institution. They, in turn, help spread that spirit. Sister Cullen has seen it happen in her own order's Sacred Heart schools. "We have very few religious in our schools," she explains. "What's happening is that many of the laity in those schools call themselves Sacred Heart educators. They mentor each other and they all claim this spirit. They are truly our collaborators; they are not just helping Sister out. We are absolutely delighted because more people are part of this special expression of Christian education. Maybe it never would have happened if our numbers had continued to grow."

Sisler ( An alumna's journey lo life I 1, I I I 1n a re 1g1ous communny D eenie Clin ton '82 was confirmed at age 12, just like thousands of other Catholic children . For the next six years, however, the only rites she practiced were secu– lar - in particular, watching the Dallas Cowboys on television . The team 's games were televised at the same time that Mass was celebrated and as far as Clinton, an avid football fan, was concerned, there was no contest. Her choice today would be quite different. On June 12, Deenie Clinton professed her vows in Rome, completing nine years of introspection and preparation . She is now Sister Clinton or, as her students sometimes call her, Sister C. Clinton is just as surprised as anyone by the course her life has taken . " I could take the easy way out and say God must have done something about this," she says, laughing, " because it was not my idea." Her idea upon graduating from high school was to attend a college somewhere on the Pacific coast, preferably near a beach. She found that at USD, and more. When Clinton moved into her dorm room and saw that it overlooked the chapel, she thought it was simply ironic. But when fellow freshman Nancy (Pattridge) W aring asked if she would play the guitar for a liturgy, Clinton was adamant. " I looked at her and said, 'I don't do church."' Her unflappable friend gave Clinton the perfect answer: "That's okay, I only want your guitar." So, Clinton began strumming her way back into the Catholic faith, helping coordinate liturgies for the next four years with Father Larry Dolan '62, then the USD chaplain. Though she graduated with a degree in biology, Clinton still didn 't have a career direction in m ind - at least not on e that she tvas adm it– ting to herself. She visited A lcala Park on ce more to ask Sister Pat Shaffer, a professor of chemistry, for a recommendation so she could pur– sue a caree1· in medical technology. "Sister Shaffer looked at me and said, 'Have you ever thought about a vocation ?"' Clinton recalls, her eyes widening. " I think I said yes and then I left her office . It was as if somebody had read right through me. I was in a state of denial. " Wh en she emerged from that denial, Clinton started talking to nuns in the Society of the Sacred Heart. Shortly, her curiosity

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